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[rushing_by]

So, I can confirm ending up back home the same moment you left is still a thing.

[Barry looks a little like he's been through hell and back. Between Caitlin nearly snapping, the invasion, and Savitar, the past couple months haven't been great.]

Also, aliens definitely exist in my universe. Unfortunately, they're the evil, invading kind. If I ever see one of the Dominators again, it'll be too soon.

Comments

[sofresh]

Oh, sure, let's just send everyone home so they can live their lives and fight aliens and stuff. Everyone except Superboy. Not like he'd care or anything. I see how it is.

[It's nobody's fault and he knows it, but he's bitter nonetheless.]

I mean, like, you did get to do stuff besides fight aliens, right?

[rushing_by]

Yeah, but to be honest? None of it was fun. The past couple of months were kind of a mess, even ignoring the invasion.

[sofresh]

I'd be happy to have a mess. Let's trade. I'll take your mess, and you can have my... [He furrows his brow a bit and then shrugs.] ...this, I guess.

[He didn't have much of a life before he was brought here, so he wasn't too picky, honestly.]

What could be worse than a surprise alien invasion?

[rushing_by]

A speed god that hates me because future me trapped him in a box. I tossed the box into the Speed Force, so he's gone, but since speedsters can time travel it's entirely possible I'll have to deal with an earlier version of him eventually.

[sofresh]

...I wish I could say I got all that, but you lost me at— [He pauses.] All of it?

But that sounds rough. I think.

[Video]

[4starsaviour]

I'm sure they ain't all bad. The universe is a really big place!

[Video]

[fourstars]

Dad, the first alien we met was my uncle.

[ You know, the one who wanted you to commit mass genocide and kidnapped Gohan? ]

[Video]

[4starsaviour]

[And then there's Freeza, Babidi, the Ginyu Force...] Sure, but me and Piccolo were all right, and so were the rest of the Namekians. Even Vegeta turned out okay after a while! [Goku doesn't really dwell on the past, so he's not too concerned that three of the four examples (himself included) wanted to take over/destroy the world at some point.]

[Video]

[fourstars]

[ Gohan doesn't really have the heart to tell him that he's not proving Gohan wrong with those examples. ]

... I guess that's true...

[Video]

[4starsaviour]

Oh! Maybe when we get back, we can go to other planets an' see some more aliens! That'd work for scholar-y stuff, right? [He doesn't really know what Gohan studies (a lot of the terms go over his head), but it seems like he enjoys it so he'd like to help.]

Re: [Video]

[rushing_by]

I wasn't teally discounting the idea of good aliens. I'm sure they're out there somewhere. Just saying that so far on my Earth, they've been evil.

[Video]

[4starsaviour]

An' what were these Dominator guys like, aside from bein' evil? Were they strong?

Re: [Video]

[rushing_by]

Kinda? They were stronger than most humans, anyways. Most of the threat was because of their ships and weapons, the very large bomb they were going to drop on us, and the mind control devices.

[Video]

[4starsaviour]

They sound kinda annoying... [He's had a very bad experience with mind control.] How'd ya stop 'em?

Re: [Video]

[rushing_by]

[What followed was an explanation of how, during a distraction provided by Team Arrow and the Legends, he and Kara planted devices that caused intense, debilitating pain on every Dominator on Earth while Firestorm transmuted the bomb into water.]

[Video]

[4starsaviour]

...Sounds way too complicated for me! Usually I just punch 'em or hit 'em with energy blasts.

Re: [Video]

[rushing_by]

Unfortunately there were way too many of them for that to work.

[walkingballpit]

Uhhhhhhh. Didn't you say there's an entire museum of you here in this universe?

... which is full of hottie "aliens" everywhere you look, regardless of what species you are?

[ Hashtag thanks Captain Obvious. ]

[rushing_by]

This universe's version of me. And my universe is different enough from this one that I couldn't be sure aliens existed there until they showed up.

