Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice but if I did then we'd be having new episodes and Wally would be brought back from the Speed Force (because that's obviously where he is).
Chapter 2: The Search
Recognized. Flash. 04. The computerized voice rang as the Scarlet Speedster entered Mount Justice. A group of teenagers headed for the entrance and saw the fastest man alive standing in front of them, body vibrating at super speed. It was almost as if he had to release some tension or else risk running around the place.
"Hey, kids. Have you seen Wally, anywhere?" The man asked, a hint of nervousness in his tone.
"Sorry, Flash, but we haven't seen him since yesterday." M'Gann said. This seemed to put the man on edge.
"I was so sure he'd be here. He's not in the usual places. I've checked his house, I went over to ours and Iris said she hasn't seen him either, and now I've come to a dead end. Where could he be?" Flash muttered to himself as he paced back and forth along the titanium floor of Mount Justice.
"Whoa, Flash, you're saying you can't find Wally anywhere?" Robin asked, confused. "Wasn't he with you?" Dick remembered radioing with Wally earlier and the older teen had told him that he and Flash were dealing with the Rogues.
"We were battling Trickster and Mirror Master before we got separated. We decided to split up; he went after Trickster while I went after Mirror Master. After I apprehended my guy, I went searching for Wally, but all I found was the Trickster, unconscious in an alley." Flash relayed the information to the Team.
"Did you try his com?" Robin asked.
"I've been trying it for a while now, but all I get is static." Flash said.
"That's weird." Robin muttered as he went over the pieces in his head. "Do you remember where you found Trickster?" He asked Flash as an idea came to mind.
"Behind the Central City movie theater. You know, the one on the corner of Hannah and Barbara." Flash said.
Turning on his wrist computer, Robin smirked. "Now that I know what to look for, I can hack into Central City's traffic light cameras and…voila!" He said as he accessed the camera's feed and put it on display for everyone to see.
Trickster was using his zero gravity boots to try and escape Kid Flash's advances on him, shooting some green substance from a blaster that was shaped like a nose. Wally managed to move out of the way of the attacks, which was good as everything the green liquid touched melted away. Acid.
The Trickster laughed joyously as he kept on flying through the sky. "You'll never catch me, Baby Flash. You might as well give up." The teen villain boasted.
"James. You come down here this instant, you hear me?" Wally's shouts fell on deaf ears. "If you don't, I won't play darts with you anymore." Wally said and, surprisingly, this made the Rogue stop in midair.
The Trickster turned on his heels and looked down at Wally. "You won't?" The expression James gave was like that of a sad puppy.
"I'll only play with you if you come down here. Then we can go and play darts for hours at the hospital. What do you say?" Wally asked, hopeful.
The Trickster's expression became contemplative as he thought the proposition over. Finally, the blond broke out into a grin and nodded enthusiastically. "Okay!" He exclaimed before plopping down on the sidewalk before Wally.
"Now, come on, we better meet up with the Flash; he's probably waiting for me already." Wally said as they turned around and walked back the way they came. As they passed the front of Central City Cinema, Wally stops.
"What is it?" James asks in confusion.
"I know a shortcut." He says as he maneuvers them into the alley. "Come on!" He says as he runs ahead, though not as fast as he usually runs.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" James said as he tried to catch up to the speedster.
Suddenly, a yellow blur appeared and the next second, the Trickster was knocked unconscious, body prone over a couple of trash bags.
Unaware of his friend's predicament, Wally came to the end of the alley, looking around to see where Flash was, the sound of police sirens sounding really close.
"Come on, James. Jeez, you're so sl—"Wally was interrupted as the same yellow blur encircled the teen. A moment later, the blur was gone, and Wally along with it.
The Team and Flash stared at the holographic projection with mixed emotions. While the teens were confused as to what they had just seen, Flash pieced together what happened. But, he needed to be sure.
"Robin, rewind the video and this time run it in slow motion." Flash commanded.
Sensing the elder speedster's growing frustration, Robin did as he was told. As he slowed the clip, he could make a distinct shape inside the blur. Enhancing the picture while slowing it down even further, the figure became clearer and clearer until a man in yellow spandex was standing in front of Wally, mouth turned into a sinister smirk.
Flash looked at the man's expression and his frustration turned to something else. He clenched his hands into fists at his side, white lenses becoming slits as he glared in anger.
"Zoom." Flash said the name with so much venom that the others flinched.
Before anyone could ask who the guy on the screen was, Flash turned into a streak of red and ran over to the center of the room. The speedster brought up the holographic keyboard and his fingers moved across the keys in a blur. Once finished, Batman's face appeared on a holo screen in front of him.
"What is it, Flash?" The Bat's baritone voice asked, eyes set into a glare, which was returned by one of Flash's own.
"Batman, I need you to check for any temporal disturbances from the past twenty-four hours." Flash instructed as he kept on typing something on the computer.
"Any particular reason as to why you need this bit of information?" Batman asked, even though his fingers were already flying over the keyboard.
"Zoom took Wally." That's really all that needed to be said.
To those who didn't know the Batman well it appeared as if he was the same emotionless leader of the Justice League. But Flash and Robin knew better and noticed the way the side of the man's lips twitched and how his typing speed increased slightly. It was with these small hints that the two knew that Batman cared about Wally's disappearance.
After a while, the Dark Knight stopped his searching. "It appears that there have been multiple examples of temporal disturbances occurring around the world. Mostly they center in the Mid-western United States but there are more frequent examples in the Northwestern European countries like the Netherlands and Germany."
"Damn it!" Flash growled and started vibrating in frustration. "He's created multiple anomalies to hide his tracks!"
