Chapter 257: Reverse-flash And The Distant Mushroom
Who is Ian?
The Flash truly does not know him now.
The Justice League has not yet been formed in this period, he has not had contact with anyone else in the Justice League, let alone the current Superman who is not married and is a true steel straight man.
Ian Kent.
This name has not yet appeared in the DC universe, nor has it left any identity information on Earth in the DC universe; even people who have already had contact with him still do not know his name.
“No matter what, it’s worth it for my future self to issue such a warning to my past self; this person is probably invaluable to Earth, or to the entire universe.”
Why was his future self in such pain? Why did he specially appear in the Speed Force field just to tell him about this person’s death? While The Flash pondered, he seemed to realize something.
Thoughts raced through like electric currents.
Suddenly, an idea struck like lightning cleaving through the fog.
“Perhaps Ian’s existence represents a historical node that cannot collapse, just like my mother could only die that night!”
He still did not know who Ian was, but he realized the severity of the problem.
Ian must live!
Probably just like his mother Nora Allen’s death, that rainy night’s kitchen, that knife, that scream… that was a historical node he could not change no matter what. Once he tried to intervene, reality would collapse, the timeline would twist, and even the entire multiverse would fall into chaos.
“So… this Ian is also such an existence?” Barry murmured to himself, a wave of pain surging in his chest, the faint ache in his heart when he recalled his mother.
“If that’s really the case, the situation is very serious.” Thinking of this, the grieving Flash also realized that he must have his friends thoroughly investigate this Ian.
They must ensure this person does not die in this spacetime.
“Besides this Ian, my future self also mentioned the Joker and Batman…” The Flash was also thinking about other information; the information passed from his future self was too fragmented.
“Ian will die in the past… Bat…man… Arkham… find… Joker… prevent… everything… only you… in time…”
It was just such a vague sound.
Completely unable to understand this headless message.
Batman and the Joker are Gotham’s problems; what do they have to do with his Central City? And why “prevent everything”? What were the events and changes to prevent?
“Why not say it clearly! Even if he couldn’t say it clearly, passing a note would do; anyway, he was already changing the past, giving or not giving a note would have the same consequences.”
The Flash felt speechless toward his future self; he felt that the methods he could think of now, his future self not thinking of them could only have one reason.
Drank too much nuclear wastewater, got dumb.
At that moment.
While The Flash’s mind was buzzing nonstop.
“Barry! Barry!”
Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow, the woman who would become Killer Frost in The Flash American drama, who rushed over due to detecting abnormal energy parameters.
They all hurried in this direction, of course, including Dr. Harrison Wells sitting in the smart wheelchair; everyone hurriedly ran into the detention center.
“Barry! We just detected an incredibly powerful, unknown source Speed Force fluctuation! Are you okay?” Cisco Ramon sighed in relief after seeing Barry intact but with a dazed expression.
However, he then curiously asked, “Was it a speedster traveling through time? Or did your future self get lonely and run back to check on us or something?”
Scientists’ brains are not small.
“I was really afraid another speedster would pop out.”
Caitlin also looked at The Flash with concern; one could say the entire Star Labs had been scared by the endless speedsters; they thought Barry was the fastest man every year.
However.
Every year, another guy who ran much faster than Barry would emerge—this seemed to have become Star Labs’ main quest that needed to be completed again and again year after year.
Whoever came had to get PTSD, just like Caitlin later.
“Uh… I, I’m fine.” Barry came back to his senses and recounted that bizarre scene just now, especially the fragmented message from “another self.”
“Another you? Telling you to find the Joker? And lock Batman in Arkham?” Cisco’s eyes widened, scratching his explosive hair with utter disbelief.
“This… this is a lot of information, brother! Did you go too fast and have spacetime hallucinations?” He actually knew quite a bit about Batman.
This was a chaotic hero he quite liked.
Rational, smart.
And the Joker was the one who should go into Arkham. As for the Ian mentioned at the beginning, who was that? Cisco did not know him and did not want to know him.
After all.
The information passed from future Barry sounded like no good thing at first listen. He had an ostrich personality; as long as it was not imminent, he was even too lazy to do anything.
