what if Flash was alive all this time in the Justice Lords // AU.
AU where the events of the justice lords episode still happened but Flash never died.
Flash was the only one who stayed true to what they were before, he’s still the same but gone with the optimistic personality. after getting betrayed by the people he saw as family, especially that said family straight up lobotomized his family who raised him since he was a kid. he found it hard to trust people once again, he still have his morals intact but he’s much more reserved and similar to his father figure Captain cold.
There was never a barry allen who guided him, etc, in this universe. instead after the tragic death of Barry allen and Iris west, Wally was adopted by the rogues after they found him on the streets as a kid.
the rogues are still villains, but even after the accident, they never tried to force Wally to become a villain like them— more so were mainly against it, being more over protective of him, sure sometimes they’d let Wally tag around but they never let him be a full time rogue. they supported him when he decided to become the hero of central city, always keeping an eye on him and occasionally ‘fight’ with him to keep up image and to spend bonding time with their ‘baby flash’ due to hero duties especially being a justice ‘league’ founder takes up so much time.
when Wally was still a hero, everyone thought even his own teammates he didn’t had much capable. but the thing is, Wally is never trained/mentored by Barry allen, instead mentored and trained by the rogues themselves and no other than Captain Cold who grew like a father to Wally. they trained/mentored him since he was a kid even after he gained his powers and struggled a bit figuring out how to take care of a growing up speedster they adjusted to it.
Wally always held back on his fighting skills even though he was much, much, much more capable. he never used it heavily despite being trained by the rogues, he relied on his powers more when he was a hero.
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Flash rebelled when the whole ‘Lords’ thing started especially after Lord Superman killed Lex Luthor, the others were a bit against it too but slowly but surely they started following Lord Superman’s orders. even those who Flash saw as familial like Green Lantern and Wonder woman, Wonder woman was one of the people who sided with Flash before changing her mind too.
Flash tried to convince himself that what they’re doing is good after no matter what he says to the others they won’t listen, he tried to convince himself maybe he was in the wrong. but he was smarter than that, he knew it was wrong from the very start.
when Lord Superman started to plan to ‘cure’ or straight up lobotomize villains, it was when it crossed the line for Flash. he tried hard to cling on the hope his friends were still the people he knew before this all started, but it was broken after Batman had tricked his own former friend Two-Face and had trapped him to get him ‘cured’ by Lord Superman. Flash had knew about Harvey dent, he knew about every villain who had a hand in criminal activities especially someone as big as Two-Face, he was one of the good ones Captain cold had told him. he would take justice for those the law would not care about, killing child and sex traffickers, abusers and so on. he grew a respect for the man and he also knew about Batman’s history with them.
so the fact Batman had used their trust to trick them into something so monstrous it was where his hopes in his friends was broken.
he rebelled against them even publicly which had caused issues, which caused a lot of people to start to rebel as well. in punishment for that, while Flash was distracted by a disaster, saving people as usual. the Justice Lords had tricked and trapped all of the rogues with the illusion of that Flash was in danger, they only knew about the rogues because of Lord Batman’s former relationship with the Flash.
when Flash came back, he had soon found out what happened. he had searched every rogue’s safe-houses, he had the bone chilling realization of what may had happened. he begged the gods, the speedforce, everything that it was not true til he searched arkham asylum to see no other than his family all lobotomized they might as well be dead. he begged them to snap out of it, wishing to the speedforce they were just pranking him even though he knew deep down who did this.
gone was Captain Cold’s eyes that would soften every time he sees Wally, now only a blank look. gone was Heatwave’s grin that would appear every-time he sees him. he checked every single one of his family members, begging Trickster that it was just a silly trick on him, begging Pied Piper that he was controlling the rogues even though he knew he would never ever do that, he begged Mirror Master that it was all just a illusion.
gone were all of his families once again, this time he was truly alone. Gone was Barry allen & Iris west, gone was Justice league, and gone was the Rogues.
that day, the Flash was never seen again. it was rumored perhaps there was a big argument between the speedster and the Lords, perhaps they had decided to kill him it wouldn’t be a surprise. there were other rumors maybe they had ‘cured’ him as well, or that he was secretly alive but in hiding. none of all the rumors were ever proven true.
until many years later, when the Justice league had been brought into the Lord’s universe did the former League founder that he went out of hiding.
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that’s pretty much it what i have thought much about this AU! :-) been thinking of this AU since a few months back, always thought it’ll be a interesting take of what if Lords!Flash was actually alive all this time but it’ll be boring if it’s just the same Wally so decided to add in him being adopted and raised by the rogues too! so it makes his personality and morals a bit more different! :D he holds the rogue’s rules very extremely it’s what leads him after what happened to his family. he refuses to break it no matter what, but do mind that the rogues were still violent (killing, etc.) and after what happened Lords!Flash is very much more violent in a way but never kills. refusing to break the rogue’s rules and refusing to become like the Lords.
unsure of what to make of this AU besides a few angsty ideas/concepts, theres a bit of implied Batflash sprinkles in here too hence with the way Lords Batman reacts and treats League!Flash :-D. I’m thinking the whole justice league thing forces Lords!Flash to break out of his grief and try to rescue them refusing to let what the Lords did to him happen to them as well especially the League’s Flash. so maybe Lords!Flash breaks League!Flash to try and save the Justice league which also leads to toxic lords!Batflash stuff :J regardless this AU works with or without the ship i just like adding it.