Disclaimer: I do not own any of the superhero legacies or code names that are mentioned at any time in this story, DC Comics does. Any character that is not in DC I have made up so please do not steal them without permission from me. All characters and situations are fictitious. Scenarios in this story (to my knowledge) have not been used in any run of DC Comics. I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1: The Boy and The Speedster

Six months later.

They towered over me. My Speedster relatives were whispering to each other and looking down in the hole I'd fallen into. I tried scrambling up the crumbling side again, but I fell back down as everyone above me laughed and whispered to each other. No one was even bothering to lend me a hand.

Lightning threaded through the sky above all of us as I looked down to see two black, clawed hands burst through the dirt at my feet, grabbing my arms. Unable to move, I looked back up at my relatives again to see that they'd been replaced by six people wearing past Flash costumes. All of them held out their gloved hands to help me. The moment they started to reach for me, the clawed hands started dragging me down into the dirt at the bottom of the hole. Hot, putrid breath was on the back of my neck, and I knew then what had me in its deadly grasp. I didn't dare look behind me and kept my eyes on the Flashes still trying to reach for me.

"Nick?"

The dirt was reaching my neck.

"Nick, wake up."

I took my last breath as I was pulled under.

"Nick, please wake up!"

My eyes snapped open to darkness as I gasped for breath. Someone was shaking me as I lay in my bed.

"Emily? What are..." I groped for the light next to my bed, turning it on and squinting in the brightness at my little costumed cousin. She looked relieved that I woke up. That's when I noticed the tears running down her cheeks. "Hey, what's wrong Imp?"

"I can't find them, Nick. Any of them." Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I mumbled a little to myself about her lack of details.

"Who can't you find? Your team?"

"The other Speedsters. Even my dad and Uncle Kevin are missing. I've been around the world four times to look for them all. You're the only one I found." That woke me up.

"Did you check with any of their teams?" She nodded as I got out of bed, grabbing a shirt to put on over my undershirt and sweatpants. "And what did they say?"

"All of them tried to capture me. They said it was for my own good." I trot down the hallway in my socks to my father's bedroom with Impulse right behind me. "Nick, what's going on? Are we the last of the Speedsters?"

"No, Imp. We're not the last Speedsters. I just need to check..." My father's bed was empty and I didn't hear anyone thumping around downstairs like he normally did when he was up during the night. A few beeps came from his closed closet and Impulse streaked to the door, opening it. After moving Impulse out of the way, I could tell the beeping was coming from the back wall of his small closet. Impulse crouched next to me.

"Why is the wall beeping?"

"I dunno. Check the other side of this wall. WITHOUT destroying something!" She zipped out of the room and was back within a second.

"It's the shower, but I didn't hear it beep." There was no crack or opening at the back of the closet, so I did something I haven't done in years. Vibrating my arm, I reached through the wall for whatever it was. "You can do that?"

"Yeah. I haven't done it in a long time though. I'm guessing you can't?" She shrugged as I kept vibrating the part of my arm still in the wall and let my hand become solid to feel for what was in the space. It took me a minute, but I finally pulled out an old Flash comm-link. We both peered at it before Impulse looked at me.

"Are you gonna answer it?"

"Imp, you know I'm not part of the hero community anymore. For all I know they'd want to talk to you." She grabbed my arm, peering up at me with her big blue eyes.

"But they still know you're a Speedster too." A car's headlights illuminated the room as it pulled into the driveway, stopping our conversation. Impulse's face lit up happily as I saw the time on my father's bedside table. "Maybe it's Uncle Kevin coming home!"

"Impulse, wait!" She was out the bedroom door and down the stairs to the front door. Before she could wrench it open, I grabbed her and pulled her farther back into the house. "That's not my father. He didn't take his car when he left this morning."

Someone knocked hard on the front door, ringing the doorbell not a second after. I kept my hand on Impulse's arm as I got my shoes on, hoping they'd last the short trip to where I knew she'd be safe. Whoever was at the front door knocked so hard I heard the doorjamb crack before I unlocked and opened the kitchen door into the backyard. Taking a look around as I led her through the backyard, I got a glimpse of two shadows vaulting over the front of the fence before I scooped Impulse up and vibrated through the back of the fence with her, taking off as soon as I cleared it.

I forgot how it felt to really run. It's a release for a Speedster to be able to stretch their legs after denying themselves the pleasure for so long. The wind rushing around me and the glimpses of things I passed told me I was almost to my destination within three seconds. Stopping on a dime at the bottom steps, I put Impulse down as I looked up at the place I'd been avoiding ever since my mother died. My cousin leaped up the steps in glee.

"We're staying here? Really? Can I see if I'm in the Impulse wing yet? Can I? Can I?" Taking a deep breath, I reluctantly went up the steps of Central City's Flash Museum, watching Impulse zip around the closest doors and windows. "They're locked! Are you sure we can be here?"

"Yes, we can. There's a special room only a very few Speedsters know about and can get into. I'm one of them. Hop up, Imp." I kneeled so she could jump onto my back before I vibrated both of us through one of the locked doors.

Going through the dark halls full of Flash memorabilia was eerie. It became even more chilling as I walked through the Rogues' Gallery to the spot my father took me to when I first became Impulse. I stared at the Flash symbol painted expertly on the villain vault behind bullet-proof glass. This big bad boy held all the deadlier weapons of the Flash's Rogues no one wanted anyone to ever use again. The door and walls were over four feet thick and had six inches of lead shielding on the inside.

What no one outside my family ever knew about was the small living space built on the other side of the safe. A previous Flash had it installed a very long time ago for emergencies and it had its own safety features built-in including lead-lined two-foot thick concrete with only vents and no doors leading into it. There was only one way to get in and that was to vibrate through all the layers. Nowadays, only a Speedster could get in or out.

