Chapter Text
The Justice League glances around at the blasted and ash-strewn landscape of the alternate universe Mxyzptlk dumped them in.
“Does anyone know where we are?” Clark asks.
“My ring says the local date is March 13, 2470, and we’re currently in Central City.” Hal offers after a quick scan of the environment. “No life signs detected nearby, not even plants or insects, radiation is slightly higher than baseline, atmosphere is breathable and humidity is average for Central City.”
“Great, we probably won’t die within the first ten minutes.” Oliver snarks. “Now where do we go?”
Barry looks around. “We’re actually pretty close to my house. About a ten minute walk without superspeed, and there’s a zeta set up inside that should have survived. Everyone on board?”
No one has any objections. It’s not like they have any better ideas.
The ruins of Central City are eerily silent. Nothing lives here, not even plants, and the wind is still and silent. The only sounds are their own footsteps.
Oliver’s honestly quite creeped out, considering that a good number of buildings and freestanding structures have collapsed, everything has been left where it originally was when disaster struck Central City and there are random piles of sun-bleached bones lying where people’s corpses originally had been.
They pass the skeleton of a child lying next to a toppled bicycle, a table set up for a dinner party with the mingled bones of a dozen people around its base and an empty pool with bones piled at its bottom.
Barry’s house is mostly collapsed, but someone’s stacked most of the rubble off to one side of the yard and left a giant pile of random alien-looking knick knacks, many still in their packaging, inside the shell of the house. Only one small room survived completely, and it looked like it was reinforced ahead of time.
“Did you install a panic room in your house?” Oliver asks.
Barry blinks. “No, that’s the stairwell to the basement.”
“Why did you reinforce the stairwell ?”
“The stairwell’s the most important part to reinforce, actually.”
“It is.” Batman confirms. “If the stairwell is damaged, then even if the rooms below it are intact, they will be inaccessible.”
There’s a cough from Diana. “So we are ignoring the obvious signs that someone has regularly been here to deposit random objects? Very well.”
Batman surveys the landscape. “It is possible that Green Lantern survived if he was off-world.”
“It’s been over four hundred years.” Oliver points out. “And this stuff looks brand-new. Nobody could have survived that long.”
Hal gives him a dry look, pursing his lips to reveal the tips of extended fangs.
“Okay, fair,” Oliver admits.
Barry unlocks the basement door’s three separate locks in a blur of red and yanks the door open. “You coming?”
The basement of alternate Barry’s house is pitch-black except for the light filtering down from the stairwell. Hal’s already in hybrid form, so it’s easy to simply shift his eyes into something better adapted for night vision.
Clark and J’onn seem to be doing fine, and Barry and Bruce can just do the same thing Hal is doing. The other heroes seem to be struggling more, though- Oliver almost falls down the stairwell, and Arthur and Diana run straight into furniture several times.
“Hey Spooky, do you have a flashlight?” There’s a pause and a rustling noise from behind him, and the room is illuminated with a soft click.
Oliver whistles. “That is a really fancy lab.” It really was- Wally had insisted on upgrading Barry’s home lab with handpicked and manually adjusted equipment. Hal was willing to bet the same thing had happened in this alternate universe.
“Eh, I have the same setup back home.” Barry blurs around the equipment. “Actually, I’m pretty sure a good chunk of this stuff is out of date by several years.”
Hal slips away from the group to search the nest room- it’s where Barry keeps his laptop when he’s not using it. The secret door that leads down into their hoard chambers is still sealed, and Hal quickly recharges the privacy and anti-intruder wards as he passes.
As soon as the door shuts behind Hal, there’s a low groan and the vague form of Barry’s dragon form uncoils slowly, feathered wings unfolding and slit-pupiled orange eyes glowing in the darkness.
Hal decides to call the alternate version Apocalypse Barry, for convenience.
“Happy birthday, Barry!” Hal chirps. “The League came over with me, so you probably want to fix your hair.” Hal can hear Clark choke on nothing in the other room.
Apocalypse Barry shifts into human form, rubs his eyes, and glares at him. “It’s February, Hal.” Clark chokes further.
“Yeah, well, you’ve been sleeping for four hundred and forty-six years and it’s March 13th now.”
“Hal, this isn’t funny. And you know my birthday’s on the 14th.”
Hal pulls up the status readout on his ring and gestures to the date readout.
“Hal, why the hell does it say Earth is a Class-Four Tomb World?!”
“Well, you also slept through the apocalypse!” Hal says with overdramatic jazz hands. ”Actually, I’m not sure why the Hal from this universe didn’t wake you up yet. Earth’s probably been habitable for a few decades.”
“The…Hal from this universe?” Apocalypse Barry clicks his tongue, a nervous gesture that apparently carried over into another universe.
“Well, yeah. We’re from an alternate universe. How else did you think Oliver would have made it four hundred years?”
“There are a dozen different ways I can think of off the top of my head.”
“Fair.”
“How’s Wally doing? My Wally, to clarify.”
“No idea if anyone we know is alive, sorry. Your house was our first stop.”
Apocalypse Barry sighs. “I’ll go check.” He throws open the door and blurs out of the house.