Old Foes
#Part 1#
It's night time. Even during the nights, the gym looked exactly the same, as it was in the basement and not so perfectly illuminated. After producing a gallon of sweat last afternoon, Wally twisted and punched the wooden dummy several times with his normal speed. He needed the technique right. Someone like Inertia would probably be more prepared than preparing a Christmas party.
He had to admit. This universe Robin was no joke. If he really was the son of the brooding Batman, he really showed a lot of the attitude. That cold, emotionless face that has went through so many brutal things in the past gave him the chills. His methods were probably a bit brutal, but then again this was the same kid trained by the League of Assassins.
He was right. The super speed got him reckless so many times. His emotions got him reckless so many times. That thing he had with Vandal Savage was stupid. It was because he couldn't control his emotions. And what better person to handle emotions other than Raven, the emotionless sorceress that has the most amazing of powers.
Raven was on her place as usual during the night and that was the chilling breeze of the rooftop. Wally opened up the rooftop door. He made sure that his hands weren't doing anything stupid to at least crack a noise on the door handle, but it was too late. The shriek of the door's hinge managed to startle the floating, meditating sorceress.
"Give me a good reason why you're here." Raven asked.
"I'm here to meditate."
Raven opened her eyes up at those words. She stood back up away from her crossing legs and floating mode and glanced back at Wally.
"I usually don't do this because Garfield always broke my concentration, but I guess you're alright." Raven said.
"How are you and Garfield?" Wally asked.
"Shouldn't have brought him up."
"So it's complicating." Wally said. "Can't blame you. The green beast just have no idea how to score."
"You have no idea." Raven said, smiling. "So shall we begin?"
"Yeah, sure." Wally said.
"Is there a particular reason why you would meditate?" Raven asked.
"I just want to calm my nerves down." Wally said. "It's been tense, you know, about everything. Bart and Barry jumped into this universe, a speedster supervillain is still out there doing god knows what, and I'm just sitting there on the gym practicing."
"I saw you with Damian sparring on the ring." Raven said. "He kicked you hard."
"Yeah. You're pretty observant for someone with eyes locked on some unreadable books." Wally said.
"I'm very observant." Raven said. "And no, it's not unreadable. It's Ancient Sanskrit."
"Hm... Interesting." Wally said. "So tell me, Raven. Have you read the literary ancient version of the Kama Sutra?"
"If you want to get dirty, I have my fist to talk to you with."
"Okay sorry."
"You're going to be just as annoying as him, aren't you?"
"I promise I won't. At least I didn't come here just to annoy the crap out of you." Wally said.
"Tell me that again." Raven said. "Still don't know why he was in my room last night."
"What did he say?"
Raven darted her wide eyes at him. Her face lowered. Her small smile turned into a deep frown. Her body froze and her eyes stared at him with deep confusion and, perhaps even probably a small bit of terror.
"Never mind. I went through your business enough."
Right after he said that, Raven eased her once widened eyes and focused on something more important. She and Wally sat across each other. Wally crossed his legs, and faced her surprisingly beautiful, pale grey face despite the darkness and the hood always covering her most of the time. Raven also sat in the said position and closed her eyes, putting herself in her concentration.
"So tell me, Wally." Raven said. "What is your real purpose of coming here?"
"I come here because want to control my emotions." Wally said. "The past battles have proven to me that my emotions always got the better of me. It gave me the idea to do it, calm my nerves down, control it as much as I could."
"I hope you're ready." Raven said. "Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Hold it for five seconds. Release."
Wally did exactly that. In his eyes, it was only darkness that he could see. It was only the wind of the night that went through his ears that he could hear. The soothing voice of Raven's monotone really put him into that deep state of trance.
"Your victories are once clouded by your determination to win a fight." Raven said. "Your emotions has detracted you from the most important thing, and you learned that lesson in the most vicious of ways."
"I was lucky." Wally said. "I shouldn't have fought him back then."
"It's not your fault." Raven said. "You have to let it go. The peoples you care about, the peoples that love you, rely on you so much, counted on you for the past years, have never wanted anything else but for you to be successful. They don't want you to grieve over the failure of your past, something that caused a burden on you for so long. Just for two minutes, think of a blank, empty space, a void where you can find peace, away from those who wanted to burn you again. Feel it. Embrace it. It's a powerful force that you had in your body. All you need is to let it out. Breathe, breathe, relax."
Every breath, every air that came out of his nostrils, brought him closer into that state. He wanted to be in that place, a peace that he had never thought he will gain again after splitting away from his friends, his true loved ones. For quite some time, he found himself in that peaceful state.
"I... miss her." Wally said, still keeping his concentration. "I... miss everyone. My friends... my family... the love of my life... they need me."
It was obvious that his past relationship had been bothering him for the past few days. It was obvious that it will break his concentration. How could he be not so strong to resist that?
"Wally, they miss you." Raven said. "But there's nothing you can do about it."
"Should I go back, Raven?" Wally asked. "Should I go where I belong?"
Raven took a deep breath and released it. Even through his closed eyes, he could feel the bitterness coming from her face. "As much as I wanted to answer that, it is not my place to choose."
He was disappointed that she couldn't give the right answer, but he couldn't blame her. He once thought that it's going to be easy just staying here for a while, but after bringing himself into that state, he had a lot of thoughts on his head he wondered how many friends he had left.
That's where he heard the annoying beep, that annoying beep that signified nothing but innocent peoples in danger. There was a good reason why they made the beep annoying, just so that the Titans could respond to such tones.
Wally and Raven opened their eyes and responded into that emergency signal. They didn't say anything more. They just ran towards the briefing room to find out what has been causing the problem lately. While Raven phased through the bottom floors all the way into the briefing room, Wally used his super speed to get there.
