Not knowing which Earth they'd arrive at, Thea grabbed the slack-jawed Cisco and leaped into the portal.
Originally, she'd planned to use magic to protect Cisco. After all, the Boom Tube had no access restrictions—theoretically, anyone could use it. But the weakest New God civilian still had a better physique than Cisco, and she worried he might literally explode from the transit.
However, the result was pleasantly surprising. The Boom Tube directly catalyzed Cisco's final transformation. His Vibe powers fully awakened, and what should have been a damaging passage now felt like a gentle breeze. In those silent moments, Cisco Ramon had completed his metamorphosis without even realizing it.
When they emerged from the tunnel, they weren't greeted by Barry and Caitlin's smiling faces, but by several weapons spitting energy bolts.
Before Cisco could react, Thea waved her hand, conjuring a light barrier that blocked the attack.
"Who are you?!" Six or seven men aimed their weapons at them. Despite outnumbering Thea's group, they were nervous wrecks.
They all wore tattered, ragged clothing. Even their energy guns—the only thing giving them courage—were nearly depleted in Thea's assessment.
Ignoring these refugee-like individuals, she surveyed her surroundings. Based on their accents and language, the teleportation had been accurate—they were still on Earth, though whether it was the New Jersey of this universe remained unclear.
Vehicles lay scattered chaotically along the roadside. The highway was severely damaged, with ruins everywhere. And these men reeked heavily of blood. Combining all these factors, it wasn't hard to conclude: this place was at war.
Whether it was a local conflict or nationwide was anyone's guess.
Thea took out her power ring to contact Caitlin, only to discover a serious problem—the ring didn't work in this parallel universe.
Without the Yellow Lantern Central Power Battery for charging and information transmission, the ring was completely dead.
This gave her a headache. She could only ask these passersby.
"Is this America?" Several men remained silent.
"Let me rephrase—what year is it?" Their expressions instantly grew more tense.
"By the way, do you have superheroes here? Superman?" Before Thea could finish, the men turned and ran, exhausting her patience completely.
She spread her fingers, and her Mage Hand grabbed what looked like the leader, lifting him into the air.
"Can't we just have a civil conversation? Answer my questions. Why did you react so strongly when I mentioned Superman?" Thea maintained her levitation, looking down at the disheveled man.
The Mage Hand gripped his collar as his limbs flailed. He was terrified but still chose to remain silent.
Having not used mind-reading spells in ages, Thea had to dust off that old skill. This spell, once so familiar, was now even more powerful when cast by a deity.
She pointed at the man's forehead, rapidly extracting large chunks of memory.
Halfway through, Thea frowned. This world had serious problems! Initially, seeing their bitter reaction to Superman's mention, she'd thought this might be Ultraman's world. But after reading part of his memories, she realized she was wrong.
Superman here was still a good guy—he'd just been captured after Apokolips's invasion and transformed into an Apokolips-corrupted Superman. He was no longer the hero he once was; instead, he'd caused massive destruction on Earth.
Steppenwolf! The Apokolips commander's name thundered throughout this world. Even these civilians far from the war knew it, because he was Earth's conqueror. Countless superheroes had fallen at his feet, and humanity could only crawl beneath him, barely surviving on his mercy.
The man knew very little. He only knew Superman had been captured. As for Batman, he'd heard of him but had no idea if he was alive or dead.
Too little information to analyze anything. Thea released the disheveled man. He quickly snapped out of his dazed state and, as if seeing a ghost, dropped his energy gun and stumbled away.
"Too bad the Khronaton Compass is still with Barry. Can we track Barry with our current resources?" she asked Cisco.
Unaware he'd awakened his powers, Cisco looked awful. Thinking of his best friend's unknown fate, he forced himself to focus, opened his tablet, and tried. He soon shook his head dejectedly. "I can't access the network here. Their encoding is different from ours."
"What a pain!" Thea somewhat understood Reverse-Flash's frustration now. In a different environment, everything changed—you had to readapt to everything.
Fortunately, she wasn't like Reverse-Flash who'd completely lost his Speed Force. Finding someone wasn't beyond her abilities.
Divination was an important discipline in both ancient and modern magic. Even as a deity, her divination skills didn't match Madame Xanadu's, but that didn't mean she couldn't do it—she just wasn't specialized in it.
Under Cisco's bewildered gaze, she swiftly drew a magic circle. After a moment's thought, she sculpted a small figure of Barry from dirt. With her magical mastery, she didn't need hair or blood—simulating a segment of Barry's mental signature sufficed.
This unnamed spell combining divination and witchcraft activated instantly. The little figure spun in place a few times before pointing firmly south.
Taking the figure, she flew south with Cisco.
Along the way, the devastation was unbearable. After dispatching three waves of Parademons in quick succession, Thea had to cast Greater Invisibility on them both. These Parademons had decent tech—they could see through ordinary invisibility.
"What happened to this world? Was it invaded by aliens?" Flying so brazenly through the air initially terrified Cisco, but perhaps it was his courage, or perhaps the ground's devastation caught his attention. After they'd flown past the ninth human settlement destroyed by Parademons, and Thea had drawn her whip to eliminate the soldiers and save a dozen survivors, he finally couldn't help asking.
"Parallel world—anything's possible. I can only help where I can. Find Barry first. Trust me, afterward, I'll make these bastards pay." Thea said decisively. Now that she was also a New God, striking at Apokolips was her undeniable duty.
A mere Steppenwolf—she could crush him completely by deploying her magic legion.
Even Highfather himself might personally intervene. He had a bone-deep grudge against Steppenwolf for killing his wife. Though if Highfather deployed, the war's scale would instantly expand, and whether that would be a blessing or curse for this planet's survivors was hard to say.
"There's a response. Barry should be in this city... inside..." Following the figure's guidance, Thea finally approached Barry's location. But she slowed down when she saw the roadside sign, momentarily stunned.