Inertia

#Part 1#

Impulse managed to somehow catch up to his speed. He managed to grab his shoulder, but seconds before he could even think of something harmful to do towards his enemy, he felt something cracking on his lower bones, causing unimaginable pain through his lower body. Stopping midway really messed up his momentum. He slipped and crashed several times into the ground before finally hitting a concrete wall. With that amount of running and speed, it was enough to break it to pieces.

The mysterious enemy stopped for a moment and glanced at the fallen hero clutching and groaning in pain.

"What's the matter, Bart Brat?" He said. "You got cramps on your legs?"

"I'm going to get you!" Impulse said.

"How are you going to do that?" He asked. "Your leg is about as painful as it can get, and I'm going to make it even more painful."

The enemy kicked him several times in the stomach. He groaned in pain and grabbed his stomach, ignoring his severely broken legs.

"I didn't even try to kick you at full speed."

Just moments before he said that, he pulled him up. In mid-air, he kicked him on the stomach with the best speed he could. Although Impulse was able to block it through both of his hands, he propelled into the same concrete wall. This time, he managed to break through inside it, a very common storage room full of racks and items. He didn't crash to any of them, though.

"You're a failure, Bart." He said.

At this moment, Impulse had nothing. The only thing he could move now is his right hand. He couldn't move his left because of the pain. It felt like something stabbed his arm and twisted it around inside. He couldn't get his hand on it, quite literally. To make matters worse, he was sure that the pieces of his broken ribs just sliced off some of his blood vessels. His feet didn't help much either. Just looking at the visually present dislocated knees on his right caused him to shriek in disgust. Even moving it slightly managed to cause another agonizing pain.

"You shouldn't have won that war." The green speedster continued his monologue. "Someone like you could only ruin what's going to come next."

That sound, the sound of windows breaking up into pieces managed to get into his eardrums. It happened almost every millisecond. It broke, and broke, and broke, and it kept breaking more things on its way. The sound got bigger and bigger. It went louder and louder. That's where he noticed the other speedster right behind the green speedster's back.

The green didn't even have time to react. He barely turned his back and he knew he was screwed the moment that fist made in contact with his face, in super speed no less. The super speed fist punch managed to cause a sonic boom, breaking everything in its surroundings and caused the slouching Impulse to stretch his eyes into intangible proportions

"Fuck!" Impulse reacted.

"No one is going to hurt my little buddy."

Impulse glanced at the man who uttered those words. It was Wally West AKA Kid Flash. The man was still on that yellow suit, a bit tattered probably thanks to all that running in that Reach device, but at least he's back in the game.

KF offered his hand towards the speedster.

"I... can't." Impulse said.

"I got the queue." KF lifted him and his legs up, causing him to groan. "That must have been hurt."

"You couldn't imagine."

KF smiled. "Raven, bring him back home. I'm going to deal with the other guy."

Raven unleashed a portal right in front of Wally. Megan was on the other end of the portal. She used her telekinesis power to lift Impulse back inside the Portal without hurting him. Despite his groaning, Megan kept on going. By the time he fully entered the portal, Raven closed it.

"Thanks Raven." Wally said.

"We got him." Raven said. "Be careful, Wally."

"Is there a policy of using real names on a radio?" KF asked before he turned around to find the culprit of this entire trouble. "Never mind. I got something bigger to handle."

KF rushed towards the destruction he caused by that punch. He widened his eyes. Three layers of heavy concrete walls were broken. He was glad that it was night time and he punched him inside an empty office, so his punch wouldn't have hurt anyone despite the property damage. Seeing in the dark was not one of KF's fortes. So he had to use his night vision goggles to identify him. That's where he had to deliver the bad news.

"Oh crap." KF said. "Guys, whoever this other speedster is, he's gone."

"Stay in there." Robin said. "I'm going to check into the satellites. His kinetic energy could probably be too much for the cameras to be handled."

"Can you find him?"

"Crap, he's gone." Robin said. "I can't track him."

KF began to shout out his lungs on the event. "Damn it!"

"We're going to find him, Wally." Robin said. "For this moment on, meet me back at the Titans Tower. You saved another speedster. Good job, KF."

"Thanks, Rob."

