Part 0: Shadow of Youth
PG-13
Summary: Post DWF. As an accident saves Flash from his own metabolism (but not without leaving some changes of its own) an unknown benefactor is gathering information on the League's greatest weakness.
Disclaimer: The DC characters are not mine. I'm just playing with them. They'll be returned…eventually, not in good condition but that can hardly be blamed on me!
Author's Note: Back for more are you? Mwa ha ha ha haaa.
PLEASE READ THE A/N IN CHAPTER 1 SO YOU ARE NOT CONFUSED LATER!
Chapter 6 Contra Mundum
The primary tower was still being secured; John and Shayera were overseeing the process. Meanwhile Superman and J'onn were studying the explosives that Wally had found. They wanted to make sure they were really disarmed and not just lying in wait for somebody to remotely detonate them. They also want to figure out who could have built the devices.
The six bombers that they had caught were from the 'Human Federation' –just a rag-tag group of extremist trying to get rid of what they considered a problem. Their bombs had been (or would have been) effective even if they were very simplistic. But these last four explosives were in a completely different class.
"I doubt even a specialized bomb squad could have disarmed this without setting it off," J'onn said as he found yet another booby trap in the circuitry that would have cause an immediate detonation. Only the input code could safely disarm the explosive.
Superman stood next to J'onn using his x-ray vision to see within. "You'll never guess what I've found," the Kryptonian said with dry sarcasm.
J'onn didn't hesitate. "More Lex Corp technology."
"Yes, but I didn't hear a report about concussive accelerators being stolen."
"Only the twenty-six receiver units were stolen."
"Then I guess this must have been a donation."
+JLU+
While the others attended to damage control and finding the perpetrator, Batman was carrying out a very careful interrogation, unlike any other he'd done before.
Most interrogations didn't include fixing boo-boos.
"This won't hurt." He could feel Wally tense as he sprayed the disinfectant on the cut. He relaxed a moment later. It really hadn't hurt. Wally watched as Batman put band-aids over the small cuts and on the larger ones he used gauze and tape.
Wally had calmed significantly since leaving the primary tower. Green Lantern had given them a lift to the ground so Batman never had to give up his hold of Wally until they arrived in the auxiliary tower. The others had all been very glad to see that Wally was not seriously harmed. Shayera had sworn revenge and everyone else had silently agreed.
"Does it still hurt?"
Wally shook his head as the gingerly poked at one of the bandages on his arm.
"Am I in trouble?"
The long pause before the response had Wally feeling even more nervous. "Yes," Batman answered honestly. "You could have gotten yourself seriously hurt."
Wally's gaze focussed downward. He had known that he wasn't suppose to wander off but he saw that man going inside and everyone else was busy so he had to help. Wally, told Bruce as much.
Batman listened to the explanation but didn't waver. "You still should have told someone."
"I know." His voice was no more than a whisper. "I just wanted to be a hero too."
Monkey see, monkey do, Bruce thought to himself.
"Did you see who left those bombs there?" Bruce asked.
"Uh huh. He had dark hair. He was big, like Mr. Green. And he sang while he did it. And he could break doors with one hand." Wally held out his hand a mimicked what he'd seen the man do, complete with sound effects.
It wasn't a typical description but given how old his subject was, it was pretty good. And while he only got enough to get a general idea of the assailants looks the last bit of information told him a great deal. This man was a meta-human, or an alien.
"What are you humming?" Batman asked.
"It's the song the man was singing." Wally continued to hum while swinging his legs to the rhythm over the edge of the table. Batman surreptitiously turned on a recording device on his utility belt.
A few seconds later the door to the room opened and Superman walked in.
"Hey, Wally. How are you feeling?"
The child shrugged. "Okay."
"He bounces back quickly," Superman said to Batman.
"Kids do that." Typical Batman reply. "What have you found?" The nice Batman who had been taking care of a scared child a moment ago was gone. Regular Batman was back.
"More evidence that ties this to Luthor."
"You seem comfortable with that." The comment sounded innocuous enough but Clark knew nothing that came out of that mouth was.
"Luthor is a familiar enemy. I can usually figure out his motives."
"You won't be able to this time."
"Why not?"
"Because this isn't Luthor's work. Somebody else is out to end the League. We can't rule out that Luthor is part of it, but he's not the one calling the shots."
Superman crossed his arms. "So someone else is picking up where he left off? You think they'd have learnt by now."
