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 5: Speedster Keep Away

I could feel the lightning course through my body as I let go of the leash that I've had on my speed for years. My breathing became easier as I kicked myself into higher and higher gears, feeling the delicious release of running again. I heard the boom when I passed the speed of sound, but I kept running, really cutting loose. The electricity that came off of my body kept arching to the lightning rods that were around me as I became a mere yellow and red blur on the heavy-duty treadmill. I could hear Teague and the Titans shouting in the control room for me to go faster, faster, FASTER.

I kicked it into high gear; the electricity from me flew everywhere in the room; the lightning rods couldn't quite keep up with the amount I was generating. As I hit 9/10ths the way to the speed of light, a feeling caught my attention. There was a strange uneasiness crawling through my body. Like something or someone was screaming desperately for me to stop; like the Speed Force itself was trying to get me to slow down. Without another thought, I leapt up, grabbing onto the bar that was above the treadmill and hung there, breathing deeply as the sensation subsided along with the static electricity I had been generating. Ethan's worried voice came through the speakers before Superboy opened the door and was at my side within a second. I must have been shaking a little on the bar because his arm was around my stomach not a moment later, easily supporting my weight and clearly worried that I might fall onto the still racing treadmill and go shooting across the room into the wall if my grip slipped.

"You alright?" I glanced back at him and looked down at the moving treadmill.

"Yeah, I think so. I just haven't gone that fast in a long time." When I let go of the bar, Superboy floated us down to the floor. I had to reassure the others a few more times and suffer through Ethan and Teague's physical exam before everyone relaxed. Ethan gave me a probing look as I walked past him with Teague and Andrew while I rolled my shoulders, still a little uneasy at the echoes of the sensation that came from the Speed Force.

Teague was called back to the Watchtower later that day because of another Leaguer I hadn't met named The Animal. Apparently, Teague hadn't checked in with the League for over a week, and they'd become suspicious. Both he and I were busted as soon as The Animal silently walked into the Tower's living room where Teague, Andrew, Seth, and I were playing a video game out of costume; yelling and shoving to make each other mess up. Before any of us knew it, five Leaguers, including a very pissed-off Batman, were standing behind the couch. Luckily, Teague somehow convinced the League not to put me under again and he returned during our dinner of pizza and soda.

Over the next three days, Green Lantern and the Titans put me back on the treadmill four times, twice under the supervision of Batman, who kept his eyes glued to the consoles the whole time. That horrible feeling that something was off with the Speed Force came back every time. The last time I'd been on the treadmill, I tried to go past the feeling, getting only 100 mph away from the speed of light when my right leg seized up; I barely managed to leap for the bar, literally hanging by one hand's fingers. Wanda had her arms around my middle within two seconds, keeping me from falling. Needless to say, the door had to be replaced since she had to go THROUGH it to get to me in time, so they couldn't put me on the treadmill anymore until the door was fixed.

That was six hours ago. Now? Teague and I were sprawled on the huge couch, snacks and wrappers littered everywhere around us as the action movie we'd put in an hour ago got to a good car chase. No one else was with us since Batman left and the Titans had gotten an alert over an hour ago right at sun set. Before the best gunfight/car chase started, I hopped to my feet, going to grab another 2-liter of soda since Teague dared me to chug the last one.

"Teague, pause it, man! I paused it for you earlier!" He groped for the remote in the wrappers on the couch as I opened the second fridge that held the drinks. As soon as I got the soda and shut the refrigerator door, the television and all the lights went out. For a second, the only light in the room was the weak moonlight filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the colossal-screen television before Teague's ring lit up. He looked over the back of the couch at me.

"What did you do, Nick?" I held up the 2-liter of soda along with my hands.

"I didn't do it, man. Maybe Ethan forgot to pay the bill." I saw his eye-roll before he got off the couch, walking towards me as his costume crawled along his body from his ring. "Do you think a fuse blew?"

"Not likely. Last I heard, the Tower hadn't used fuses for the last fifty years. Maybe the core needs to be replaced. Do you know where it is?" I shrugged, clueless as Green Lantern walked towards the door. He had to crank open the normally-sliding door with a hidden latch before walking into the pitch-black hallway. "There has to be some stairs or something that leads down."

"Down?" I was right behind him as his ring came up with a green blueprint of the Tower that we both looked over.

