PART EIGHT:
"Defeated"

However Inertia was doing it—the photonic hand used an aspect not naturally occurring within the Speed Force—it must've taken a lot of self-generating energy to accomplish. But Thad stole enough naturalistic energy in combination with his own powers, energy that flowed from the earth itself—Impulse theorized it was possible. Converting photon energy into matter energy was a scientific theory, he had never seen Thad do this before, but, also in principle, it was an unstable reaction. And yet Inertia was just unstable in his one rite to do it.

Impulse couldn't wonder about the mathematical principles of this feat, his main concern was how it affected him. The hand gripped him tightly, converting his metaphysical energy into translucent energy as he passed through the three stratospheric barriers. He felt like he was bring ripped apart, atom by atom. Thad was talented, but when something was done "on impulse" and without thinking it through, it could have drastic consequences.

He tried to scream, but like space, no sound left his lips.

And then he felt relief, as the hand yanked him out of the dimension rift between the energy barriers and into solid space again. But the hand was still attached to the barrier wall, as if it was a part of it; only existing from it. The Slip Dimension was before him, cascaded in shiny gold walls, and fabric tapestries of ancestral Speedsters in yellow and black suits that were within Thawne's family tree.

Eobard Thawne—Professor Zoom—also known to many Speedsters even in the thirtieth century as the Reverse Flash—was undeniably recognized. He was a brilliantly obsessed man with a doctorate who went back in time and murdered Barry Allen's—The Flash's—parents. His reason: He wanted to be the fastest man alive, and in killing Barry's parents, the theory was, The Flash wouldn't exist. But Eobard Thawne only created things for Barry to become the flash, struck by lighting in his lab.

Has the man no shame? Impulse thought. This display is pure arrogance personified.

At the far end of this pocket dimension was Thawne, Impulse observed, sitting on a golden throne high above on a step tier set of platforms, watching two men embattled in some sort of gladiatorial match below—one of them was Nightwing. And the other was Titan Fall, Dick Grayson's cloned brother.

Inertia was also here, standing next to Thawne, his hand in a gripping motion, clenched fist, symbiotic of the photonic hand that gripped Impulse, that was now moving across the interior wall towards the elevated, step tier set of platforms. His cloned brother was grinning innately as if he had finally won the final battle.

Thawne seemed to ignore Impulse for the moment as he watched the match that was happening down below. Impulse had no idea how it had started, but Titan Fall has discarded his upper armour — the same armour Impulse first saw in the Bat Cave when he arrived in this time era; they must've already stolen it, and the Bat Family had not yet noticed it gone. Nightwing was hurt, and hurt badly.

Nightwing's costume was torn, his shirt ripped from his body, his lower tights shredded and almost falling off his body, and his skin showed several bruising in several places. He still had his dignity, however. Although, everyone here already knew Nightwing was Dick Grayson, so wearing his mask was redundant.

Nightwing wobbled as he stood on his feet, his arms up, fists clenched. He looked exhausted. How long had this fight been going on? Titan Fall delivered a vicious roundhouse kick, the man was quick for his build — and he showed little worse for ware. Nightwing recoiled from the impact, and twirled twice before hitting the floor hard, blood sputtering from is mouth.

Blood mixed with water near Nightwing. Impulse noticed some sort of water torture chamber near the far wall. Did that have something to do with Nightwing's original disappearance after they disembarked from the Bat Plane? Impulse knew Nightwing was trained by Batman and he was once a member of a circle troupe. It would figure Titan Fall (Mitch Grayson) would use something from a circus act to get Dick Grayson's attention.

The diabolic, deviousness of it struck Impulse as something Titan Fall would think of. In the future, he was the same and used the weaknesses—something that even his enemies weren't fully aware of; Titan Fall seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of how to defeat his opponent with little effort—against every enemy he faced. It was ironic and symbolic of President Thaddeus Thawne's self-appointed infallible genius. Go back in time, find the weakness of an enemy, and then exploit it in the present by using Titan Fall, thus generating a fear of superiority amongst the masses. No one in the future wanted to challenge Titan Fall because they thought they'd die, as everyone else had.

Nightwing struggled.

"Get up, weakling!" Titan Fall shouted. "You're pathetic! I've fought much stronger opponents than you!"

Nightwing's teeth clenched with both agony and anger. He felt his stomach, blood streamed from his nose and mouth, teeth bloodied. A few choice defamatory words came out of his mouth. Nightwing called Titan Fall a Bitch. Titan Fall enraged, delivered a hard downward thrust punch, and Nightwing collapsed, seemingly unconscious to the floor. For moments, Titan Fall stood over him, and Nightwing he didn't move, and remained still.

"Stop it! You'll kill him!" Impulse shouted.

That seemed to grab Thawne's attention. And with the gladiatorial match seemingly over, he turned his matters elsewhere. Inertia squeezed harder and Impulse cried out. Thawne with a hand gesture, told Inertia to ease up.