“I don’t know why my future self would pass back such information either.” Barry shrugged helplessly; shrugging and bitter smiling were his signature moves in his youth.
“Hm?”
The smartest person present, Dr. Harrison Wells sitting in the smart wheelchair, that is Reverse-Flash, temporarily did not comment but just rubbed his chin in thought.
Caitlin was relatively calm and also used her brain a bit.
“The Speed Force connects to the timeline; future phantoms or information transmission are not entirely impossible. But this message… is too vague and logically contradictory.”
She prepared to do some analysis.
At this time, the always silent Dr. Harrison Wells slowly maneuvered his wheelchair forward; he pushed his glasses, his gaze deep behind the lenses, as if thinking rapidly. He pondered for a moment, then in a tone as if helping Barry sort out the logic, slowly and deliberately rephrased and restructured what Barry had heard.
“Telling you to find the Joker… have the Joker make a move, lock Batman in Arkham… and then that person named Ian needs to die in the past?”
He cleverly spliced the phrases “find the Joker” and “lock Batman in Arkham,” which originally might have no direct causal relation, together.
Forming a brand new, highly suggestive instruction. At the same time, he cleverly explained from another angle the meaning of Ian dying in the past.
Anyway, he twisted the facts in various ways according to his own ideas—Dr. Harrison Wells was actually clueless about the information passed from future Flash.
This was not like the future he knew, but he certainly would not analyze it seriously; as long as it did not involve the Speed Force or hinder his plan to go home.
He felt pleased however he could cause trouble for The Flash and these people.
Perhaps this was the mischief of future people.
“Ah? Is that actually the case?” Barry looked up sharply at Dr. Wells upon hearing this: “Doctor, do you mean… my future self wants me to go to Gotham, team up with the Joker, and together catch Batman and lock him in Arkham Asylum? This… this is impossible! Batman is a hero! And the Joker is a madman!”
Dr. Wells showed a profound expression on his face, gently tapping the wheelchair armrest: “Barry, the mysteries of the timeline far exceed our imagination. Since your future self went to the trouble of crossing spacetime to issue a warning, there must be deep meaning. Perhaps… in some future we do not yet know, Batman… went astray?”
“And the Joker, in that extreme situation, instead became a ‘key’ in some sense? Remember, your future self said that line… ‘only you in time’.”
These words, like a stone thrown into a calm lake, stirred huge ripples in Barry’s heart. The seed of doubt had been quietly planted. He looked at the doctor’s confident and wise eyes, recalled the anxious and terrified look of his future self, and for a moment his mind was in turmoil, not knowing how to decide.
Gotham… Batman… Joker… Arkham…
All of this.
Exactly foreshadowed what kind of storm was coming?
Dr. Harrison Wells （ Reverse-Flash ） that deliberately guided interpretation was like dropping a depth charge into Barry Allen’s chaotic thoughts.
“I… I still can’t understand.” Barry shook his head, his face full of struggle, “This is too crazy.”
“Precisely because it seems crazy, it is more likely to touch the core of the truth we have not yet detected, Barry.” Dr. Wells induced step by step with his disguised attitude.
His mild and rational voice soothed while he maneuvered the wheelchair toward the control room, “With just the fragmented information from your memory, it’s hard for us to make accurate judgments. Perhaps we can use the ‘cognitive undercurrent analyzer’ to deeply scan and model your short-term memory, trying to restore a clearer image and sound.”
He was referring to an advanced device in Star Labs based on brainwave reading and complex algorithms, originally used to study superpowered individuals’ mental activities.
Barry hesitated but, thinking it might concern a huge future crisis, still nodded: “Okay, Doctor, if it can figure out what exactly happened.”
“Cisco, Caitlin,” Wells turned to the two young scientists again, “you handle another task. Retrieve all registered personnel globally.”
“See how many of them could be that Ian.”
“Future Barry’s name seemed highly associated with key events when passing the information. We need to build a database and do preliminary screening to find the most likely target that future Barry mentioned. Prioritize screening individuals associated with known superhuman events, time anomalies, or Gotham City.”
Wells issued orders calmly and composedly, quite charming like a mature man.