"Yep. Down. It's in an underground level. If I'm looking at this right, there should be a door to the stairs a few feet to our right." I kept close to his back since I didn't have night-vision. Two minutes and a costume change later, I looked down the middle of a very long winding staircase. Green Lantern floated up into the air above the black abyss as I looked down at the darkness uncertainly.

"How am I gonna – wha!" I was lifted into the air and to his side before I could finish my sentence. "Ju-just don't drop me! You know speedsters can't fly." He and I sank down the gap between the staircases.

"Just calm down and enjoy the ride." The green blueprint came up between us again, tracking our slow progress as we sank lower and lower down the Tower. We were only halfway down when Green Lantern stopped us in midair, looking up with narrowed eyes. I looked up and then back at him in confusion.

"What?"

"I thought I heard something."

"Dude, don't make me paranoid." He held up his hand to get me to be quiet as a strange clanging echo sounded down the stairwell and I looked up as some dust came floating down at us. "Whaa-what was that?"

Green Lantern floated us onto the closest stairs as an echoing bang came from below us. It sounded like one of the doors were forced open so hard that it slammed back against the metal wall. Dimming the light significantly, Lantern and I held our breaths, trying to listen for other sounds. It took a few moments until we heard the faint sounds of footsteps and whispered voices on the stairs coming from above and below us. Trying not to make a sound, both of us went for the nearest door, getting out of the stairwell and down the newer hallway as quickly as we could. I couldn't help but look at Green Lantern's grave expression as he stopped and leaned against the wall, keeping his eyes trained on the corner we just came around.

"GL?" He didn't look at me but his hand slowly crept up to his ear. "You don't think..." Pressing his comm-link, he glanced at me before looking back at where we'd just come from.

"Green Lantern to Watchtower. I've got a situation in Titans Tower." He paused for a few seconds. "Yeah, they're here. The electricity is out...he's here with me but this is isn't gonna be easy to get out of." I turned my back on him and reached for my own comm-link.

"Kid Flash to Teen Titans. Where are you guys?" Splice answered.

"We're kind-of in the middle of a chase here. Have a problem?" I leaned on the wall next to the softly glowing Leaguer.

"You could say that. I think the Tower's been infiltrated. The power's out and Green Lantern and I are stuck in the middle levels."

"Affirmative. I can see the Tower now from a distance and...there's some sort of ship hovering near it. Not to mention a bunch of other smaller craft." He paused a moment. "We're splitting up. Hang tight to Lantern until we get there." Green Lantern lifted me off the floor with his bubble construct as he started flying down the hallway.

"Window. Window. Need a window." I could feel the warmth of the green shield as he towed me behind him while he flew down the corridor looking for a way out of the Tower. "League's on the way but it might take about twenty minutes for them to get here since the Zeta's out in the Tower." He started wrenching open doors.

"Twenty minutes!? Do you know how long that is!?"

"Yeah, but don't remind me." As he pried open another door, something pinged off of the shield surrounding me, landing on the floor. I got a glimpse of the dart before Green Lantern took off down the hallway, keeping me close behind him.

We flew straight through a group of black-clad soldiers that were just down the hall from us, knocking them askew as a door blasted off its hinges ahead of us. Green Lantern barreled through the destroyed door with me still close behind him. Easily getting through the men on the other side of the destroyed door, we entered another stairwell and shot straight up, hearing several pings against the green shield as darts were shot from all angles. I could hear and see flashes of men shouting all around the stairwell as we streaked past them, heading for the roof. When we were only five floors away from getting out, a nauseatingly familiar sound started bouncing throughout the whole stairwell. The green around me faltered as my head spun from the high pitch. Landing on one of the top floor stairwells, the shield around me disappeared as both Green Lantern and I fell to our knees, clutching our ears.

"What is...that screeching!?"

Because he couldn't concentrate from the mind-numbing sound, the green light from Green Lantern's ring surrounded him in a protective shield, but left me completely unprotected. I could hear people's shouts echoing off the walls as I felt the tell-tale sting of a tranquilizer dart hit my left shoulder. I groaned, as I felt Green Lantern grab my wrist, but his grip slipped when I fell to my side on the stairs. Another dart hit me in the back as my body got heavier and heavier.

