Author's Notes: Thank you, secondrate. I'm using Impulse (and yes, it's very evil). There aren't very many notes to put before this part of the story. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, and well, read on, and criticism is appreciated.
Disclaimer: "Teen Titans" and "Impulse" are not mine, and neither is Ben and Jerry's ice cream (although I do want some right now).
After a night of eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's "Chocolate Fudge Brownie" ice cream, Jinx was up at seven in the morning and was doing round-off handsprings in the gym. She was still upset about the night before, and later decided that she would run the confusion away. She had heard somewhere that running was a great stress reliever, and so she wanted to give it a try.
"Hmm," she thought to herself, circling around her room. "Where did I put my sneakers?" She opened her closet, which was surprisingly messy, and she ransacked it for a shoebox that she knew was in there. After a few minutes of searching, she pulled out a box that was labeled "Asics." Jinx remembered that she stole a pair of sneakers from a running store the last time the Hive Five robbed the mall. They were black and pink, which was a perfect color combination for the teenage witch. She laced up her sneakers and walked out of headquarters. Then, she ran down the same street that she had walked on last night.
The street was far busier than it was six hours ago, but Jinx continued running. No one on the street recognized her anyway. They were too involved with their own personal matters to notice the young criminal running by. She was focused on her steady breathing rate, making sure that it was rhythmic and timed. She felt it was calming. Then, everything Kid Flash, or whoever he was, said last night came back into her head. "This is ridiculous," she thought to herself. "I swear, he's up to something. I have no idea what…but it's perplexing. No one goes from hero to villain in two hours. No one should even be going from hero to villain, unless he was completely fed up with the people around him always asking him for help. But then again, the whole reason he became a hero was to help people, wasn't it? He doesn't seem the type to go back on his word."
As these thoughts and many others crossed her mind, Jinx decided that she should head back to headquarters to get a bite to eat before Mammoth cleared out the fridge again. When she finally stopped in front of headquarters, she felt unusually content. The endorphins were rushing throughout her body. "So this is what Kid Flash feels after a run," she thought to herself. "This is great. I could go another mile…which explains why the kid never stops running, I guess."
"Are we going to pull off the robbery this time, guys?" Jinx asked the other members of the Hive Five cautiously, as if at any moment, the Teen Titans or the police would spring out of nowhere and catch them as they stood outside Mayya's Jewelry Store.
"Yeah, yeah, we'll do it," Gizmo responded, crossing his arms in annoyance.
"Assume normal positions," Jinx began, "except Kyd Wykkyd and See-More should change positions. I'd have rather See-More be on the lookout. Is that okay with you, Wykkyd?" Kyd Wykkyd nodded in response.
The Hive Five made their way to the roof of the jewelry store (transportation was provided by Kyd Wykkyd's flying). They landed on the roof and Mammoth proceeded to punch a hole in the ceiling. The hole was large enough for each member to go through. Gizmo proceeded to drill a hole in the next layer under the roof, which was most likely connected to the ceiling of the store. Eventually, the hole was made and Jinx jumped down, scanning the room and eliminating all security devices.
"Hive Five; rob 'em blind!" Jinx shouted. Billy Numerous divided into four people and each ran to a corner of the store, beginning to loot what they could. Gizmo went over to the cash register and cleaned it out, muttering something about crummy idiots keeping their register full at night. Mammoth tried seeing how many containers of jewels he could balance on forehead with his head tilted back, and then stopped once about twenty containers fell on his head. Kyd Wykkyd wandered around the store, looking for the most expensive items and then reached his hand down through the glass separating him from the merchandise, and grabbed the items he wanted. Jinx simply stood there and observed the break-in, not entirely interested in a particular item.
Minutes later, what felt like a powerful gust of wind entered the store. It picked up every piece of jewelry in the store that the Hive Five hadn't gotten their hands on, and the ones that they were holding. It stopped just as it was about to exit the store, and the Hive Five saw the boy who used to be Kid Flash.
"What the—" Gizmo started. "Who are you!"
"Impulse," the figure responded. "Like the name?"
"He sounds an awful lot like that Kid Flash guy," Billy thought aloud.
"That's because he is," Jinx stated sternly. "What are you doing here?"
"Making some extra cash," Impulse said, grinning and holding up a sack filled with jewels.
"This…was our robbery," Jinx declared.
"What, you criminals have laws saying that whoever gets there first gets to do the robbery?"
"No, but—" Jinx was cut off.
"I say whoever can perform the robbery better should be able to do the robbery, and I've seen you guys in action before. There's no way you could do this better than I could. And so I'll be on my way. Bye!" Impulse sped off.
"The nerve of that guy," Jinx thought to herself, gritting her teeth. See-More entered the jewelry store. He looked around.
"Wow, you guys really cleared this place out."
"It wasn't us," Kyd Wykkyd said.
"Wait, then…that blur I saw, was that—"
"Yeah," Gizmo said, crossing his arms in disgust. "Except the crud-muncher's a bad guy now, so he's robbing our break-ins."
"That's…not right."
"At least Gizmo cleared out the register," Mammoth said, a dopey smile on his face. "You know, we could actually buy ourselves a lot of tacos with this cash."
"What's the point of buying? Just go rob the taco stand," Jinx sighed wistfully.
"Now that's a good robbery!" a Billy chimed in. "Let's go!"
The other guys nodded in agreement. Jinx was staring at the empty jewelry store. "Jinx, you okay?" See-More asked.
"Yeah, See-More…I'm fine," she lied. "You guys go on ahead. I don't feel much up for it. Think you could save me a taco?"
"Sure, no problem," he said, walking to the exit. "All right, well, we'll see you later."
"Bye."
"All right," Jinx thought, while walking back to headquarters. "He was obviously doing that to get on my nerves, otherwise he would've picked a different jewelry store to rob. I mean, what are the odds that we pick the same store to hit in a night? Does he not know the twenty other jewelry stores in a five mile radius?"
In about twenty minutes, she was inside headquarters. She turned on the news and sat on a couch, wondering if anyone else had noticed Impulse. Her jaw dropped when the main story came on.
"Hi, I'm Mary Wolfram, and this is the Channel six news. Our top story tonight: Impulse, a speedy criminal not to be taken lightly. He has already pulled twelve heists in Jump and Steel City alone. He has also committed over thirty crimes in Paris, London, and Beijing within the past couple of days. There will be a reward for whoever catches this criminal, but as of now, the government is meeting with the police to decide on the amount, but it is likely to be over a quarter of a million dollars."
Jinx couldn't believe it. The news switched to a different story, but she wished they would've talked about him more. It just wasn't right. Impulse, huh? It did sound evil, she'd give him that. Surprisingly, the news didn't even mention Impulse's relation to Kid Flash. Did they not think the two were connected, even though they were the same weight, height, and person? "Of course," she thought to herself. "Leave it to the people to not understand when one person can't be found, but someone incredibly similar to them is out in the open." It was like that with Superman and Spiderman, and people never really knew where on earth Clark Kent and Peter Parker went once the heroes showed up. Maybe they'd figure it out one day.
Jinx didn't really believe herself with that statement. She thought people were generally rather slow.
