"Reaper? That's the name people gave me?" Daniel asked with a baffled expression. "You're telling me nobody could come up with something better than Reaper?"
Tony laughed loudly from across the damaged street, metal skin glinting under the police lights. "Reaper, ripper, whatever," he said dismissively. "Doesn't matter anymore. Nobody here can stop me."
He slammed a fist against his chest with a metallic sound and grinned.
"I'm basically fucking Iron Man now."
Daniel stared at him for a moment.
"Wow," he said finally. "Even I don't talk with that much confidence."
He shook his head slightly afterward. "Has nobody ever told you there's always someone above you?"
Tony immediately looked up toward the sky.
"There's nobody up there."
Barry physically looked away for a second after hearing that response.
Daniel sighed deeply. "You really are the definition of wasted potential."
He looked Tony up and down with visible disappointment.
"Honestly, if you're not going to use your brain properly, you should donate it to medical research. At least society would benefit a little."
Even Tony finally understood Daniel was insulting him.
His expression twisted instantly and he lunged forward in rage, metal-covered arms tearing through the air as he tried to crush Daniel head-on.
Barry reacted immediately.
Orange lightning exploded around The Flash as he accelerated into the Speed Force, the world around him slowing toward stillness. Cars became frozen objects. Falling debris barely moved. Ordinary people turned into statues trapped mid-motion.
Barry moved toward Daniel intending to pull him out of the way before Tony hit him.
Then Barry realized something was wrong.
Daniel was still moving normally.
Not barely reacting.
Actually walking.
Inside the slowed state of the Speed Force.
Barry's eyes widened underneath the mask. That should have been impossible. Normal people couldn't even perceive movement at this speed, let alone casually walk through it.
"Confused about how I can move?" Daniel asked while calmly walking toward Tony through the frozen street.
Barry unconsciously nodded.
Daniel lifted his left hand slightly, revealing the clock-shaped mark glowing faintly across his skin.
"Time and I are old friends," he said casually. "So yeah, I can do this."
Then he snapped his fingers.
The clock mark rotated backward.
Barry suddenly felt reality shift around him.
The world rewound several seconds in an instant, returning them to the exact moment Tony had looked upward and declared there was nobody above him.
Barry froze completely.
"Back in time…" he whispered in disbelief.
Superspeed was one thing. Barry could at least understand acceleration, motion, energy. But casually reversing time itself was something entirely different.
It was terrifying.
And the only reason Barry wasn't panicking was because Daniel still didn't seem hostile.
"No one above you?" Daniel repeated calmly while looking at Tony. "Maybe."
His eyes darkened slightly.
"But there's definitely someone in front of you."
A massive black hand suddenly burst from the shadows behind Tony and grabbed him by the leg before he could react.
The next second Tony was slammed violently into the asphalt hard enough to crater the street.
Then again.
And again.
The giant shadow hand swung him side to side across the road like someone beating dust out of clothing. Cars shook from the impacts while metal and concrete shattered beneath him.
The police officers nearby watched the scene in complete confusion.
At this point they genuinely had no idea who they were supposed to shoot anymore.
The metal-skinned metahuman was obviously dangerous.
The red-suited speedster seemed mostly helpful.
But the black-coated guy summoning giant shadow hands felt like an entirely different category of problem.
More importantly, none of them wanted to test whether shooting Reaper was a good idea.
So nobody fired.
"People always say beatings build character," Daniel said while Tony continued smashing against the pavement. "So let's see if this teaches you some manners."
Another impact cracked the road apart.
"Respect society. Respect laws. Respect other people."
Tony slammed into a traffic light hard enough to bend the entire pole sideways before crashing into the street again.
Daniel finally released him afterward and dusted off his sleeve lightly.
"And respect women," he added calmly. "Also stop throwing your weight around just because you gained powers overnight."
Tony groaned weakly from inside the crater.
Daniel looked down at him without much sympathy.
"Right now you're nothing more than another loud idiot sitting somewhere near the bottom of the food chain," he said. "And trust me, if you ever annoy the wrong people in this universe, you'll end up in places where death starts looking merciful."
With one final motion, Daniel flicked his hand and sent Tony flying across the street before the metahuman crashed directly into a large garbage container hard enough to flip it over.
"Perfect," Daniel muttered while looking at the trash scattered around him. "That's where garbage belongs."
Then he turned toward The Flash.
"Anyway," Daniel said casually, "nice meeting you again, Flash. Tell Cisco and Caitlin I said hi."
Before Barry could even ask how he knew them, black energy wrapped around Daniel's body and he shot upward into the sky fast enough to leave a shockwave behind him.
Barry remained standing in the middle of the destroyed street staring upward blankly.
In the last five minutes he had learned that Reaper could move inside the Speed Force, reverse time, casually overpower metahumans, and somehow knew about S.T.A.R. Labs.
Barry honestly wasn't sure his brain had processed any of it correctly.
*****
A/N: If you'd like to read ahead of the Webnovel release schedule, you can join my Patreon!
The Patreon version is 30 chapters ahead.
👉 patreon.com/Universal_Peace