A/N: This Chapter lets you know how Bart saved Raven and found out his true power. It's very action based.
My mind transported me back to the day I met Raven. So to avoid a lot of unnecessary time wasting here I'm going to go ahead and give you a short version of what happened after we stopped the reach invasion, Gamma team's investigation into Vandal Savage revealed that he was working with Darkseid to lead an invasion on earth.
I'd never heard of Darkseid before, but evidently, the League had, when we found out he was coming it was too late, and we only had a few hours to get ready for the invasion. Darkseid arrived through something called a boom tube and a massive battle started in the heart of Metropolis. During the battle, Raven appeared with 2 other heroes, at the time I only knew them as an alien girl from a planet called Tamaran who called herself Starfire and a half-human half-robot guy who called himself Cyborg. At the time 3 heroes appearing and offering to help was a blessing, and sure did help in the battle.
The battle raged on for hours, and even with our super stamina Barry and I were getting a little out of breath, and everyone was losing the will to fight on, so many para-demons which I learnt were the names of the so-called God of Apokolips's henchman were appearing out of the boom tubes. Every time we wiped one wave out, another came, there was no end to them. Even as I was exhausted I kept glancing over at Raven to see if she was ok, A lot of the time I didn't have to worry, her powers were amazing! She had great but also destructive powers. Still one thing happened and that one thing was our first real meeting, during the battle as I happened to glance over at Raven she was distracted by attacking a gang of para-demons and didn't notice that the car next to her was about to explode, as it did the explosion catapulted Raven through the air, with my mind working at light speed, my perception of time slowed as I realised Raven was about to get speared by a re-enforcing bar sticking out of some debris. I ran towards her knocking para-demons out of the way as I went, like a pinball rebounding off of the bumpers, I finally knocked the ones on my way down and there was nothing in my way, I dived once I got close enough and managed to save Raven from getting speared just in time, time returned to normal and I saw the shock on Raven's face as to her, she had been flying through the air one second and was now on the floor with me above her the next. Of course during the next few moments she noticed how I'd saved her from being impaled by the steel bar and was about to open her mouth when I held up a hand to stop her, at that point, there was no time for pleasantries.
I ran towards another gang off para-demons knocking them down as easily as the last ones, as I looked around for more, I could see Darkseid was starting to win in his fight against the big players, Superman, Superboy and the Lanterns, Wonder Woman, and all the other powerhouses who could have even a hope of hurting him. I touched my earpiece which connected me to Barry's, before I could say anything I heard Barry's voice in my ear, "Kid, M'gaan, and J'onn are pushing the minds to the limits, keeping us all in telepathic contact, the least you could do is remember to use it and not contact me over radio!" Barry was being unusually blunt and cold, but given the stress of the situation I forgave him, I spoke back in super speed knowing he was the only one who could understand. "I know Barry, but I'm going to talk at super speed to save time, I thought that given the fact they don't think at super speed like you and I it'd put too much stress on their minds, maybe put them in a coma I don't know, anyway, we're losing this battle but I got a plan, Barry. Listen up." Barry responded instantly, "Let's hear it." Was all he said in response. I started to tell him my plan "Right, you already know at our top speed we have the punching power equal to the total density of a white dwarf star. The average density of a white dwarf star is a million times that of our Sun right?, so the Sun's got a density of..." I couldn't actually do the math I just knew it was a hell of a lot so I was asking Barry, he cut me off and replied "I knew the answer before you finished kid, and I know what you're saying we, at our top speed, have the punching power of one octillion, nine hundred eighty-nine septillions, ninety-nine sextillions, nine hundred ninety-nine quintillions, nine hundred ninety-nine quadrillions, nine hundred ninety-nine trillion and nine hundred forty billion tonnes. If you're thinking of hitting Darkseid with that much power together, we'd firstly, shatter our hands even with our speed aura protecting us and more importantly that amount of power is enough force to wipe out all life on Earth." Barry replied. I was having a hard time listening and fighting off para-demons at the same time, but I knew Barry was right. With all the stress I wasn't thinking straight. "Ok here's another plan, regular punches, if we get close enough to Darkseid to weaken him with a whole bunch of punches that could work right? My thinking is this, say were throwing punches at the speed of light, then on average we're landing a single punch every nanosecond. In one second, we'd have both punched him approximately one billion times. Even he can't stand up to that surely?" I said, after a few seconds of silence Barry responded "Ok Bart, it's worth a shot." So as soon as Barry and I saw an opening we did just that. Delivering that amount of punches all at once had completely depleted the last of both of mine and Barry's stamina. It had to have worked. It had to.