"Learnt what?" Batman turned away a cleared the medical equipment he'd been using on Wally. "That the League can't be beat? Or the League can't be beat that way?" The white eyes focussed on the Kryptonian. "People agreed and still do agree with Luthor's anti-League sentiments. They won't give up so easily."
They'd all expected it to be an up-hill battle to get people comfortable with the League again but they hadn't been expecting such fantastic acts of violence. Superman looked away resisting Batman's words. Now that the world was safe (until the next psycho came along) the Justice League now had to worry about a whole new threat to peace: the people.
+JLU+
Their work day was coming to an end. It was 2am. Wally slept peacefully curled up on a chair while Batman, Superman, Diana, J'onn, John and Shayera stood around and discussed the day's events. They were mostly in agreement. The 'Human Federation' was going to be a problem that wasn't going away, and so were the anti-league emotions. The bombings were perpetrated by two groups –one, a group of six, the other, a group of one. The question was: did the single bomber set up the HF people knowing they'd fail but cause the league to leave the rest of the structure un-guarded? The whole thing reeked of a test. A test they would have failed miserably if not for Wally.
However, they all would have preferred failure to putting Wally in danger.
But he had been in clear danger and though they did not speak of it, anger permeated the group. Each word from their mouths held an edge, an urgency, a fear. How many times in the past four weeks had they come close to losing Wally? Well, first with Brainiac and Luthor, then the problem with his metabolism, then the bank robber, Strom, and now this. Sure Flash had been in danger in plenty of missions but in these scenarios he's always far more vulnerable or out-matched than usual. They couldn't help but worry. Their worry for Flash brought them together but could it pull them apart as well? And what if they lost him? They could not consider it.
"What about changing the Flash back to normal?" Diana asked.
"We've been able to determine that the only other data we require is the frequency of the weapon that caused Wally's transformation initially," said J'onn.
"Well how do we get that?"
"We can't." There was finality in Batman's voice that they were not accustomed to. Had he given up? "The only way we could find that is to have the gun or the design schematics, of which we can get neither."
Superman wasn't convinced the situation was hopeless. "There has to be another way. What about Strom's partner?"
"Dr. V," Shayera supplied. "Strom didn't know anything besides his name."
"I couldn't find anything in my files," said Batman. "Either this man doesn't exist or he's very good at hiding his tracks." Of course an alien wouldn't have any documents that Bruce could search. It would explain the how Strom got that unusual weapon and it would explain what Wally had seen. Unfortunately there were other aspects that an alien perpetrator could not account for, so his theory would remain a theory and a secret.
"Maybe we need to look elsewhere. There are other experts in this field," Clark suggested. "We could bring them in on this."
Stewart was wary. More people meant more secrets. "How do we know we can trust them? How do we explain what happened without letting them see Wally? After that it's only a hop and a jump for them to figure out his identity."
Shayera nodded her agreement. "Lantern's right. We can't risk bringing anyone else in on this." Some of the other's nodded.
"Then we'll need a miracle," intoned J'onn.
+JLU+
The orbiting watch tower was only steps away from being completely de-commissioned. All the technology that they could reuse was saved the rest could be salvaged from the Pacific by Wayne Tech. The computer core had been taken to the new site but there was still an uplink remaining between the core and the watchtower computers. This gave Clark the privacy he needed to do his search.
Guilt pricked at his conscience as he did this but he needed answers and he couldn't ask. He accessed public records and looked through the file of one Wallace Rudolph West. It was a surprisingly long file. He refrained from reading the details but he couldn't help but skim. He returned back to the top of the file to the information he'd been seeking in the first place.
Mother: Marianne West (deceased)
Father: Rudolph West (Whereabouts unknown)
Superman sat back in the chair and stared –"Whereabouts unknown." Wally's father was missing. The child had been abandoned? When? He didn't know and he would not search further to find out. This was bad enough but he'd been curious since the day he'd first caught the five-year old speedster. He'd asked for his father, a man Clark hadn't known Wally was even familiar with. Batman was supposed to be their resident mystery. What else didn't he know about the Flash?
"It was a car accident. DWI. Wasn't even her car. Rudolph West took his son and moved from Blue Valley, Nebraska to Keystone, Kansas. At age five, Wallace was placed in a group home when Social Services found him home alone. His father was never found. Wally was never adopted."
Clark sighed. He was caught red handed, and by Batman of all people.
"You sure know a lot about him."