Inside the briefing room was the entire Titans member. Damian, Tim, and Stephanie observed on the monitor checking up on the current situation. Wally didn't even bother to look at the holographic monitor. He kept his focus on Damian and let him to tell about the situation.
"What's going on?" Wally asked.
Damian gave his answer. "A massacre in the Keystone City Hall."
"Inertia?" Wally asked.
"Worse." Damian said.
"An entire group of mercenaries just caused a riot there." Tim said. "I recognized three of them. That's William Cobb, Jade Nguyen, and Lawrence Crock."
"Hi, Cheshire." Stephanie cracked her knuckles. "Can't wait to send you back to Wonderland. I'll be at the hangar guys."
"Wait." Wally paused on the last name. "Lawrence Crock?"
"Yup." Tim said. "He's a dangerous mercenary. He's been operating in Gotham City for the past five years as a freelancer. What's the matter with him?"
"He's..." Wally paused. He really had to choose if he wanted to tell the Titans about the truth. "I'm going to get him."
"Wally!" Damian shouted at him, but he already went out away with super speed.
"Something tells me that he knew him in a personal level." Raven said. "So much for meditation."
Garfield glanced at a weird aberration at one of the screen in the form of a purple panther. "Uh... guys, I've never seen a purple panther before in my life."
"Looks like Beast Boy got himself a rival." Raven said.
"This is high priority." Damian said. "All of you suit up and get to the ship right now. Metahumans might come and Inertia might have a bigger plan than a massacre."
##
Why didn't he ever think of that before? Of course. Artemis should've been a part of this world. She should have. She should have existed on this world the same way the Earth and the star existed. He was so ignorant to think that she could've existed. He was caught so much on the Reach and Inertia he didn't even bother to look for her.
Kid Flash ran as fast as he could to the crime scene. Keystone City Hall were just about as big as any other city halls could get, and it couldn't get any worse than this. The police officers being put in that situation were being slaughtered by an angry purple panther. Not a shot managed to get through the thing. Not a shot managed to penetrate its thick skin. Just in a scale of ten seconds, three SWAT members were brutally scratched and mangled.
Bloods have spilled and littered the once beautiful view of the City Hall. The panther kept on going and going. Lawrence Crock was still out there and he needed to find him, but first, the purple panther.
Kid Flash ran towards the purple panther just moments before he could mangle another SWAT officer. He managed to punch the thing in super speed, causing a sonic boom and propelled even the barrage of bullets coming towards the monstrous thing. The purple panther propelled into the ground, slamming its body a few times and ended up destroying a police car and flipping it over in the process.
To keep his identity concealed, Kid Flash ran away from the battlefield to go and find Lawrence Crock. If he is in this universe, then Artemis had to be in here too.
After having a moment to search the area for the sight of Lawrence Crock, there he is inside the City Hall with the major. The bulky physique, the hockey mask, that intimidating look, no more doubts. It was him, and he finally got hands on him.
Kid Flash used his super speed to move him away from the City Hall Office and into the outside as far away as possible. He pushed him down a concrete wall in a back alley in god knows where. That's where he began asking the questions.
"Kid Flash," Robin suddenly called. "If you're listening, you shouldn't just barge into the battlefield. We've talked about recklessness before."
"I found Lawrence." Kid Flash said. "I'll be quick. Don't worry."
"Kid Flash...!?"
Kid Flash closed off the transmission. Lawrence stood up, feeling a little dizzy after that little super speed event he got.
"What the hell was that?" Lawrence asked. "You got a different costume or something?"
"Lawrence Crock." Kid Flash began. "What are you doing in the city hall?"
"Oh, you're one of them." Lawrence said. "None of your business, kid."
"I can just put you in prison at super speed." Kid Flash said. "You can't do anything else. You're going to answer me right now."
"Answer what?" Lawrence asked.
"Where is Artemis?"
Lawrence flinched. Through his mask, Kid Flash could see his broadened eyes. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't lie!"
Kid Flash pushed him into the wall at super speed. The force was enough to cause a few dusts coming out of the wall. He slid down the wall, helpless against the speed. Kid Flash lifted him back up to speed.
"You know where she is!" Kid Flash said. "Tell me where she is right now!"
"Fine." Lawrence said. "She's in Star City, changed her name to Cissie Jones. Don't know why, but you touch her and I'll send the other speedster to tear you up into pieces."
"What have you done to her?" Kid Flash asked. "Why is she there?"
"She hates me." Lawrence said. "She hates my lifestyle. Her mother wants her to be successful, a good girl, not as bad her big bad daddy even though she's also a big bad girl. She's grown from birth to hate me. I don't care a single bit. She's still my daughter. I still love her. Put your hand on her and I'm going to make sure you suffer for that."
Kid Flash stumbled back. He began to resent that innocent, honest face he made about his daughter. How can he be so honest? How can he be so modest about it?
"I should've said that to you." Kid Flash said.
"Oh gee. Thanks for coming late." Lawrence said that all the sudden. "If you mind, would you just kick his ass already?"
Kid Flash widened his eyes. He's right behind him. He didn't even bother to look back. The air got hotter there. It was probably thanks to him getting closer and being one of the peoples got caught in speed family. Or it was probably the green color that is so away from the spectrum it caused a disturbance in the speed force.
He didn't really want to make that reference on his head.
"Hey, Kid Flash." Inertia said. "You want to play?"
That's where Kid Flash stroke his first punch, but Inertia managed to dodge it away. He then made a quick chase around town. Kid Flash immediately chased him down and made sure that the horrible things that he did right now won't happen again.