Reset! - Chapter Eight

[randomality]

Summary: Faced with being shipped out to Denver to live with Jay Garrick after the disappearance of Max Mercury, Bart argues to remain in Manchester with Helen. Impulse begins to search for ways to save Max on his own and reaches out to friends and allies. AU.

Disclaimer: DC owns the DCU. Impulse created by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo.

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Reset! - Chapter Eight: Spiders and Butterflies

Hours later, the truck stopped at Louisiana State University. White Lightning handed Bart a pair of hundred dollar bills before he hopped out of the truck. "Here, use this to help get by. Take care, spitfire!"

Soon, the truck pulled away and left him alone on the college campus. He wandered around the grounds and oriented himself on the landscape. After asking a few tipsy students hanging out on the front porch of a house on the edge of campus, he got his directions towards Anita's street. After a near eternity walking along sidewalks under a dark sky, he found Anita's house. The lights were all off, but he approached the door and rung the doorbell anyways.

After ringing it a couple more times, the door finally opened to reveal a bedraggled Anita on the other side. Her purple eyes widened and she gasped when she saw her visitor. "Bart! What are you doing here?"

"I need help," he told her, "And you don't have a mentor who will snitch on me to Wally." Bart entered her house and plopped down on the couch. "Don't tell anyone I'm here, yet, okay?"

"That might be a little hard, mon," Anita warned, "Cassie and Cissie are here."

As if on cue, the two sleepy blonde girls appeared from the hallway. They stared at the wild-haired visitor. "Bart?"

Bart waved to them cheerfully. "Hiya."

"What's going on?" Anita sat beside him on the couch.

Cassie joined her, sitting on the other side of him. "Yeah, I thought you were going to stay home while that fake was running around."

Bart frowned and looked to his friends desperately. "Wally doesn't believe me and thinks I'm the one causing all the trouble, so he's gonna steal my speed. That's why I ran away. I don't want him to do that to me. But now I'm in even bigger trouble and I don't know how to fix it."

Anita tried to make sense of the deluge of words and sat down next to him on the couch. "Okay, what do you need help with?"

"Um..." He hadn't thought that far ahead. How could Anita help him? He knew that she could and that was all that had mattered until now.

She sighed, chuckled, and then shook her head. "Well, let's see what I can do. There's a fake running around as you and causing all this trouble? Do you know who he is or where he came from?"

Bart shook his head. "Nope. I don't know anything like that." He sat up and his golden eyes were wide. "Hey, d'ya think it's my evil clone?"

Anita grimaced and raised an eyebrow, "You have an evil clone?" When he nodded, she shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Well, I guess everyone has an evil clone these days." Still, there was something about this whole situation that bothered her, particularly with Bart on the run. "Isn't the Flash your mentor?"

Bart shrugged, "Which one?"

"The younger one? Is the older one actually your mentor?"

He shrugged again. "Jay's nice to me and he trains me after school and on weekends, but he's not like Max."

"Max?" That name sounded familiar when it came to Impulse.

"Max Mercury. He's my mentor, but now he's gone," Bart answered, "Sure, he's a cranky old guy, but he actually cares. He... He gave me a chance. Jay kinda does, but not the same way. He's got a lot of other stuff to take care of. Wally... Me and Wally never really got along good. Sometimes we're okay, but it only lasts for a little while, and then it's like I'm the biggest screw-up that ever screwed up and he's yelling at me and I can't do anything right. If Max was here, he'd believe me that I'm not the one running around and screwing up, and he would help me catch the fake. He would have a plan and everything."

Cissie's eyes widened in alarm. "What happened to Max?"

"Wait... What?" Anita sorted through the blur of words and names, trying to piece everything together. Unfortunately, she wasn't keen on speedster trivia. "Who's who?"

"Max Mercury is my mentor," Bart repeated, this time intentionally slower. "Jay is the first Flash, and Wally is the third. Wally's my cousin."

"Okay, I think I get that part now, but I'm still confused. You said your mentor's gone. What happened?" The girls listened as Bart recounted Max's possession by Rival and subsequent disappearance. When he finished, Anita pursed her lips in thought. "Just possession? Is that all? Oh, Bart... Why didn't you tell me about this before? Why didn't you say anything?"

Bart stared at her, and then gave a weak shrug. "I didn't think that you guys could help much. It's kinda a speedster thing."

"Bart, the moment it got into possession, it stopped being just a "speedster thing" and became something right up my alley."