"Dick and Wally were close."
"Still are," Clark corrected.
Batman walked over and closed the file. "He wouldn't appreciate you prying."
"You did." It was a juvenile counter argument but what else did he have?
"It's expected of me."
Clark looked back at the now empty screen. "This won't change anything."
Batman headed for the exit. "It's not me who needs convincing."
+JLU+
The park was full of kids. It was a Saturday and many families had descended on the large park between Central City and Keystone. The river was calm and fairly shallow in this area so many children collected at the shores to play. Among them was Wally West, still physically five years old, but causing as much trouble as the adult did.
"I told you to stop doing that," John scolded. He pulled Wally away from the shoreline where he and a little girl had been splashing anyone who walked by.
"Aww, come one Stewart. They were just playing."
"Yeah!" Wally moved next to the adult who was on his side, presenting a united front. John crossed his arms.
"I'm not baby-sitting both of you."
Dick just laughed.
Unbeknownst to them they were being observed. Only the most careful of eyes would have been able to see the red glow of his cigarette as he hid in the thicket of trees. He was learning quite a bit watching the adults and children but there was only one child of particular interest to him. His name was Wally and he was very close to the Justice League members. One of them was in the park with the child. The other man, tall with long, dark hair was, as of yet, unidentified. The child he had a theory about. And if his theory should prove correct he would move on with his plan. He just needed to get the child alone.
"That way!" Wally pointed and continued his exploration of the river bank. They were suppose to have left an hour ago but Wally was having so much fun and they weren't having a bad time either.
The evening was just creeping over the afternoon and the sky was changing to its peculiar shade of orange. They continued to explore further upstream following Wally but ever cautious of what was not too far ahead. The area had been marked with police tape. The immediate danger of the radiation had past but the area remained of limits just as a precaution.
They rounded a bend in the river and were met by scorched earth and yellow tape. This is where it had begun –where they had almost lost him, again.
"Wally, come back here. It's time to go," Dick called. He wouldn't let them get any closer. The whole area was too much like a grave, too quiet and too still. Wally stopped and turned back just a few meters before the yellow tape.
"Ok." He was getting tired anyway. Suddenly, a force to his back knocked him to the ground. No sound accompanied the blast and when he looked up John and Dick were gone. He looked around but he was alone. The world had become strangely silent. "Dick." He called quietly, fearing that any great sound would rouse a sleeping beast existing only as a vague shadow in his imagination. "John."
Wally got back to his feet and began to walk where he had last seen his friends. That's when he noticed the river. It was acting strangely. The water was moving so slowly. The currents lazily churned around the rocks and droplets of water hung in the air nearly motionless. He reached out to touch it but without warning intense heat spread across his back and then pain. He fell forward into the slow moving river, a sluggish splash of water arching into the air.
Whatever was wrong with the water didn't seem to affect Wally. Quickly he stood and turned around. Approaching him at a leisurely pace was a man. Nothing striking about him; dark hair, grey eyes, large build, kind of tall, kind of old (in Wally' opinion) but nothing alarming. Then he started whistling and Wally remembered.
"You had the bombs."
The man continued to advance a strange smile twisting his lips. "That's right. And you disarmed them. That wasn't very nice."
"No, you're not nice!"
The man laughed once. It made the child wince, the harsh sound that it was. He glanced away hoping to find John or Dick coming to help him but there was still no sign of them. No sooner had he turned back to the man than he found a tight grip around his neck. Wally struggled to breath. He clawed at the hand clamped down on his trachea but it didn't budge. The will to fight was beginning to leave him but then the man materialized from thin air a strange, mean-looking weapon in his other hand and the struggling began again in earnest. The man only gave him a cold smile.
A blast of green energy surprised them both. It was directed at the stranger but he deflected it and many trees in the area took the brunt of the blast. The spell around them had been broken. The river flowed at its usual speed and a cacophony of sounds returned.
The stranger didn't give up his grip on Wally. He took to the air putting some distance between the Green Lantern who was still looking rather shaky from the first assault he'd launched on the unsuspecting trio.
"Let him go!" Lantern barely managed to pant out his order. His body was aching but he'd fought and won in worse condition.
The man holding Wally didn't respond verbally. Instead he let loose another blast, this one from his wicked weapon. John managed to dodge the direct blast but not the explosion it created.