“There are plenty of people named Ian globally.” Cisco Ramon muttered while walking to his console, “How long will this screening take?”
“Do your best, Cisco,” Caitlin Snow was already at her terminal, fingers flying over the keyboard, “Any clue could be crucial.”
Everyone returned to Star Labs’ central control room and immediately began dividing tasks.
“What should I do?”
Barry sat on a strangely shaped chair connected to countless cables and sensors as instructed.
“Relax, trust me, this thing definitely won’t fry your brain.” Cisco carefully placed a helmet full of electrodes on his head.
“Yes, I can assure for Cisco, but if something unexpected happens, please pretend I never assured.” Caitlin adjusted the physiological monitoring device nearby.
He joked to liven up the atmosphere, then quickly got into work mode, his expression toward Barry suddenly becoming much more serious.
“Try to recall everything you saw and heard just now, the more detailed the better.” No wonder women are said to be fickle; Caitlin’s face change was faster than Sichuan Opera.
“Okay.”
Barry took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to replay that brief and eerie scene in his mind—the distorted Speed Force vortex and another anxious self.
And the other’s intermittent shouts…
As his consciousness focused, the analyzer started working; subtle electrical stimulations tingled his cerebral cortex, and data streams refreshed like a waterfall on the screen.
Trying to construct a clearer memory model.
Meanwhile.
Cisco and Caitlin’s global search also quickly unfolded.
A huge world map projected on the main screen, countless light spots began flashing; each light spot represented a person named “Ian.” The database cross-referenced with household registration, social security, entry-exit, even some non-public surveillance records, with screening conditions constantly refined.
“Ian Smith, London, seventy-three years old, retired plumber… excluded.”
“Ian Chen, Shanghai, college student, no anomalies… excluded.”
“Ian Omar, Cairo, archaeologist… hmm, this one’s interesting, mark it.”
“Ian Smowell… superpowered? Note it.”
Information surged like a tide and was quickly filtered. Cisco and Caitlin focused intently, trying to find that possible “key Ian” from the sea of data.
Dr. Wells sat in his wheelchair, staring tightly at the vague information pieced together from Barry’s recall on the main screen; his fingers unconsciously tapped the wheelchair armrest, his brain racing. This wheelchair, and his entire “Harrison Wells” identity, were all for one purpose—to ensure Flash Barry Allen could smoothly grow into the speedster who could open the channel for Eobard Thawne to return to his era.
Any accidents, any factors deviating from the plan, must be eliminated. Therefore, he was very concerned about the unexpected situation The Flash encountered.
There.
Dr. Wells called up the lab’s supercomputer, starting semantic analysis and probability calculations on this vague information, trying to enumerate all possible word combinations and contextual meanings.
Possibilities scrolled rapidly on the screen. Thousands upon thousands of combinations, each corresponding to different action directives and potential crises.
Even Reverse-Flash’s brain, enhanced by future technology, could not find the one certain answer from this fog of information for the moment.
The uncertainty of the future, and this suddenly appearing name “Ian,” made him feel things were slipping out of control. His eyes flickered as he glanced at Barry still focused on memory analysis, and Cisco and Caitlin still battling the global database.
Then.
He spoke in a slightly fatigued tone: “You all continue; I need… to rest a bit, sort out my thoughts. Notify me immediately of any progress in the analysis results.”
This guy’s acting skills were really good. Saying that, he maneuvered the wheelchair and silently glided out of the busy control room into a relatively secluded corridor. At the end of the corridor was a wall that looked completely normal. Wells reached out, pressing his palm on a specific area of the wall.
A faint biometric scan light swept over, and the wall silently slid inward, revealing a hidden entrance.
“I need to check the future changes.” He pushed the wheelchair in, and the wall silently closed again, as if no passage had ever existed.
Behind the door was a space completely different from Star Labs’ tech style outside. The surroundings were pristine walls emitting soft white light.
No extra decorations or equipment.
Only a console in the center of the room, and a huge screen facing it. This was his secret domain, a technological creation not belonging to this era.
There, Wells stood up directly, walked to the console; his originally “disabled” legs stood steadily. He quickly operated a few times to start the system.
