It was the end of a line.
At the center of time, Barry — cloaked in black shadows — and Lucas, now bearing the three Temporal Gems on his chest, stared each other down.
— Why do you want to destroy everything? — Barry asked.
— Because I was forgotten. I was born from a fracture in time. I am your mistake. And now, I'm the correction.
Barry clenched his fists.
— I've accepted that you exist. But I won't let you take control.
— Then run, Barry.
And they ran.
Faster than ever. Through memories, between the ticks of broken clocks, racing past ancient moments.
The battle crossed a hundred timelines. A thousand versions of death.
Barry struck Lucas in the chest.
Lucas hurled Barry to the ground with a vibrational kick.
Both were wounded.
Lucas approached, breathing heavily.
— I admit it — you're the only one who challenges me.
— And you're the only one who still thinks he's won.
Barry activated a time bomb — created by Cisco — designed to trap Lucas in a loop.
For a second… Lucas was stuck.
— This won't hold.
Barry dropped to his knees.
— It doesn't have to… just long enough. The Prison of the Time Loop
At the center of Eternity, Lucas ran in circles.
And not by choice.
The trap created by Cisco and triggered by Barry had worked: a closed temporal loop. One second. Repeated infinitely.
Lucas stopped.
Then returned to the starting point.
— No... — he muttered, as time reset.
He ran again.
Reset.
Jumped.
Reset.
Flew.
Reset.
Screamed.
Reset.
He punched the walls of time using the energy of the Gems. Space tore open. But returned again.
— You think you can stop me with this? — he roared with every restart.
But the voices didn't answer.
Only time watched him.
Without haste.
Without mercy.
---
At STAR Labs, Barry monitored the loop's stability marker.
— It's working. He's trapped.
— For how long? — Joe asked.
— Long enough for us to figure out how to destroy him, Barry said without hesitation.
---
Barry Visits the Living Time
Guided by the Negative Force, Barry returned to that dimension where the Voices of the Forces spoke.
This time, he saw something different.
His other selves.
The Barry who never saved his mother.
The Barry who killed Zoom.
The Barry who never ran.
They looked at him in silence.
A manifestation of the Force appeared before him, in the form of Henry Allen.
— Son… how far will you run to stop what was born from you?
Barry lowered his head.
— If I don't stop him, time ends.
— And what if you stop him by becoming the very end?
Barry dropped to his knees.
— I need to know how to truly defeat him.
The Force answered:
— You can't defeat him… as yourself.
— Then who must I be?
— What he'll never understand: sacrifice.
Barry looked up, eyes filled with fear and acceptance.
---
In a realm of pure darkness, Cisco Ramon walked without direction.
The exile imposed by Lucas had corroded his sense of time.
Until a fissure opened — created by Barry with Nora's help.
Cisco fell into the lab — exhausted, dehydrated… alive.
— Cisco! — Nora ran to him.
— They pulled me out of the black hole of reality... what did I miss?
— Almost everything, Barry replied.
Breathing deeply, Cisco smiled.
— Then it's time to flip this whole thing upside down.
In less than an hour, Cisco was accessing Lucas' vibrational frequency data.
— If he's trapped in a loop, we can inject a flaw into time itself.
— And if he escapes? — Barry asked.
— Then we better be ready to go down fighting.
---
On the 1,842,377th repetition of the second, Lucas stopped.
— I understand now.
Instead of running… he waited.
For milliseconds.
For the first time, time did not recognize him.
And in that lapse, he shattered the loop.
The prison tore like paper.
He fell back into the main timeline — hungrier than ever.
At STAR Labs, alarms blared.
— He's loose! — Cisco shouted.
Lucas appeared in the middle of the city, his eyes burning in blue and black.
— I'm done playing.
And unleashed a wave of energy that froze the entire city for ten seconds.
— Now… no more running.