A/N

June has been an awesome month for me, so I'm kind of sad it's coming to an end, but that's life for you. I can only hope the good times continue, and you guys are certainly helping that, so thank you!

Episode X: A New Divide, Part III

The Kid Flash. It was only a short while ago when he actually enjoyed the name - it's easy to remember, catchy and it was a hit with the ladies. Then again, anything would be better than being called Wally.

Something about it has rubbed him the wrong way the last few days, whether it coming from the mouth of Robin or any other members of the team. He thinks it might have something to do with the latter part of his superhero name.

Flash.

The more he ponders on it, he more he realises it's quite insulting of a name actually. Instead of him being given his own name, like Robin, he's reduced to being the 'kid' version of the fastest man alive. Same with Superboy, they put boy after the name instead of actually giving him one of his own that he could make his own.

When the only thing anyone thinks when they say your name is that your a sidekick of the greatest heroes on Earth, it's hard to grow past that.

He can't remember the amount of times someone has walked up to him and said 'Kid Flash. You're the Flash's sidekick, huh' and he resists the urge to run them into the speed force and lock away the key. That's if he ever becomes fast enough to enter the speed force, which at his current rate is unlikely.

Even the experiment which made him into Kid Flash was just a cheap copy of the original, so might as well begin calling it the kid experiment instead.

Probably having too much time on his hands to think about the delicacies of his life, he zooms around the warehouse one last time to check whether he missed anything. Almost knocking over an entire shelf in order to do so, his eyes come across something inside one of the boxes and he runs up to check.

Rummaging inside, his hand grips around something in a weird shape and once he pulls it out, he groans in frustration.

"A Flash toy. Just what I needed to cheer me up," he taps the forehead of the toy, half-expecting something to happen just to bring some excitement to his current situation. "Useless," he sighs, launching away the toy. Although it doesn't go far as he catches it again, somehow feeling it was wrong to treat his uncle that way, plastic or not.

Now looking for something to do, he begins to play catch with himself at super-speed, going to one end of the warehouse and launching the toy to the other just to catch it at the other side.

"Do you mind?"

The question took him off-guard and he fails to catch the toy in one of the attempts, it's plastic body smacking off the wall and to the ground.

"Who said that?" Wally calls out, looking around for an ambush. "I've been looking for some action, so better come out now."

"I'm on the floor Wally."

Rubbing his eyes and ears - as well as pretty much every other sensory faculty - he ensures what he's hearing is correct. It's his uncle's voice, but it seems to be coming from the toy he's been messing around with for the past few minutes.

"I hate these horror movies," he mutters to himself, summoning up the courage to approach the toy. "Was that you?"

"We haven't got all day, so come pick me up," the toy - he's certain it was the toy now - commands, urgency in his little voice.

Rushing over and trying not to freak out, he wraps his hand around the toy and brings it to a few metres away from his voice, the miniscule face of his uncle staring back at him.

"Hello," Wally greets him cautiously, prepared to throw the toy away at the first sign of anything freaky.

"Uh.. hi. Why are you so big?" the Flash asks him, now animated and Wally is sure there's some confusion on his face. "Or am I small? Oh, this is getting weird."

"You are totally small dude," Wally responds, relaxing a little as the toy seems to be his uncle all right. "And I mean small. And... hate to break it to you... but, a little bit plastic as well."

"Plastic," the Flash snorts, though almost screams when his eyes accidentally look at his arms. "Oh god! The Babushka did this."

Chuckling, Wally looks down at the small figure of his mentor. "An old Russian grandma did they to you? I don't know what you and Green Lantern have been doing in your spare time, but you need to lay off the good stuff."

"No, not the damn old lady! As in the Babuskha dolls, they've been terrorising Central City for weeks, turning innocent people into toys.. dolls.. anything of that kind really."

"And they got you?" Wally rolls his eyes. "The fastest man alive?"

"I guess I wasn't fast enough. You're going to have to stop them whilst I figure out how to escape whatever this is."

"Oh come on! If you're not fast enough to stop this from happening to you, how in the world can I do it?" Wally moans, pointing in the face of his mentor.

Pausing, the Flash opens his mouth to say something smart, but closes it after a few seconds of deliberation. Despite having all the optimism in the world, even the Flash can't escape the fact he has a defective sidekick. So, it's pretty much guaranteed Central City is screwed.

"I'll call Green Lantern, and he can deal with it," Kid Flash compromises with his uncle.

"He won't get here in time."

Being interrupted from having a superhero chat with his mentor by a thick Russian accent, his eyes widen. Looking down at Barry, he's shocked to see nothing looking back at him. The toy which had been carefully in his hand has disappeared into thin air, conveniently coinciding with this new arrival.

I'm screwed, Kid Flash groans inside his head, turning around to face what the great Flash couldn't outrun.