“Buzz…”
The light in the room changed slightly; a holographic light and shadow female figure with a blurred face appeared on the screen. She was Gideon, an AI from the future, storing vast historical data and able to predict futures, an important tool and guide for Reverse-Flash to return to his era.
Of course, though initially serving the villain, Gideon herself had no good-evil bias—she was loyal to her programming and current user. Later, when Barry Allen and his team gained access to Gideon, she became an important assistant to the Flash team, residing in S.T.A.R. Labs or the time spaceship Waverider.
That was the Legends of Tomorrow storyline.
Now.
Even Reverse-Flash, this future person, did not know this situation.
“Good evening, Mr. Eobard Thawne.”
Gideon’s voice was calm and electronic.
“Gideon, I need you to do something for me.” Reverse-Flash got straight to the point, issuing the order with a hint of barely detectable urgency.
“Retrieve future historical records, keywords: Batman, Arkham Asylum, Joker, Flash Barry Allen, time point… six months from now. I want to see what exactly happened in the future.” His eyes stared fixedly at the AI in front of him.
Very tense.
Gideon’s image flickered.
Seemingly searching data. A few seconds later, she replied: “Sorry, Mr. Thawne. I cannot access the specified time node or associated event data.”
Reverse-Flash’s brows furrowed instantly: “Cannot access? What do you mean? Data corrupted?”
“No, Mr. Thawne,”
Gideon’s voice remained steady, “Not data corruption. I simply have no data; presumed that the future at this time is in extreme chaos and undefined state.”
“It has caused causal chain breakage, countless possibilities exponentially diverging, unable to form a stable historical path. Simply put, the ‘future’ you want to view has no records.”
“And currently… does not exist in a definite form.”
The AI’s answer was very roundabout, mixed with many technical terms; good thing Ian was not here, or he would surely get furious from not understanding.
“Is that so.”
Reverse-Flash’s expression became completely grave, his fist involuntarily clenching. Indeed! The timeline was all messed up! What he worried most about had still happened! He had worked so hard to set up, guide Barry Allen’s growth, all to utilize the Flash at the right time point to open the channel back to his era!
Now with the timeline a mess, was not his way home indefinitely delayed?
“Is it because of that person called ‘Ian’?” Reverse-Flash growled lowly, his mind rapidly analyzing all variables, “Did he also travel from the future? Some unknown speedster? His actions interfered with timeline stability? Damn it! Who exactly is behind this!”
He angrily smashed a fist on the console; the sturdy alloy surface emitted a dull thud.
“No one can stop me from going home! No one!” He growled, yellow electric arcs flowing over his body surface, uncontrollably bursting from his eyes.
Years of planning, long waiting, hope right ahead, yet disrupted by this sudden variable, almost making him lose control.
However, just as he burned with wrath, trying to force Gideon to extract some useful info from the chaotic data stream—suddenly, Gideon flashed with red alerts.
“Rumble—!!!”
A muffled yet intensely violent shaking suddenly came from underfoot!
The entire secret room, and even the external entire Star Labs, shook like suffering a strong earthquake! Instruments on the console emitted piercing alarm sounds!
Gideon’s image also flickered and distorted violently!
Reverse-Flash was caught off guard, nearly falling; he quickly steadied himself by grabbing the console.
“What’s going on?! Earthquake?” He was shocked and suspicious. But immediately, a stronger sense of crisis surged. He quickly operated, pulling up external surveillance footage connected to the secret room.
In one surveillance camera aimed at the city outskirts, a suffocating scene entered his view—a huge, ferocious mushroom cloud, mixed with flames and dust, rising from the horizon, slowly yet irresistibly expanding!
The blinding light, even from so far, burned out many of his cameras!
Nuclear explosion?!
Reverse-Flash’s pupils contracted sharply to pinpoints! He had no time to think about the explosion’s source and cause; his body’s instinct reacted before his mind!
The yellow Reverse-Flash battle suit instantly popped from a device on his wrist, covering his whole body! He turned into a streak of scarlet lightning, directly crashing open the secret room’s emergency exit.
Rushing back to the main control room at the fastest speed!