"Flash. Flash! You need to calm down before you phase through the floor." Batman told him and the red-clad man obeyed. The vibrations lessened until they died down completely and all Barry could do was sink to the ground in defeat. Seeing the man crumble in on himself, Robin stepped forward and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry, Flash. We'll find him." Robin reassured his best friend's father figure and he'd be damned if he broke that promise. They don't call him the Boy Wonder for nothing.
/
For the past week, there has been no news about Wally's whereabouts and everyone was starting to fear the worst, especially after hearing about Zoom's previous escapades. The man from the future was indeed psychotic and there was no telling what that monster could be doing to Wally.
Flash was running himself haggard looking for Wally and though he wouldn't give up, his energy and hope was starting to run low. The Rogues could tell that their nemesis wasn't on his A-game, but, instead of taking of advantage of it like one would believe, the amount of crime and villainy had actually gone down in Central City as the Rogues jumped into the search for Kid Flash. When asked about why, all they would say is that the baby comes first and that they won't rest until they have him back.
But, they weren't the only ones who were on the search for Kid Flash; all Leaguers, whether on reserve or on the field, were focusing their power on finding him. Sure, they would stop bad guys here and there, but once they were done with that they'd go right back to searching.
Finally, before anything definite was decided on the teenager's status, a breakthrough occurred.
/
The bioship was silent as the group flew over the Missouri River as they entered the Nevada border. It was only a few hours ago that Robin's wrist communicator picked up a blinking dot in the confines of Blue Valley, Nebraska. After days of uncertainty, Kid Flash's communicator suddenly reappeared on the Justice League satellite and had automatically alerted the Batclan. Bruce was sure that this was a trap but he couldn't dissuade his ward and so in the end the big bad bat had agreed to let the team take the bioship to check it out.
"Don't you find it weird how the signal hasn't even moved at all?" M'Gann asked as she navigated the bioship.
"Now that you mention it, it is kind of weird." Zatanna spoke.
"How do we know that this creep hasn't already killed Wally already and this is all a trap?" Artemis asked, thinking up the worst case scenario.
"We can't afford to think negatively!" Robin screamed. Don't they know that he's already thought about that? He was trained by the World's Greatest Detective for a reason, after all. But, he also knows that if he focuses on the negative then all hope is lost and their friend would be gone forever. And he wasn't about to lose his best friend without a fight.
Before anything could be said, the bioship began to slow down and the familiar feeling of weightlessness flowed through the passengers as the ship began its descent.
Once the ship came to a complete stop, the seatbelts that kept them contained melted off their skin and was reabsorbed by the ship. The group of teenagers made their way out of the cockpit and over to the ship's exit, which had been lowered the moment they arrived.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Zatanna asked as she looked at the so called prison of one Wally West, aka Kid Flash. From the outside it looked like a plain old shack, although instead of wood it was made entirely of bricks. The weird thing was that there appeared to be no doors or windows and it looked as if four walls had been put together randomly.
"It makes sense that Zoom would've put Wally here. Though KF has the same powers as the Flash, he isn't able to vibrate his molecules through solid objects like his mentor can. But while he can't, Zoom can. Putting Wally in a door-less and window-less room was his best bet to keep him hostage." Robin explained as he kept vigilance to make sure no one would sneak up on them. Though, if Zoom wanted to, he would've been able to take them down in the blink of an eye and without the help of a speedster, they were toast if the villain attacked.
The teens walked forward cautiously until they were a few feet from the 'building'.
"We don't have time for subtlety." Robin said. The others nodded and Superboy started to punch the wall until it crumbled into a pile of rubble. They wasted no time in entering the small building and gasped at what they saw.
There on the far wall was Wally, body limp and unmoving in the shackles Zoom undoubtedly put him in. His skin was pale and the short cowl on his head was torn off from the rest of his suit, making it easier to see that he had multiple bruises on his face. A particularly large bruise appeared over his right eye and was already turning green while a long trail of dried blood was going down the side of his head. Faded fingerprints encircled his neck, the indentations turning dark purple in color.
Because of his suit, it was difficult to see how far the physical abuse had gone, but the suit couldn't hide the fact that Wally's usually lanky body looked even thinner than usual. His body was basically skin-and-bones at the moment and it was obvious that he was malnourished.
All in all his appearance was ghastly.
Robin was the first to move forward and was already trying to pick the lock before Superboy and Zatanna joined him. Robin was so agitated and Superboy too angry that they wouldn't be able to disentangle Wally without hurting the poor speedster more.
"esaeler yllaW morf sih stniartser!" Zatanna yelled out and suddenly the shackles opened up and Wally's body started to fall towards the ground. But he never touched the ground.
As they released the redhead from the restraints, Superboy gently caught the speedster in midair and maneuvered him so that he was holding him bridal style. He carried Wally all the way into the bioship, making sure he wasn't hurting the other teen in the process.
"This is way too easy." Conner said as they lifted off into the air.
The others nodded but they would ignore that until later. For now, they focused their attention on their injured friend and hoped with all their might that he would be alright.
What they didn't notice was the yellow figure that was hidden behind a few trees. Nor did they notice his malicious smile when the ship disappeared from sight. The moment the ship was gone, the figure blurred and moved towards the brick house. Three seconds later the structure that was once there had disappeared and there was no trace of it or the figure.
The only indication that he was ever really there was the pickup of wind and the swaying of the trees.
Phew, that took a lot longer than I thought it would.
I'm sorry I haven't updated this in so long. I've had most of it done for a while now but haven't been able to finish it until now because I started college 5 weeks ago and haven't had any time to do anything but study and work. Exhaustion sets in when you have to be in school for 11 hours.
Again, I'm really sorry. I really hoped you guys liked this chapter.