"Lantern..." I reached pathetically for him as my eyes fogged over. Someone grabbed my arm and flipped me onto my stomach, tying my arms securely behind my back and tying my ankles together before lifting me off the stairs, taking me away from the green glow. Losing consciousness as I was tossed over someone's shoulder, the last thing I heard was Green Lantern yelling for me before the tranquilizer dragged me under.

In the few minutes I was out, all hell had broken loose in the air surrounding the Tower. My eyes opened as the guy that had me over his shoulder ran for a small ship hovering on the side of Titans Tower while explosions were going off in the air all around us. He was only ten feet from the aircraft when I started violently vibrating, making him vibrate and trip. After dropping me a few feet from the edge of the roof, the guy's staggering momentum sent him barreling into the waiting ship. Before I could find my way out of the bindings that held my arms and legs together, a blue-clad arm had me around my middle and I soared through the air. I got a glimpse of heat-vision as my new captor destroyed a ship in his path.

"Are you alright, KF?" Superboy kept a good grip on me as my wrists and ankles vibrated free of the restraints. A dizzying sensation came over me as I saw how high we were.

"I'd feel better on the ground!" He dodged an oncoming hover-bike.

"That's not exactly an option right now. We – gah!" An explosion blasted the two of us apart, sending me in an opposite direction from Superboy.

Falling about thirty feet, I slammed onto the hood of a hover-car, knocking the wind out of me. Groaning as I tried to fill my lungs again, someone grabbed my ankle and started to pull me towards the inside of the vehicle where a few soldiers yelled through headsets. As I took one narrowed look at the soldier that had me, I kicked him in the face with my other foot before I flipped onto my stomach and vibrated my arms into the hood of their car, starting to yank wires out of the engine. It worked as the car started losing altitude but that didn't stop another one from swooping in and smashing into the one I was riding on. I leaped off of the vehicle a millisecond before they collided and fell fifty feet, spotting another enemy vehicle below me that saw me coming. Before I landed on the hover car's roof, Wonder Girl swooped in and caught me in midair, flying away with three hover-cars and two small ships in hot pursuit.

"Hold on!" She shot down for the water with me hanging onto her arm for dear life, swooping past ships of all sizes that were doing their best to take down Superboy and Wonder Girl to get to me. On the way down, I got a glimpse of a green construct, which meant Green Lantern was back in the fight.

We were only thirty-five feet above the water when a ship slammed into the two of us. Wonder Girl took the brunt of the collision, but I was thrown into the air and a few seconds later, hit the water hard enough to stun me. Floating on my back with pins and needles going up and down my limbs, I saw Wonder Girl forty feet above me take a hit before a rebreather was put over my mouth and I was pulled ten feet under the water. Aqualad's smiling face came into my line of sight before a huge splash came from the surface of the water above us. Getting me out of the way of the sinking hover-car, Aqualad kept a good grip around my chest as he swam through the water, heading for shore.

We emerged underneath a bunch of docks half a mile from the aerial battle that was still raging. As Aqualad kept an arm around my torso to keep me afloat, I took off the rebreather and gulped in air, still feeling a little woozy from the fall into the water and the recent game of speedster keep away. Treading closer to a low dock, I heard Aqualad quietly call out to my cousin.

"Robin, I've got him. He's okay." I wouldn't say okay exactly. My head's pounding out my heartbeat from smacking the water wrong and my back's sore from hitting that one hover-car's hood. I heard Robin only a few feet ahead of us.

"Is he awake?" I looked up to see his chest, head, and arms hanging off of a dock five feet above the water, reaching down for us.

"Yeah, I'm awake. A little beat-up though." A relieved smile crawled up his face as Aqualad stopped right underneath him, letting me reach up to grab one of his outstretched arms. Robin only got me a little out of the water with one arm as he reached with his other arm for something on the dock. My waist and legs were still in the water when he pulled out the injection gun, putting it to my forearm in his grip. "Wh-what are you doing!?" I thrashed once before Aqualad grabbed onto my lower body as Robin gave me an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, Kid Flash. It's the League's orders." He shot the speedster sedative into my forearm as I struggled against his grip, trying to get him to drop me back into the water but I didn't last five seconds as the sedatives did their job. I took one more look into Robin's deeply troubled face before I blacked out, hanging helplessly between people I thought were my friends.

Chapter 5 End

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