"Close your eyes, Impulse. I'd rather you not see what's in the vault." She buried her face into the back of my neck, hanging onto me as I vibrated and stepped forward through the bulletproof glass and into the door.

It didn't take me 10 seconds to get all the way through to the emergency living room that lit up when I stopped vibrating. It was nicely decorated, though some of the furniture could have been updated from last century to this century. There were a few pictures hanging on the walls and the usual furniture pieces; couch, lounge chair, kitchen table, kitchen chairs, a dresser, and even a queen-sized bed. Someone in the past had gone to great lengths to make it feel like a home and not like a doorless prison cell. I was thankful about that as Impulse took her cowl off and leaped up onto the bed, bouncing to see how soft it was.

"Why didn't daddy ever tell me about this place?" I took off my already ruined shoes and stretched out on the couch, yawning. I wasn't used to using my powers so much.

"He may not have been told about it since he doesn't have the ability to vibrate through things. Try and get some sleep Emily, it's about 1:30 in the morning." She came over to the couch.

"What if bad people track us here?"

"They won't. And even if they did, they wouldn't be able to get in this room. It's even bomb-proofed. Don't worry about it." She bit her lip, not convinced. "Look, if I take a look around the building for anything suspicious, will you get ready for bed?" Emily nodded as I got back up and walked to the wall leading to the vault and the rest of the museum. "I'll be back in about ten minutes."

"Ten minutes? Why so long?"

"I need to find some shoes and see if I can find some food." I vibrated back into the museum and headed for the Kid Flash wing to find a temporary shoe solution. There were several types of Speedster shoes to choose from, but I didn't want to use them because all of the shoes came with the costumes. But if someone really did come looking for my cousin, I would be discovered too. I'd been drilled in secret identities all my life and if I was found out to be a Speedster, there would be no way of going back to my normal teenage life.

Passing over the newer versions, I chose one of the first Kid Flash costumes I thought looked more comfortable without all the (pardon the pun) flashiness of the newer versions. It belonged to Bart Allen before he became the Flash. I carefully took the ring out of its case and triggered the hidden compartment to release the costume. As if it were still new, the suit popped out of the ring, expanding instantly in the air like it was supposed to. I quickly changed into it, feeling it conform to my body, but kept the mask off for now. My great somethings grandfather must have been a little shorter than me and his feet were a bit bigger. Stretching to test the fabric, thankfully it didn't rip anywhere and was still

willing to stretch each way I moved before I got a glimpse of myself in one of the display cases.

I never thought I'd be wearing a Speedster costume ever again; and yet here I was wearing the yellow and red of Kid Flash. If my father or friends saw me, they'd flip and probably say it was about time I stepped up to the Legacy. I kept telling myself I was only in this costume temporarily; maybe a day or so to make sure Emily was kept safe. Hopping a few times to test the shoes out, I went around the room once at a meandering 100 mph before I heard footsteps down the hall. In an instant, I had the cowl in place and all of my past training ran through my head as I silently streaked to the end of the hallway, carefully looking around the corner. A kid close to Emily's age was walking wide-eyed to the main Flash exhibits. As I followed him, he kept gently touching the glass displays that held any Speedster items as he went. Stopping to look up at a Wally West Flash statue, the boy sighed before I got right behind him with arms crossed, hoping my voice would come out authoritative.

"You're not supposed to be in here, kid." He jumped in surprise, whirling around and already sputtering an apology before actually looking up at me.

"I'm sorry! Please don't call the police on me! I-I wasn't going to steal anything. I just wanted to...to..." His eyes went wide as his eyesight went from my yellow boots all the way up to my masked face. "Y-you...you're...you're Kid Flash!" My hackles raised for a moment from being called Kid Flash but I decided to ignore it.

"And you're not supposed to be here at this hour. How did you get into the museum in the first place?" His eyes were still wide as he shoved his too-long black bangs away, tripping over his words.

"The...the curator leaves o-one of the windows unlocked during the night cause h-he knows a lot of us kids who look up to the Flash don't have...none of us have money. I'm sorry, but please don't kick me out! I love it here. I've come here every other night for the past two years!" And I've been avoiding this place for the last three years. The kid's big green eyes pleaded up at me from behind black bangs. "Coming to the Flash Museum is the only thing I have to look forward to anymore." I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not wanting to scare the kid.

"Your parents don't have the money to bring you or what?" His little face crumpled, looking to the marble floor.

"My mom and dad used to bring me here but...but they can't anymore." Cocking an eyebrow at him, I waited for him to continue. "They died two and a half years ago. A Rogue killed them during a robbery." I couldn't help but flinch. My father and uncle protected Central City and Keystone City, but my father always said it was much easier when I was running alongside them. He praised Emily for her guts in a fight, but she was never as fast as I was.

"I'm...I'm sorry to hear that, kid." He looked up at me in adoration.

"It's not your fault, Kid Flash. It was the Rogue's fault, and you fight the Rogues. That's why I look up to Speedsters. Especially the Flash." He looked up at the Wally West statue again. "I wish I were a Speedster. Then I could help people. Like you do."

"Be careful what you wish for, kid. It's not an easy life. We don't normally live very long." He looked back at me, but I was looking at the items in the room. I remember every detail my father and mother told me about the things in the place; every poster, display case, and statue. No matter what I did to forget them over the years, I still remembered them all.

"Kid Flash?" I looked down at him again. "Can...do you know any stories about the Flash? The curator's never here at night to tell any stories to me or anyone else that comes." I couldn't help but smile down at the kid who so plainly loved and looked up to the legacy I didn't want to be a part of. But just for this one night, I guess I could re-tell at least a few stories.

"Well..."

Chapter 1 End

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