He sat up and leaned towards her, hands on his knees. "You can help?"

She couldn't help but smile at his eager hope. "I think so. If you get Max to me, I can get Rival out."

"I don't know where Max is. Rival went into timestream. I don't even know when he is."

"Well, that makes it a little harder, but not impossible," she remarked, "I'll need to talk to the Loa. I won't be able to do it right this second, but once I get everything ready, I'll try to get some answers for you."

"Really? Thanks!" Bart squeezed her in an excited hug. "You're awesome!"

Anita pulled away, smiling. "No problem, Bart. I take it that you don't want anyone else to know you're here?"

"Not yet. If the Flash finds me, he'll just steal my speed. I won't be able to take on Rival without it." Leaning forward, he raised his thick eyebrows hopefully. "Can I stay here tonight?"

Anita chuckled and looked to the other girls, who nodded consent. "Sure, join the slumber party."

"We'll do your hair and everything," Cissie teased.

Cassie grinned and put her hands in the brown mop. "I'm thinking pigtails."

Some time later, Bart squirmed as Cissie put his hair up in a pair of pigtails. "This feels weird and you're taking forever."

"Almost done."

Cassie was looking at her cellphone after trying to call Robin. "Huh, I guess he's busy. I thought that night owl would still be up." Just then, her phone rang. "Oh, there he is. Hey, Rob. Look, I have an update for you."

"I have one for you, too." Robin's voice was more serious in tone than usual. "Bart's gone missing. Everyone's looking for him, but there's no trace. That doesn't bode well, considering the doppelganger. Speaking of, it turns out that Bart has a rock-solid alibi that cleared him."

"Really?"

"His foster-mother was with him when the fake was on the rampage," Robin informed.

"Bart's going to be happy to hear that he's been cleared."

There was a pause on the other side of the conversation. "Is it really him there?"

"I hope so. He came here looking for help on saving Max, his mentor. That doesn't strike me as much of a doppelganger thing."

"Why haven't you said anything?"

"He just showed up minutes ago," Cassie replied.

"So, you're sure that it's really him?"

Cassie looked to Bart, who was now trying to put Cissie's long hair in matching pigtails. The archer yelped, "Bart! Not like that! You're going to rip my hair out!"

"How do you do it, then?" Bart asked as he tugged at the elastics that held his hair in place. One of them slipped out and half of his hair fell back into its customary place.

"Hera, I wish I had my camera handy," Cassie muttered before answering to Robin, "Yeah, I think it's him. Of course, we've been fooled before."

"Don't let your guard down," Robin warned.

"I know." After hanging up, Cassie took Anita aside. "Is there anyway you can verify that he really is our Bart?" she asked in a whisper.

Anita thought about this for a moment. "He doesn't take well to my mind-control. It's really hit-and-miss with him. But... Yeah. Yeah, I think I can. You want this sooner than later?"

"Please."

Anita nodded and then disappeared from the room. Soon, she returned with a pair of scissors in her hands and approached Bart. "If I'm going to ask the Loa for you, I'm going to need something of you for them. Blood would be preferred, but hair would work. I only need a little bit."

"Okay. Are we gonna do it now?"

"Yeah, mon. Just don't move for a minute."

Bart held still just long enough for Anita to cut from his nape. "Got it," she told him. "I'll be back in a little while." With that, she entered the garage.

Remembering the last time Cassie saw one of Anita's rituals, she decided that it would be best to stay with Bart. Besides, she hadn't relayed the good news of his exoneration yet.

When Anita returned, she found all three guests watching the television. "Good news," she announced, "I got some clues on finding your mentor. I took notes on what I saw." She handed Bart a sheet of paper with hastily scribbled words.

Bart scanned the writing. "Old-style cars, Keystone Theater, "Bachelor's Affairs" showing... I don't get it. What is all this supposed to mean?"

"That's for you to figure out." Anita yawned. "I dunno about you all, but I'm ready to get some sleep. Cassie? You know that thing you were asking about? Verified yes, we got the real deal."

Cassie breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back on the couch. "Thanks, Anita. Hey, before you hit the sack, do you have any markers or something like that? I want to tag our Bart, in case we end up dealing with a mix up."

"Markers?" Anita thought about this for a moment. "I don't know if I have anything that will stay on. Everything I have now is either the non-toxic, water soluble stuff or the kind you don't put on skin if you can help it."

