After that week off, school was the same, but I shifted most of my focus back to my body and meditation.
I wanted to fly more than anything—but right now, all I could manage was jumping very high. It was a good thing our farm was far away from town and hidden from most people's eyes.
Out here, I could let myself go, push my limits, and still feel safe. I even started helping Dad more, moving faster than before, trying to make sure my brain and reflexes kept up with my body's growing strength.
One evening, I finally told Mom and Dad about my powers.
Not everything, of course, but enough. I explained that I had an almost perfect memory, that I could recall everything from my earliest days. I also told them that, no matter what, they were still my parents, and I loved them. I didn't linger on the topic.
Mom pulled me into a hug and whispered that I was their gift from the heavens—and that one day, the whole world would know my name.
That night, I lay in bed imagining myself soaring across the sky in a bright red cape.
Still I was quite surprised that they didn't press me with questions, and I also didn't ask to see the ship. It felt too soon for that. Sometimes, I just love how simple and steady my parents are—their love never wavers.
As for my heat vision… yes, I practiced it, but carefully.
I had already mapped a good part of Kansas during my runs, searching for safe places to train. In the end, only a few locations were truly viable.
If there are already metahumans in this world, then I have to assume technology is advanced too. Maybe satellites couldn't catch a speeding kid like me—but I would rather not take that chance.
So I chose a quarry. Smallville has more than a few, most linked to mining, and plenty owned by LexCorp. But I found one that was tucked away, quiet, and abandoned. Perfect.
At least once a week, I would sprint there, scout the area with my senses, and make sure no one was nearby before I started.
The training itself was… strange. I would lock onto a target, focus my eyes, and think about burning it. Slowly, my eyes would heat up until—beams.
From my perspective, they were red streaks of light, and wherever they struck, the rock would glow and crack. At first, I could only sustain it for three to five seconds before my eyes itched so much I had to stop. After resting for a few minutes, I would try again.
Over time, I improved. Low-intensity beams lasted nearly thirty seconds. When I poured everything out at once, I only managed two seconds, but in those two seconds I blasted apart a boulder larger than me. The echo of it breaking apart shook the quarry walls.
I had a goofy smile plastered across my face for the rest of that day. I couldn't stop imagining the future—me, standing tall, crossing my beams against Darkseid's omega rays.
At school I was slowly getting more popular. My class teacher even asked more than once if I wanted to skip ahead and take higher-level exams. Both my parents and I refused. I knew that once my abilities matured, I would be able to absorb knowledge faster than anyone, so I wasn't worried about racing through academics. What I wanted was something I never had in my previous life—a normal, popular school experience.
Even so, the local library became my sanctuary for all the advanced knowledge I craved.
Now I had landed on the Kent farm in 1992, but I had already confirmed that this world was an amalgamation of DC timelines—an alternate reality of sorts. Dates didn't always match what I remembered, but certain ones still stood out in my mind, etched into history.
Like March 18th, 2000.
The day Nora Allen—Barry Allen's mother—was killed by Reverse-Flash. A nexus point that shaped the Flash's very existence.
As that day drew near I thought about stopping it. About saving her. But every time, the memory of Flashpoint came back to me. I knew that interfering could break the timeline in ways I couldn't control.
Besides, even if I wanted to, the obstacles were massive.
Central City wasn't close to Smallville, the date itself shifted across adaptations—sometimes 2000, sometimes 2004—and, most importantly, there was Eobard Thawne himself, the Reverse-Flash. Facing a time traveler of his caliber right now would be nothing short of suicide.
The only alternative that crossed my mind was reaching out to another speedster—Jay Garrick, the Flash of the Justice Society of America.
But from everything I had heard, the JSA had long since disbanded, and Jay had been retired for years. By now he would be an old man, and even in his prime I doubted he could stand against Thawne. Not that I had any way of contacting him to begin with.
Still, I couldn't help myself. So I tried searching for the address of Nora or Henry Allen residing in Central City using both Yahoo and the newish Google search engine, but came up empty.
The internet just wasn't built for this yet; its databases were still years away from being useful. So my plan never even reached the preparation stage.
Maybe that was for the best—it spared me the torment of deciding whether to risk creating another Flashpoint.
Where did I get internet access from? Lana's father had a computer in his study. Her mother let me use it when he wasn't home. It was painfully slow, but strangely nostalgic.
As for asking my parents for one—well, that wasn't an option. We were barely scraping by on the farm, and while I did have knowledge about the future stock market, I knew Dad would never invest in what he would call "made-up schemes." They were content with the life they had, and I respected that.
But that didn't stop me from being frustrated by the lack of a computer of my own!
So I settled for keeping an ear out—radio, television—waiting for news of some horrific crime in Central City. But nothing ever came.
Instead, in June, I heard about something else: a charity screening of an old film, The Mark of Zorro.
The moment I did, my heart sank. I had been half-expecting it, because my future best friend in Gotham was also about to turn eight this year.