Darkseid was visibly hurt by it as he staggered back a few feet and fell to one knee, but even our punches stopped him for only a moment. He looked up and I could see his eyes glowing red, I couldn't let him hurt anyone else, suddenly, from somewhere unknown to me, I caught a second wind. A sudden burst of energy shot through my entire body like electricity. I ran at Darkseid as fast as I could and bashed into him, I looked up expecting a punch that would kill me from Darkseid, only to see him floating away into a red/yellowish void with lightning shooting off everywhere, where the hell was I? All I knew was that I was compelled to keep running, and so I ran, with this incredible feeling, being full of energy and being so alert, blood pumping through my veins and all the while I wasn't slowing down or getting tired, but just the opposite, more and more pure energy rippled throughout my body. I starred running at Darkseid and hitting him over and over, again and again. I'd probably delivered about 4 billion punches and was still ready to deliver more even though I'd completely skinned my knuckles away to the bone from hitting him so much. I blocked out the pain, I'd power on through. My hands would heal in a few moments before I'd start stripping away the flesh again when I'd deliver another barrage of punches. I was not letting Darkseid hurt anyone else that I cared about.
My heart was beating incredibly fast, even for me. I felt as if it was going to burst through my chest. This feeling full of energy and speed pulsing through out my veins and all my muscles, even every cell was starting to become too much. I felt as if my body was going to explode from this incredible overload of energy. I think I'm going to die! It was at this moment, the moment where I thought I was going to literally explode, when I realized this wasn't earth anymore. This was some other dimension, I could hit Darkseid with the punch Barry and I spoke about, since I was going to die anyway, why not? I hit Darkseid hard enough to knock him back a good distance, and as my body felt like it was on fire, and about to burst, it overloaded me with pure speed and that was what enabled me to get to and beyond my top speed, and I hit him with that punch, I saw his jaw crumble away as I hit him, and at reaching beyond what was thought to be my top speed we shot back onto the battlefield.
We were back and I felt normal again. I didn't feel ready to explode anymore, we were back on earth and just a few feet away from where I'd been before I hit Darkseid into that void, or other dimension. Everyone looked at me shocked. I was in shock at what had just happened. I looked down to my hand, it was a crumpled mess, as was my arm. How I'd survived a punch like that was unknown to me. But this wasn't the time or place and everyone re-focused. I ran back to Barry's side, we gave each other a 'we need to talk' look. Darkseid slowly struggled back to his feet, I couldn't believe it, this guy was seemingly indestructible. He looked at Barry and I and fired lasers from his eyes at us, we sped off into the distance, weaving around cars, tree's buildings, but the beams were still following us, I didn't know what happened if they hit Barry and I but I knew it wasn't good. I was trying to ignore the searing pain in my arm as it tried to heal itself when Barry's voice came into my ear piece, once again at super speed. "Bart these lasers are omega beams, they'll follow us where ever we run, and if they hit us, we're history but I'm thinking, what if we run at Darkseid and phase through him, the beams may just hit him instead, it's a risk but we don't have much choice." I couldn't think of anything else and that burst of energy I had was gone, this one last attack was our only option. "Ok Barry, let's do it!" We made a sharp U-turn and ran back towards Darkseid, seeing the other heroes relentlessly battle on against him inspired me to keep fighting, even though my legs wanted to give in and my arm still hurt so bad that I'd rather amputate it, Barry and I managed to make our bodies continue and we were able to run at him and phase through him, the omega beams hitting him and extremely damaging him. We finally fell to our knee's thoroughly and completely exhausted and Superman and Superboy delivered the finishing blows, that made Darkseid finally retreat.
At the watch tower everyone who had helped was called for a de-briefing, Raven, Starfire and Cyborg were called there too. The de-briefing went on for several hours, and we talked about what happened with me when I hit Darkseid into the void, and dubbed the void I went into the 'speed force'. It was revealed I could actually be much more powerful than any speedster known to man, even more powerful than Barry. My arm had luckily healed itself correctly even though it still ached and felt a bit stiff, but that would pass soon.
Raven and the others introduced themselves and after it was decided there'd be a new team called the Titans and I was to be on it along with Tim, Cassie, Beast Boy, Cyborg Starfire and Raven. It was soon after that when I was sitting alone trying to make sense of everything when Raven approached and we finally had our first words together. "Thanks for saving my life Kid Flash." Raven said, it was the first time I'd heard her emotionless voice and it made me think she didn't care, but I soon learnt that was just Raven. "Don't mention it, and please call me Bart." I replied, Raven smiled, which I soon learnt she doesn't do often. "Well, thanks anyway Bart, I'm Raven. But my civilian name is Rachel Roth. You can call me either. Is there anything I can do to re-pay you?" Raven asked me, I instantly knew the answer "Just let us be friends, talk to each other when we need too, hang out, how about that?" I suggested. Raven sighed, "I don't like mixing with people, but fine, I guess I owe you." She replied.
That was the start of our friendship I suppose. Soon she became more comfortable with me, we ended up spending a lot of time togehter and in a few months we were best friends, comfortable enough to lie in the same bed with and not be too annoyed that I'd woken her up so early. Which brought me back to the present time.