The Lantern problem temporarily taken care of he returned to his prey. The child's eyes were barely open and he had only the slightest of grips on the hand choking him. There were scratch marks all over his hand from Wally's attempts to break free but he easily ignored the pain and the slipperiness of his blood.
The man smiled at Wally briefly. He looked at the gun and a strangely intense look came over his face. A few seconds passed and suddenly a dial on the gun changed. A shrill hum filled the air drowning out everything else.
He looked back at Wally and pointed the gun at him. "You are a worthy opponent," he told him. "I look forward to confronting you again." And he pulled the trigger.
Pain like nothing he had ever felt before overcame all his senses. For those five seconds nothing existed but agony. The bright flash of light didn't seem to bother his attacker nor the intense blast of radiation and heat. Through the light, and the heat the stranger stared at him, entranced by the pure emotion and the bright pain-filled eyes. Even when the spectacle ended he continued to stare.
His clothing was in tatters small pieces hanging limply from his limp frame but the eyes, though, unseeing were wide open as if frozen. Wally's mind was just beginning to right itself, recovering from the pain of only a moment ago. The lack of oxygen was making it a slow process but eventually he blinked and suddenly he was drowning. Around him there was nothing but cold water and forces pushing, pulling, and dragging him down.
The shock and the release of pressure around his neck had him gasping but his first breath had been more water than air and the following one, only water. He struggled vainly reaching up towards light and life though still sinking into darkness.
"Wally!" He heard someone call his name though they sounded light-years away. There was a disturbance in the water above him that he was not aware of and suddenly a dark hand reached out and pulled him up.
Nightwing resurfaced bringing Wally with him, the full grown Wally. He persevered against the currents bringing his friend to the shore. As soon as they broke the surface Wally had been coughing feebly but once on shore and on his sided the violent spasms began and river water poured out.
Not far up river Green Lantern watched the retreating figure of his enemy. He'd caught the guy off guard just after he'd shot Wally causing him to drop his hostage into the water. He'd seen Nightwing go after Wally and confident in the kid's safety he continued to fight the attacker. Lantern had just been gaining the advantage when the other man turned tail and left faster than he could follow. He only wasted a moment glaring after him before flying to where Nightwing and Wally had beached themselves.
Nightwing looked up at him while he patted the still-coughing Wally's back. John just stared silently, hardly believing that they finally and so suddenly had their friend returned to them.
Using his ring John retrieved Dick's clothes from where he'd left them. What was left of Wally's clothing was torn and wouldn't have fit him anyway. Once clothed and the majority of the coughing fit having passed GL rushed him to the temporary Justice League Headquarters. Nightwing watched them go hoping that this ordeal was over with. Though it didn't show he was supremely glad to have his friend, maybe his best-friend, back.
He took out his communicator. A second later he received a response to his call.
"What?"
"He's back. We got Wally back." He waited for a response.
"Acknowledged. Batman out."
Dick's eye narrowed and he shook his head. He didn't know why he was expecting more of a reaction from Bruce. He and Wally weren't close. He just thought that as Dick's long-time friend, as Batman's colleague, he just might care. Dick walked away somehow disappointed again.
+JLU+
Ten days passed and Wally bounced back from his latest near death experience. His metabolism was "normal" and the Doctor's had run and rerun their tests on him confirming that he was quickly recovering all the strength he'd lost after his Speed Force encounter. Superman had fed a fabricated story of what happened to the Flash when he was gone to the other League members and they believed him readily enough. It wasn't that he didn't trust them but they couldn't run the risk of anyone figuring it out. Nobody had made the connection between Wally and the Flash, as far as they knew. Thus the Flash's identity, the most precious of superhero secrets, remained a just that.
The other six of the big seven were relieved to have him back. Wally had only vague memories of his time as a child under their care. Every so often another piece of his memory would unfold and unlike so much of his actual childhood, the memories were good. So why did he feel so sad?
It was the Green Lantern who found him on the roof. He'd come up here to be alone, something uncharacteristic of the outgoing speedster but he just wasn't feeling like himself.
"Flash?"
The call startled him. He was also surprised to find John standing only a few feet away. His mind had been completely elsewhere, he hadn't eve heard GL walk up to him.