Giant, ugly, and staring straight back at him - he felt the exact same looking at the exam papers he has complete over the summer.

"You don't even look like the doll," he slaps his forehead, "You're just a creepy grandma... but... creepy enough to justify me sending you into a retirement home."

Taking a ready position, he feels the electricity flow down his calves as they tense in preparation for a quick burst of speed. Just as he is about to let himself go, he realises the situation he is in. Here he is, about to do the exact thing he shouldn't be doing as the worst member of the Flash family.

"Quick question," Wally stops himself, nervously laughing, "what are your superpowers again?"

"Let me show you."

The sentence being the gun which commences the race, Kid Flash runs as fast as his legs can carry away from the villain. Time blurs and slows down as he turns his head to look back at the Babuskha, which is slowly but surely catching up to him. He attempts to will himself further forward, but he just isn't fast enough, and with every second he watches helplessly as the woman catches up to him.

To the outside, the exchange probably lasted only a few seconds. To him, it's a painstaking slow-mo portrait of his failure as a speedster.

A grandma. Wally West - the Kid Flash - cannot outrun an old grandma from one side of a warehouse to another.

Closing his eyes as the outstretched hand of the woman seeks out his body, he tries to wish away the problem like a child who found out Santa wasn't real. Not that Wally ever really believed in Santa, but the point remains.

Feeling the fingers touch his costume, he opens his eyes again and barely stops himself from splattering against a wall, skidding to an abrupt halt. Funnily enough, there's no sign of the Babushka or any villainous presence anywhere, just him alone again inside of the warehouse.

"You're going psycho, Wally," the speedster groans.

"I wouldn't say that."

Not again, Wally inwardly sighs, spinning on his heels. This time, he's greeted by the infinitely more pleasant sight of Zatanna looking back at him, blue eyes laden with concern and stress.

"You're real right?" Wally questions, running up to the magician and tapping her several times in the arm to make sure. "Thank you! I've been going crazy by myself."

"That's the whole point of these things really," Zatanna answers, winking. "When we decided to get our payback on Kaldur, I'm guessing we were all transported to bended realities, designed to destroy our souls, break us down, yada yada yada. Luckily for you, I figured it out pretty quick and... did something, I guess."

"You don't know how you got in my... whatever this is?" Kid Flash shakes his head. "So how are we going to get out?"

Pulling something out of her costume - which is odd considering it's complete lack of storing compartments or pockets - she opens her palm and allows Wally to take a look at the object.

Unremarkable, but Wally has grown to understand most magical things of extreme power tend to come in all shapes and forms.

"My Dad made this for me. It's pretty much a magical tag designed to send me back to him, but with a little bit of tweaking, I'm pretty sure I can send us back to our realm," Zatanna explains, closing her palm and waiting for something.

Both stood there for a few seconds whilst Wally thinks about what she's waiting for, she gives up and just decides to ask her what she wants. "So?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Zatanna grabs Wally's hand and places it onto the small device. "Since you know the team better than I do, I need you to focus on what their own hell is probably like. Picture it in your head, and when your ready, we're going to pull them out with us. Got it?"

Nodding, he focuses on his friends and what he knows about their worst nightmares. Robin's is simple: of all the things in the world, becoming the Batman is a future he never wants to happen, and more than once Wally has reminded him the two are so completely different it's impossible. The other three are slightly more difficult.

He knows Superboy struggles with the whole 'super-clone' thing, and M'gann is pretty much distraught about the possibility of being on her own.

On the other hand, Artemis is living her nightmare right now, but then again, it depends whether she actually believes it could be worse. Considering her pessimistic attitude of late, it's not going to be hard to imagine a scenario where Artemis is trapped in a world where she isn't to blame for everything which has happened to the team.

"Okay, I'm ready," Wally states, keeping his mind on the things he mulled over. "Let's get them out... hopefully. And I just want to say, if we get trapped her forever.. totally not my decision to let you onto the team. Robin's to blame for you being trapped here."

Hearing Zatanna mumble to herself, the magician begins to tinker around with the device until the speedster's ears pick up a triumphant cheer from her. Whatever she just did, she seems to be proud of it, but then the cheers quickly die down.

"Oh.. is it supposed to do this?" Zatanna chuckles to herself as something begins to tick.

Eyes jolting opens, he manages to get out "You've got to be kidding me," before white light envelops his vision.

A/N

Here are a few questions for some of you which has been making me wonder:

The Five year time skip from season 1 to season 2... did it bother some of you that what happened in-between was kind of skipped over? That's a long time to just ignore, especially in comic years.

Has the whole Justice League idea fizzled out? I was reading some of the recent comics the other day and for some reason, I've just not been feeling it. It's mainly the solo comics which have been awesome for me recently.