##

Wally returned back to the Titans Tower still in his outfit. He took off his mask and walked in towards the infirmary to find a heavily injured Bart Allen on his Impulse costume. On his side is the always good doctor Stephanie Brown with Damian across her trying to check on his conditions and waiting for a debrief on this current trouble.

"Does he have to endure that bone-relocation process?" Wally asked.

"Yup." Stephanie said. "Don't worry. You don't have to see it again."

"After relocating the bones, his lower abdomen is severely damaged. His ribs broke into pieces. Lots of internal bleeding. I really don't think he's going to make it, but I'm surprised that he did." Damian revealed. " If this super-healing thing is true for him, then he might be able to get back in probably a week or two."

"Two weeks or more." Stephanie said. "By that time, his powers are useless."

"And by that time, the other speedster is going to terrorize the world." Wally said. "We still need to keep track of that speedster, but we're going to need more than just trackers. You can't imagine what a speedster villain can do. They can just go in and rob a bank without someone noticing or even any sorts of security cameras picking them up."

"You're right." Damian said. "How are we going to defend against this thing?"

"Just in case you don't know, most of the security cameras of the 2029 are already installed with hi-tech a hundred thousand frames per second camera at a stuttering 16MP resolution." Stephanie said. "No cameras are not going to capture him."

"You're kidding." Wally said. "I'm going to stay in here for now, just in case if he wakes up."

"He's only knocked out." Stephanie said. "That blow to the stomach in super speed was quite hard. In fact, anything hitting you in super speed is going to be really hard."

"I just went in super speed to punch his face." Wally said. "I must have broken his bones already. The strange thing is he can still run very fast and his bones didn't break from that constant speed running. He must have been an exception to the rule. He must have been someone special."

"His bones are going to break eventually." Damian said. "We're going to find him. Don't worry."

Wally smiled as Damian gave his encouragement. He sighed.

"So tell me about Bart." Damian said.

"He's a speedster from the future in my timeline." Wally said. "He's Barry Allen's future grandson, who turns out to have the same powers as him surprise-surprise."

"Wow." Damian said. "He actually travelled back through time?"

"I don't know how the mechanics worked." Wally said.

"If that's the case, then why didn't we see time travellers recorded on history?" Stephanie asked.

"Maybe you're just living in a universe where no one bothers to time travel even when they know it's very possible." Wally said. "I don't really know if he really travelled from the future or if it was some sort of an alternate universe."

"So what are we going to do about him?" Stephanie asked.

All of that dialogue was interrupted with Bart, groaning like a yawning dog. Bart regained his consciousness and tried to wake up, but Wally pushed him back down.

"Relax, buddy." Wally said. "You're going to be fine."

"Where am I?" Bart asked.

"You're in the Titans Tower." Wally said. "It's basically like our team, but with the Titans name on it. You'll be safe."

"So..." Bart said. "Did we... did we won?"

"Of course we did." Wally said. "You don't know?"

"No, I don't." Bart said. "I was... running with the device then he attacked me. I need to... arggh!"

"Your bones just got relocated." Wally said. "I know it's a pain, but it's going to go away for about a week or so. Trust me on this."

"We're not going to have a week." Bart said.

"Why not?" Wally shrugged.

"Because he's going to use all his powers to destroy me."

Wally froze. "Him? You mean the other speedster?"

"Yes."

"Who is he?"

"His name is Thaddeus Thawne. He called himself Inertia." Bart began. "He came from the future to kill me, because he said that the Reach should've won."

"But Uncle Barry said that we won the fight and you're still with him." Wally said. "How are you still fighting this Inertia guy on the Reach device?"

"I don't know about that. He's like... an older version of me." Bart said. "Inertia and I fought over around one of Reach's Earth devices. When we fought, I got hit. I kept running to destroy it while he kept running to stop me."

"Oh. I get it now." Damian said. "Inertia probably came through the future of Wally's universe. He then travelled back to past and entered your timeline, thus creating a new set of another timeline. It's a timeline where not only Impulse came into the past, but also Inertia."

"That's why you still have the Impulse outfit on." Wally said. "Barry said that you replaced me as Kid-Flash, in my timeline at least. So you should've had your KF outfit instead."

"What are you talking about?" Bart asked. "I travelled back through the past and he did too. I never took your place."

"This Inertia guy travelled back to past and created a new variable in the x-axis that are the same as Wally's." Damian said. "Whatever you did on that timeline, it's only going to create a different timeline and in no way is going to affect the future of the time you came from."