"The match is over," he said. "Dick Grayson was no match for my genetically engineered super soldier. With Titan Fall as the template, I'll grow hundreds, even thousands of the alike to become my own person army, and rule the entire world in the thirtieth century. It begins now."

"NO!" came a voice from the floor. Nightwing was awake.

"Ah, so the great warrior has come back to us," Thawne said. "I thought you were knocked out cold?"

Nightwing with gritted teeth, raised himself up off the floor with his arms, and got to his knees, then he looked up, and stared angrily at Thawne. "I've been hit harder, Batman has hit me harder!" Nightwing then forced himself to stand. He suddenly seemed to be filled with a hidden energy, one that came deep inside generated by an overwhelming need for survival but fuelled by anger. "Titan Fall's punches are nothing to others's I know. If Superman were here, Titan Fall would be spattered across the payment."

"Ah, but he is not here — you are! And I can see now that you are no match for your brother. And my superior mind in the field of genetics has guaranteed that. But it's always nice to be proven correct. We so-called megalomaniacs love affirmation. Inertia is the perfect example of my genus. But he is unique. And cannot be duplicated. Mitch Grayson's DNA is on file in my private lab. When I return back to my time, I'll begin mass production of my army. And Earthgov will not only rule the planet, but it will spread far and wide through the universe!"

Impulse spoke up. "I wouldn't be so sure of that, Thawne. Just before I followed you here, I placed a bomb in your private labs. If the thermo-detonator did its job, it should've obliterated your either genetic samples. And the rest of the Speedsters will prevent any hope of you getting Mitch Grayson's DNA again. Titan Fall is alone."

Throne growled. "You insufferable little brat! You're always interfering with my plans in the future!"

"We Allen's aim to please when it comes to stopping you Thawne's," Impulse said smirking. He looked at Thad. "And I think its time to end this farce. Did you really think you could hold me indefinitely?"

Patience was not something that suited Impulse well. His namesake given to him by Batman was testament to that. He was impulsive. But he had learned to bide his time with practise and think things out with clarity before acting. It was a new skill came in handy this time—faking pain and anguish when Thad squeezed the photonic hand.

Impulse felt the pressure when Thad tightened his grip, though it was not as intense as he let his brother to believe. He reacted like an actor playing a pivotal role to convince others that it was genuine as if it did cause him immense pain. Instead, he used his Speedster powers to generate a small, yet undetectable variation within his cells—always in motion; every cell in constant flux—using a minute vibration to give him just enough space like a personal barrier within the photonic hand similar to an air pocket. And when the air was released, he'd be free.

Now it was time to reveal his own genius.

Bart Allen pushed his vibration to its limits with the Speed Force. One moment he seemed to disappear like a ghost, but then his translucent form dropped from the photonic green hand, and he landed with a solid thud to the floor. Once down, he immediately began running—a red streak following him like a jet stream.

"No!" Thawne shouted. "Get him, you fool!" he ordered Inertia. "I am so close! I can use Titan Fall as a template and re-create the condition of the original cloning experiment, but Impulse will ruin everything. Kill him!"

Inertia screamed bloody-murder. "Impulse will not escape me this time! I'm going to kill him!"

Using his own hand as a surrogate again, he raised it up high and tried the swat Impulse like a fly, slamming the photonic hand to the floor. But Impulse was up to full speed and avoided the attack. Several more similar attacks followed, and Impulse avoided each one with ease, zig-zagging like lightning, avoiding the hand seconds before it struck down on the place he had once been.

Thad was slow, and impulsive, and foolish, Impulse thought.

Slam!

The hand came down hard on the floor and Impulse had to pivot his rear forward just to avoid it that time. He felt the wind current from the impact and it temporarily blew him off course. But he recovered quickly.

"Kill him, you idiot!" he heard Thawne order. "Or I'll punish you severely!"

Thad, now more angry than ever, clenched his fist. "He won't avoid this one. I'll make you proud, father!"

And the photonic hand seemed to grow in size. It must've taken a lot of energy to do this, Impulse thought. Now was the time to end this. And he had the perfect plan to do so. Impulse skidded, and then did an about-face to face Thad, and then raced straight towards him. Thad looked shocked, his eyes wide. But then Impulse climbed the wall, ran around him and Thad's head and body followed him—up, down, around, and around, as if trying to make them dizzy.

But Impulse had something else in mind.

Impulse then made a bee-line towards Nightwing.

Thad raised the photonic hand—and as Impulse snatched Nightwing in his arms, both his speed and his own powers made him super strong to carry a full grown man—he raced out of the way of what came next. The hand responded to Thad's thoughts, but once it was in motion it near-next to impossible to stop, and Impulse knew this. That was the major weakness to Thad's photonic hand, he had figured this out very soon after Thad had enlarged it. The bigger it became, the more difficult it was to control. Like all things. And the hand was enormous now.

Impulse's position also gave him the opportunity to nudge Titan Fall every so slightly.

