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Ben didn’t consider himself a man of spirituality; he did, however, consider himself a man of science. And yet this still was beyond him. He was too simple to understand the workings of the multiverse or that it even existed before this moment. But Ben did know that he had to take responsibility. This man had cut through his universe, and Ben had failed to stop him, in doing so, endangered other worlds. And it was his burden, his duty, to save all he could at any risk necessary.
It led him here. While Ben’s duty was to his world, his new land, the Americas it had now spread beyond that, beyond the compensation of the masses to another land. Far and free, to another universe.
“Barry?” A voice asked him as he stepped through though he was unable to pinpoint who exactly had asked it.
“No.”
“Oh, my god. Dad?” It was a question asked by a young, tall fella, brunette, and a reminder of Ben’s own son.
“My name is Ben Franklin,” none of them seemed to know him as if he didn’t exist in this world, but he recognized some of them loosely and one face in particular, “Hello, John.”
“Do– Do I know you?”
“You’re not wearing your ring.” and surely that couldn’t be, unless… “things must be different here.”
“Wait! Wait! Wait,” called out a man viciously waving his arms with long hair, “You said your name was Ben Franklin?”
“Correct.”
“Awesome!”
“I assume that means you know me in this world?”
“Not exactly,” the guy smiled, “heard of you though.”
“What do I do here?”
“You invented the lightning rod and helped found the U.S..”
“Our worlds are quite similar, then, but I suppose I didn’t take up the mantle of The Flash?”
“Uhh, no man,” the guy shook his head, “actually, how did you become a speedster?”
“Lightning rods are a dangerous business to enter.”
“Does that mean that our Ben Franklin could have–” but whatever the long-haired man was planning to say was cut off by a more intense-looking individual.
“Where are you from?” A man in tight spandex, colored red and twitching ever so slightly, but all too fast like he wasn’t used to his speed; it must be the other him. Another speedster.
“My Earth, Earth 90. I’ve traveled from there to warn you.”
“Warn us about what?” This woman was dressed brightly, and while Ben did not recognize her face, he did recognize the symbol on her uniform; she was a super then.
“His name is Mar Novu, but he calls himself the monitor now. He’s been unleashing the book of destiny across the multiverse to test different Earths.”
“Test them for what?” This was the man who had originally called Ben ‘father’, the nerdy one in the dark hood that didn’t quite fit him.
“A crisis that he believes is coming. Novu thinks the Elseworlds created by the Book of Destiny approximate the collision of realities that we’re facing,” even as Ben explained it he wasn’t even quite sure what it was he was saying. Only a mix of things regurgitated to him before his Earth’s trial.
“Guys…” The long-haired man pulled everyone’s attention away from questioning Ben to a screen. Lit up with color and was more advanced than anything Ben had ever seen before. How far in the future were these people? “we got a situation.”
“Cisco–” the other speedster spoke.
“That– that’s him from the vibe,” Cisco brought up Novu on the screen, it was clear and life-like as if he was in the room with them. Around him were buildings too tall and clean, unlike any architecture Ben knew. The images were from another area in the city with police surrounding Novu, all of the men would never be strong enough to stop him.
“We need to go,” the speedster spoke it in a much darker voice than Ben had heard from any other speedster, something more serious, more traumatized, and he had to wonder what happened to this speedster to make him like this.
“And what, Oliver?” the brunette asked, “run in blind?”
“Franklin already told us everything we need to know, Barry.”
“He has told us fuck all!” Barry shouted, “no offense,” he turned to Ben before focusing again on Oliver, and it became increasingly clear to Ben this had nothing to do with him at all. And whatever these underlying tensions were, they had been here long before his arrival, possibly even before Novu’s intervention.
“Barry is right,” Ben interrupted before their argument could turn physical, “there is more you should know. Novu isn’t just testing worlds, he is rewriting them.”
“You mean like—”
“So that’s what’s happened to you guys,” the woman in the super get-up interrupted, “would other people in the world realize if they were being rewritten?”
“If it was done correctly no,” Ben thought back to George before he could stop himself. To how George could feel how things were shifting before Ben could. How Ben had so vehemently ignored it because, for once, things were peaceful, quiet, real, and Ben wanted that so desperately he was willing to ignore what was right in front of him, and what had that gotten him? He supposed it got him here, helping out another world, so he wouldn’t fail it the same way he had already failed so many others.
“So they are really switched?” A blonde woman with rectangular glasses asked Ben, staring him down, shocked and seeking something that Ben had no way of knowing.
“I know nothing of what this world was like or how it will be changed further, but what matters now is stopping Novu’s future plans.”
“He’s correct,” Oliver agreed, “we have to face Novu now before he can escape.”
“But we don’t know–”
“Don’t trust anything he says and try to be unpredictable,” Ben offered, “he knows how you want to react, do the opposite.”
“Mar Novu,” Barry called, “you're gonna stand down.”
“You’re gonna use that book to help us set reality right,” Oliver added.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t have placed it in Deegan’s hands if that were my intent,” for what Ben knew of Novu, he wasn’t a clean man, nor was he particularly smart, but he was chaotic. A rusty bullet with no real target, but it still hit just as hard.
“Enough!” Ben called, “you will not do to this Earth what you did to mine.”
“I admire your persistence, Ben.” He was tired of the mockery. He was tired of what Novu had done to his Earth to his family. The pieces he had left Ben’s Earth in that he would never be able to fully recover from or fix. Innocent people had lost their lives because of the will of a monster, because of Ben’s negligence.
Ben was not entirely sure what he was even going to do upon making contact with Novu. He was not one to kill, but how it now tempted him, looking upon the man. Knowing what he was capable of and how he was able to stand before the world as if he was not some kind of evil thing. Ben ran at Novu with no clear purpose, no clear intention, but something bitter like revenge on his tongue, and some anger and hatred that he once thought himself better than.
As quickly as Ben moved, he was gone. He stood once more before his home, rushing out down the field. He had been sent back with little ways of returning to their side.
All he could hope now was that what little help he offered was enough. That their timeline would not end with blood as his did. That his failure against the Book of Destiny would not continue, and finally it would be stopped before it could spread further across the multiverse. He did all he could, and now in the silence, absence of a familiar voice welcoming him home, he hoped it would be different for others. He was no god, but a man, and yet hoped he was for the little offering a miracle could now give him to make this home feel ever less empty. It would hold as it always did the memories, but today that was not enough.