[walkingballpit]

I think if I found evidence of myself having lived here - I mean some other me. Multiverse life. I'd start thinking other things were the same.

[ He's tried to see if he ever existed on this plane, but found nothing. It's been a millennium. If there'd been a Robbie Baldwin, he lived a wonderfully unremarkable life. ]

So how are you? Alien invasions... they're rough.

[rushing_by]

That's the thing. I've been to enough alternate realities with versions of me or people I know to know I can't assume everything is the same. Because it usually isn't in very big ways.

[walkingballpit]

I think I'm more comfortable assuming every other version of me is exactly the same.

[ So... a hot mess. ]

Until proven otherwise, anyway.

[strangebargains]

The evil invading kind like evilly invading in my universe too. Seems to be a pattern.

[rushing_by]

I've noticed.

By the way, if you want a good reason for why messing with the flow of time is a bad idea? They invaded because I messed with the flow of time.

[strangebargains]

...

Great.

[He's fully expecting that to happen now.]

To be fair, I didn't have a choice since I was stopping another invasion of a sort.

[rushing_by]

I get it. It happens. I'm just saying, be prepared for consequences.

[legionnpcs]

The Dominators used to be a bit of a problem here as well. Considering all of the similarities our universes share, it might be prudent of you to start bulking up on your history.

[rushing_by]

I was planning on looking into stuff eventually, but honestly? Odds are I wouldn't be using any of it.

The main problem is that for all the similarities, there are just as many differences. Some of the knowledge would line up, most of it would be useless, and a fairly decent-sized part of it might be worse than useless.

Working out which is which would be hard enough that in the end it might actually just be easier to figure things out on our own.

[legionnpcs]

Or you might just end up saving the world a lot of trouble in case the Reach decide to move in. Our universes are different, this is true, but they're also parallel enough that some similarities are inescapable. You're Barry Allen, the fastest man alive. You have a museum here. You've no doubt gone in and seen not only how different, but how equivalent things are.

If you had to waste hours upon hours learning useless knowledge for the one instance where it could save a life, wouldn't that be worth it?

[rushing_by]

The equivalences don't include Captain Cold and Heatwave joining a team assembled by Rip Hunter that hunts down rogue time-travelers.

Learning useless knowledge isn't what I'm worried about. It's potentially getting someone hurt because I made the wrong assumptions based on that knowledge.

[legionnpcs]

If that's how you want to run, okay.

[rushing_by]

It's not that I haven't thought about the idea. But I've had it made extremely clear to me recently that living in the here and now takes priority over trying to avert something that may not even happen.

And honestly, I have enough actual threats to worry about without adding potentially nonexistent ones on top of it. At home and here.

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[deafleppard]

You look awful.

In case nobody didn't already tell you.

Re: video;

[rushing_by]

Well, between an alien invasion and getting beaten up by a guy who call himself the god of speed? It hasn't been a fun holiday season.

video;

[deafleppard]

Did you avoid ugly holiday sweaters and fruitcake, at least?

Re: video;

[rushing_by]

Fruitcake, yes. Ugly sweaters? HR dressed up in one and got shouty drunk on Grandma Esther's eggnog recipe. Apparently Joe's grandmother was an alcoholic.

video;

[deafleppard]

Sounds like one heck of a grandma.

[thewildflower]

Really? You were able to see home again?

[It's not something Rebecca's heard a lot about. Look, adjusting from medieval fantasy world to futuristic alien world takes up pretty much all of her free time. Still, she sounds excited!

Ah, but she shouldn't. He looks exhausted. She'll try to be quieter.]

[rushing_by]

Yeah, Not all of it was awful. My girlfirend agreed to move in with me, which was definitely great. Now if only the Time Trapper didn't have a lousy sense of timing.

[thewildflower]

How romantic! And...how tragic, all in one. Still, it's something to look forward to at least, isn't it?

[She doesn't even know Barry, but this is cute. She offers a sympathetic smile.]