Fuelled by anger, and without thinking—all Thad wanted was to kill Impulse—the photonic hand came down hard, and slammed down directly onto a spot Impulse had been a mere nano-second before, but now Titan Fall was, nudged into position—Impulse had calculated the trajectory of the falling hand prior—and the cloned super-soldier was instantly squashed like a bug, his body flattened, blood spattering everywhere in a star-burst fashion.

Thad gasped, and screamed! "NOOOOOOOO!"

In response, Thawne hit Thad with a back-handed strike and the Speedster flew back, hitting the back wall. He then rolled down the tiered steps in an uncontrolled tumble; the photonic hand instantly losing its solidification and the energy dissipated. But the result was ever-apparent. Titan Fall—Mitch Grayson's clone—was nothing more now than a blood-stain on the pavement. All that power, strength, and immense agility was no match for a child's tantrum.

Thad's impulse behaviour had killed one of Thawne's greatest creations and any chance of building a massive army.

Impulse put Nightwing down, and left his side for a moment. He sped to the death-spot of Titan Fall. "Ewwwwwww…that's nasty!" Then he gave a thumbs up to Thawne. "Thanks, always appreciate it when bad guys do the hard work."

But Thawne wasn't done yet.

He reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol that had apparently been there all along and then took aim at Impulse. He fired in rapid succession a barrage of energy shots. It was easy enough for Impulse to avoid each shot. He zigged and zagged, like the jagged picturesque appearance of a lightning bolt.

The speedster than ran and circled Inertia. Thad felt the cyclonic gusts as Impulse encapsulated him inside a vortex of Speed Force winds. Taking aim, Thawne fired his pistol. Thad recoiled as he was struck in the back shoulders by an energy blast from Thawne's pistol and collapsed in a heap.

Impulse raced away quickly, back to Nightwing; he wanted to give his friend some protection. He skidded to a stop.

"Time to give up now, Thawne!" Impulse said, looking back a Thawne. "You've been defeated. Thad killed your super-solder and now he's out for the count. You're a Thawne, but your powers are next to nil. That's why you get everyone else to do your dirty work for you! You may be President in the future, but you're nothing here. Give it up!"

"That's where you're wrong, you little brat!" Thawne proclaimed. "Neither of you are going to leave this place alive! And your friends out there will feel the full brunt of my wraith when—"

Impulse pointed at Thad. "Have you forgotten? Thad's out like a light, you moron. Your threats are meaningless now, and without him, you're trapped in this time era."

Impulse raced up to Thawne, and very easily bent the barrel of Thawne's energy pistol into a curve with his super strength, thus rendering it useless. He then pushed Thawne down the tiered steps and watched him tumble much like he did to Thad. He came to land next to Inertia. "Villains deserve to share in each other's fates," Impulse said.

Nightwing had gotten to his feet and was now approaching the villainous duo. He had taken a fleeting glance at what was once Titan Fall, but that was the attention he gave the clone.

"Will this Slip Dimension keep existing with Inertia out cold?" Nightwing asked.

"I'm helping it along," Impulse said. "I'm mentally generating a temporary static time bubble using a similar technique Inertia did to create the photonic hand with Speed Force and natural energy, but I can only hold it together for a short time, and it will collapse on itself when we leave. We should go soon. I suppose we should take them, too?"

Suddenly, Kid Flash, with Damian and Tim, flashed into existence. With the stratospheric barriers gone, they were able to enter the Slip Dimension unabated.

"Dick! Are you okay?" Tim asked concerned. The teen looked him up and down, Nightwing's costume was ripped to shreds and was severely blood-stained. Nightwing held his stomach.

"I've had worse," Nightwing said.

"I'm glad you're okay, Grayson," Damian chimed in. "I was…we were…worried."

Dick smiled. "I'll be right as rain after some rest and patch-up work, Damian," he said, flattered the kid cared.

Thawne slammed his fists to the floor in a fit of fury. "No! It can't end like this!" Teeth clenched, he said: "I won't let it!"

Suddenly, Thaddeus Thawne was engulfed in a vortex streak of green light, and a spacial fissure opened up near a wall, created by the Speed Force. With their advanced special powers, Thad and Impulse no longer needed time capsules to travel back through time, a special technique with the Speed Force helped them do so.

It appeared Thad had not been so unconscious after all.

And the pair of Inertia and Thawne entered the spacial fissure with lightning speed, and disappeared. The fissure quickly shut after them.

Impulse wanted to follow. To create his own spacial fissure, he would immediately need to open up a corridor within seconds to piggybank on their slipstream. But Kid Flash held him back. He immediately felt a rush of angry towards Kid Flash, but he calmed himself. Besides, he knew where they'd be. They had obviously gone back to the future—his connection with the Speed Force told him so. So, there was no rush to hunt them down.

They had defeated Thawne and Inertia. It was time to lick their wounds and discuss what came next.

To be continued…