Stephanie cleared her throat. "So let me get this straight. Basically in our universe we have three speedsters that came from two different scenarios or what-ifs that are happening in another universe that are almost identical. One is what-if this Inertia supervillain didn't travel back to the past, and one is what-if he did."

"Yup." Wally said. "Surprised that you managed to get a catch on that."

"Hey, I may be blonde, but I'm not stupid." Stephanie shrugged.

"Wait a minute." Bart said. "I'm still really confused. Am I in the future or something?"

"Future is correct, but you're in a different future." Wally said. "You're in an alternative universe."

"Whoa." Bart said. "So in your universe, I didn't die?" Bart said.

"You didn't." Wally said. "I did... well... sort of did. I died and you took the Kid Flash mantle. Now that since I'm the one being told to what happen in the future after we won the Reach War, I'm the one who should be doing the spoiling."

Bart scoffed. "Does it really matter? You won because I was there. My universe probably didn't win because I just left it to rot."

"Just remember, Bart." Wally said. "The possibilities of universes are infinite, and I can confirm that there's a universe where you stayed and save the world."

"Although I have to admit. That idea alone is pretty terrifying." Stephanie said. "You left your universe to rot just to make another one because you can't save the one you had before. Even if there is a universe where we saved the world, there's probably a universe where we didn't. If we are in a universe where we didn't, are we going to leave that universe to die or are we going to stay in there to die with them? Or maybe if we're in a universe where we won. Will we go out there and find a universe where we didn't win to fix it or just leave it as it may be?"

"I don't know about you, but if the universe wants us dead, then we should be dead." Wally said. "It's kind of cheating if we didn't, and kind of a selfish thing to do if we just travel back to a place where nothing happens. Besides, we can't change one's universe. We can only create a new one, a better one but we can't still change it."

"There's also might be a universe where we don't have to deal with the Joker or the Brotherhood bullcrap." Stephanie said. "My, how amazing that would've been. We wouldn't have lost so many peoples."

"But the only ones that are capable of making that universe leap so far is only speedsters." Damian said. "My advice is that even though you have super speed, let's not use that for any more universe leap."

"You're right." Wally said.

"Wally, I know that this is a stupid question but I want you to make your judgment for the sake of this team." Damian said. "Do you trust Bart enough to be a member of the Titans?"

"You're right. That's a stupid question." Wally said. "I've been with him throughout the Reach's War. He might be slightly hyperactive and spoiling a lot of future stuff, but other than that, he's a good guy. He's going to help all of us here to combat the Reach just in case if they show up, right Bart?"

"Yeah sure. I'll help." Bart said. "I won't disappoint."

"Good." Damian said. "For this day, I want you to rest and heal your wounds. Tomorrow, you'll going to be initiated and you'll be meeting the rest of the Titans members anytime soon."

"Are there any familiar faces?" Bart asked.

"Of course there are." Wally said. "They got Superboy, Miss Martian, Blue Beetle, and Tim Drake Robin. The rest are new."

"Oh and by the way, I'm Stephanie Brown." Stephanie said. "I'm Batgirl. Need I say more?"

"And my name is Damian Wayne. I'm this year and this universe's Robin." Damian began. "I'm the leader of the Titans. We're a group of superheroes who are saving the world from evil supervillains. We're very experienced at this work, so we would appreciate it if you join us as a member."

"Of course I would." Bart said. "I'm a hero, and I'll always be. That's what I do."

"Welcome to the party." Wally tapped on his shoulder and encouraged him. "We're glad to have you here, buddy."

"Well, I guess it's time for me to work out a bit." Damian said. "See you all in a flash."

"Really, you're doing that too?" Stephanie said.

"I've been wanting to say that." Damian said. "Also, I get to relocate the bone next time."

"I'm not going to let you." Stephanie said.

"Wait, relocated my bones?" Bart said. "Who... who did that?"

Stephanie simply raised her hand.

"Well, at least it was a hot girl who did it." Bart said.

Stephanie giggled. "I'm very flattered, but sorry. I'm engaged."

"She's Tim's girlfriend." Wally said. "So watch your mouth next time."

Bart made a very bright smile that can make the fist-itchy Damian if he did act that way around Starfire.