"You okay kid?" GL asked. The Flash was sitting in front of a large intake fan, leaning again the grating separating him from the rapidly spinning blades.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He smiled up at his friend before staring back out at the sky. GL sat down and joined him. Every once in a while they could see a League member fly by, returning from of setting out on various missions. Flash wasn't on activity duty yet but he wore his suit any way. "You never know when you might need me," he'd told them the day before and they'd all been relieved at the return of his boisterous behaviour. For too long he'd been laying quietly recovering. They'd worried. Wally must have felt it and tried to help them. He'd covered his true melancholy and they'd been so eager to have him back they'd overlooked the warnings that he was still not the man they knew before his trip to the Speed Force.
"What's wrong Wally?" John finally broke the silence.
The younger man opened his mouth to say something but it took him a few tries before he found the words. "I can't make this… these doubts go away. Y'know. I…" there was a frustrated sigh from the man with the gift of gab before he continued. "It took me a while to figure it out…. But I can't fix it."
"It'll fix itself."
Wally shook his head in disagreement, idly biting his bottom lip.
"What's bothering you specifically?"
"I don't know if I can still do it, GL. Running, seeing how fast I can go how much I can push it because… because I guess the idea of a limit never really crossed my mind before." He shrugged.
"You're worried about the Speed Force."
"I could be stuck there. Trapped away from….from everything I know…but I'm not scared."
He sounded so at peace that John looked at him. Wally was staring off at something in the distance and didn't notice his scrutiny or his worry. The Speed-Force had done something, shifted something in Wally's perspective. It almost seemed to give him a sense of peace. He remembered how content Flash had sounded when he'd been trapped in that strange dimension. Seeing Flash this way almost made him regret pulling him out and returning him to this world –but it was a very distant almost.
With effortless use of his super-speed, though John thought it was a touch slower than what was normal, Wally was standing. John followed, their deep-and-meaningful apparently at an end. They were walking to the roof access when John pasued. Wally turned around wondering what John was stopping for.
"There's something else."
Wally shook his head in denial.
"You said 'doubts', plural. Spit it out." The red clad shoulders seemed to droop and the head turned away from him.
"It's nothing."
"Then tell me."
It seemed like an eternity passed before he spoke. "I'd never felt cheated before. My life, was just…" he outstretched his arms to the side trying to convey his meaning. "I thought 'this is just how it goes for me'. It didn't…Growing up with a bunch of other kids was tough, growing up without a real family wasn't so bad because I didn't really know what I was missing, I guess. But now…" He shook his head trying to clear away some unwanted thought. "You were right. I can't understand losing family."
"Flash, about before, I didn't mean that-"
Flash interrupted. "I'm drained. I'm going to get a snack and then hit the sack. I'll see ya later."
John was quickly alone on the roof top. "I'm sorry, Wally."
+JLU+
Booster Gold walked into the room arguing with his floating robot buddy, Skeets. They didn't notice that Batman was already there. They didn't notice the quick motions of this hand on the controls that ended his audio feed. Nobody but Batman would ever know that the private conversation on the roof had been heard by a third party. The security system of the old military base, now their temporary headquarters, was antiquated, but still working, including the microphones planted to monitor activity outside.
Batman marched out between Booster and Skeets without acknowledging their presence.
"I'll never figure him out," said Skeets once the doors had closed.
"What's to figure out? Tall, dark and creepy."
+JLU+
Far away a large screen scrolled row upon row of Justice League members across its width. The woman at the computer's controls watched the faces of Earth's heroes slide past. Adjacent to her was her superior, the mastermind of this operation.
"Luthor is growing impatient, sir."
"He's not going anywhere. Anyway we can begin soon."
"You've discovered a weakness in the League?"
His head dipped in a nod. "The members. Together they are impressive but individually they can be conquered, broken. And one we can use to break them all."
He focussed on one image and brought it up to fill half the screen. The other half displayed all the known data of this member, one of the original seven.
"The Flash," the woman read.
He tapped a few buttons on the controls bringing up another file photo, this one of a young man with red hair and green-blue eyes. "Meet Wallace West." He smiled and turned to exit. As he walked, he whistled a tune.
End Part 6 Against the World
Alright! So that ends 'Part 0: Shadow of Youth', the intro to my main story event which will have a higher rating due to ….well, bad stuff. You'll see (insert evil cackle). It will probably be a few weeks (I'm busy with school/work and stuff) but I have a couple of chapters written so, we'll see. Anyway I hope you enjoyed the story. There are still a lot if issues to be tackled, questions to be answered, and heroes to be torn apart…stay tuned Thanks for reading and reviewing! Suggestions, opinions constructive, criticism all welcomed.
Sagga…