Author's Note: I actually should have put this on the first chapter, but…oops. This is my first post, after all. Anyways, this is my attempt to take strains from several stories and use them to make a new story introducing Impulse into the DCUA. In the first chapter, I drew on the issues of Flash in the early 90s (issue numbers; the year was about 1994). This chapter also was inspired by Flash #92-93. There will be more credits due in future chapters, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. Oh, and as I'm sure you have all figured out, I don't own the rights to any of the characters contained herein forasmuch as if I did, I could retire. Enjoy!
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The ground flew beneath Wally's feet as he sprinted towards the Yukon. Much as he loved saving lives in Central City, he also loved the chance to get away from people and just run, speeding to any corner of the world in less than a second. While he might not know as much about some things as his teammates, geography had always been a snap for him. It's always easy to remember where things are when you go there on foot, after all. His only problem was paying attention to the stretched-out comments from his communicator while still keeping his awareness sped up enough to avoid any obstacles…like, say, the Rocky Mountains.
"Flash, do you read me?" J'onn's voice sounded in his earpiece.
"Loud and clear, big guy – am I getting close?"
"The phenomenon has shifted course – it appears to be moving towards the Seward Peninsula towards the Chukchi Sea."
"Got it, J'onn – I'll take a shortcut I know through the Brooks Range and try to cut it off."
As Flash hit the waters of the Chukchi Sea, just above Alaska and Russia, he shifted his balance slightly. With the ease of long practice, he changed his stride so that the soles of his feet hit the water as close to flat as possible. This, along with his speed, let him skim across the water like a stone skipping across a pond. Glancing down, he saw a treaded footprint on the water in front of him for the nanosecond it took the print to disappear.
"J'onn, I haven't seen the thing yet, but it's leaving tracks. Looks like a human footprint…pretty big one, too."
As Flash reached the Siberian coast and sped ashore, the trail quickly lead into the Central Asian plains, then abruptly reversed course, heading back towards the Pacific Ocean. Crossing the Sea of Okhotsk, the mystery speedster sped back to North America, with Flash hot on its trail.
Slowly, Flash pulled closer until he was able to make out the other person. He was a boy in his early teenage years, wearing a white jumpsuit with red boots encasing his huge feet. A red panel ran up the middle of the suit in front and back, leaving the outside of his legs and trunk as well as his arms covered in white. The youth's pupils were dilated, and he seemed only marginally aware of his surroundings. At first, he looked about 12, but as Wally pulled aside him, the boy almost seemed to be aging to 13 or 14. With a shock, Wally realized that the boy's metabolism was running out of control. His body was not only moving at an accelerated speed, it was aging more quickly as well.
"Hey, kid, slow down!" Flash yelled as soon as he was close enough for his aura to carry his words to the boy. At the speeds they were going, that was the only way to communicate. If the aura that protected Flash from friction couldn't contact the boy's aura, the sound of the words would never move fast enough to reach the boy's ears.
Hearing the strange voice, the boy whipped his head around with a manic look on his face. Seeing the panicked look the kid had made Flash remember how scared he had been the first time that he really cut loose, back when he was Kid Flash. That thought brought back other memories of his adjustment to his new, sped-up life…
In his panic, the kid suddenly slowed down to dodge Flash and immediately went into spasms. Lightning danced around his muscles as his face showed the agony he was in. Remembering his own experience, Flash knew what had to be done. Grabbing the kid's arm, he sped up, forcing the boy to run faster and faster to keep up with him. In a panic, the boy flailed around aimlessly, bludgeoning Flash around the head and trunk.
"Ah! Hey! Easy, kid! I'm trying to help!" Flash shouted as they accelerated further. Coming to the edge of the Great Plains, Flash pushed the young speedster ahead of him, accelerating him even further until a flash of light blinded the Scarlet Speedster.
Metro Tower
"Flash! Come in, Flash!" The normally reserved Martian called urgently into the communicator, attempting to contact his young teammate. Flash had last said that he had found the source of the phenomenon, and was going to try to…something. At higher speeds, it often became very difficult to understand the speedster. Before J'onn could ask for clarification, however, the contact had broken in a burst of static…and what had sounded suspiciously like an explosion.
"Anything?"
J'onn turned to the Man of Steel. "I have been unable to contact Flash either by the communicator or telepathically."
Suddenly, the two heroes felt the characteristic whoosh of their teammate entering the room. They looked up to see two speedsters standing in front of them.
"J'onn, here's our disturbance – my cousin, Bart." said the Flash.
"I wasn't aware that you had a cousin." the Manhunter replied.
"Yeah, well, neither was I until a few seconds ago," quipped Flash. "Bart, can you explain it again - you kind of lost me with the whole 30th century part."
"Um…I guess it starts with my grandpa, who was the Flash before you, but then Professor Zoom kidnapped his wife, and he thought she was dead, and was real sad, but then he found that she wasn't dead, just marooned in the 30th century, so he went to live with her there, but then this big guy tried to destroy the universe an' Grandpa Barry stopped him but he died doing it, but Grandma Iris was already pregnant and she had twins, Don and Dawn, and Don Allen was my dad, and then there was an alien invasion by these yellow guys with big teeth and they killed the Tornado Twins, 'cause that's what they called Don and Dawn, but my mom already had me and I was born with superspeed and the guys with big teeth kidnapped me and were trying to figure out how to get my powers and then Earthgov rescued me and told Grandma Iris and my mom that they were trying to cure me 'cause my powers were out of whack and I was getting old too fast – Grandma Iris said that I looked two when I was a year old and by the time I turned 2 I looked twelve and so they plugged me into virtual reality to teach me how to talk and stuff while they studied me but they weren't trying to cure me or anything they just wanted to figure out how my powers worked and Grandma Iris found out so she broke me out of the Earthgov lab where I was kept and took me to some friends of hers to send me back to Wally cause he's the only other person she knows who had superspeed when they were a kid so she figured he could help fix me so I won't keep getting old but I was confused when I got here and I'd never gotten to run outside and I was kind of out of it for a while but Wally made me go real fast and that seemed to get things straightened out cause now I'm not aging fast anymore."
The three heroes all looked somewhat glazed at the boy's rapid fire recital of his origins, until Superman shook his head and asked "So, um, Bart – now that your metabolism is back to normal, do you know what your Grandma had planned?"
"I don't know, see, she told me that they couldn't pull me back because they weren't supposed to be messing with time so they'd only be able to send me here and she wasn't sure what to do after Wally fixed me but she told me to listen to what Wally said and take the chance to see what I could do. What is there to do here?" Before any of the bemused heroes could answer, Bart began zipping around the control room at high speed, examining everything and asking questions faster than even the Flash could answer. "Hey, is that an omnicron? Do we have any food? Is there a virtual reality chamber here? What's this? Where are you from? How come your skin is green? Who's that coming?"
"That coming" turned out to be Green Lantern and Shayera Hol. Shayera began to say something about a mayday Dr. Fate had received from Jason Blood, when the two of them stopped and stared at the miniature red-and-white tornado inspecting every inch of the control room. "Hold it!" barked Green Lantern, forming an emerald hand in front of the racing teenager. "Who are you and what are you doing in our control room?"
"Oh, no, not the story again," moaned Flash.
"Well, I guess it starts with my grandpa, who was the Flash before Wally, but then Professor Zoom kidnapped his wife, and he thought she was dead, and was real sad, but then he found that she wasn't dead, just marooned…"