Cissie got up and found her backpack. "I might have just the thing. It's not markers, but it'll do the same job." From a folder, she pulled out a sheet with a couple of temporary transfer tattoos. "How about this?"

Cassie looked at the sheet. "Perfect!" She looked at the designs left on the sheet, a tribal rose and a tribal butterfly. Not exactly masculine designs, but there wasn't much of a choice. Besides, this was Bart. He wasn't as stuck on macho as Kon or even Robin was. "You already used one?"

Flipping up the back of her shirt, she turned around and showed off the tribal sunburst on her lower back. "I started out using these to try out different designs for the real thing, but I found that I kinda like changing them out. These sheet ones are cheaper than doing the airbrushed ones and they take a lot less time than henna."

"Cool." Cassie turned to Bart, "Well, it's not much a selection, but which one would you rather have?"

"The butterfly," he answered, "Are you going to put it on me?"

"That's the plan, sparky," Cissie answered on her way to heat up some water.

"Cool beans."

Cassie looked at the sheet and then to Bart again. "Where should we stick it? It might be a little hard to get to if we put it on his back, and then need to see it as proof. His costume doesn't exactly work like that."

Bart held out his forearms. "This is pretty easy to get to. You could put it on sideways, so it's all lengthwise. He held the underside of his forearm alongside the chosen design. "Like this. Would that work?"

Cassie nodded, "That'll work."

Anita yawned again. "I'll leave the rest to you all. Good night."

A short while later, Bart poked at the temporary tattoo on the underside of his forearm. Cissie put away the remaining design while she spoke, "It comes off with baby oil if you need to remove it before it wears off."

Cassie yawned and rubbed at her blurring eyes. "Okay, I can sleep a little easier now. If fact, that's what I'm going to do right now. Good night."

After she left the room, Cissie followed her. "Good night, Bart." She clicked off the lights as she passed them.

Bart stretched out on the couch and pulled the blanket that was draped over the back of it onto him. In the dim glow from the streetlights, he looked at the tribal butterfly on his arm and poked at it again. It felt weird on his skin.

The clock slowly ticked on and Bart could not sleep. He sat up and picked up the notes that Anita gave him. Nearby, her computer lay dormant. Glancing to the notes again, he got up and turned the machine on.

Under the glow from the monitor, he pulled up a search engine and stared at it. Now what? Normally, at this point in the game, someone would push him aside and take over on the information gathering. After all, he wasn't good at this sort of thing. He was told that over and over again. Glancing towards the hallway, he half expected one of the girls to come out and take over the investigation. When that didn't happen, he turned his focus back to the screen and the notes. He entered in the first clue and waited for the results page to load. Even high-speed internet was not fast enough. Wouldn't this be faster if he just raided the nearest library and read all of the books on every possible subject related to his search? How many books could he read in the time it took to load a webpage? He stared at the results page. This was going to be boring.

Hours later, the dawning twilight glowed softly and Bart smoothed out the page of notes that Anita gave him. He picked up a pen lying nearby and scribbled, "Keystone City, sometime after June 26, 1932." He looked down at the writing with satisfaction. He had an answer and he found it by himself. Almost, if he counted the head start Anita was able to get for him. Still, he was proud of this. Now all he needed was a way to go back in time and track down Rival. One that worked, that is. He recalled his less-than-stellar performances on the time treadmill that his grandfather built.

He looked to the door longingly. He wanted to go home now. How long had it been since he left? It felt like years. He wanted to see Helen and Dox again. His name was cleared now, so Wally wasn't going to try to hobble him, right? Everything was okay now, for the most part. There was still the fake to catch, but Wally was going to take care of that and he had the JLA on his side to help.

Picking up the pen one more time, he scrawled on the note page, "Went home. Thanks for everything. -- Bart"

The door clicked behind him and he unleashed the lightning he kept bottled in his veins. It felt so good to let loose that he oriented southward towards the gulf, just so he could rip the sound barrier a new one a few times over for fun without getting into much trouble.

He went supersonic over the waves, reveling in the sun rising faster over the horizon and the water feeling as solid as concrete under his feet. In the distance, he spotted a wall of water rising across his path. Was that the wake of another speedster? It sure looked like it. He curved his path to intercept the trailing edge of the wake and followed it over the sea. A speedster made this, Bart was sure of it now. Glancing down at the trail, he noticed something strange. There was more than one trail here. One that made the wake and a second following after it. Was Wally chasing the fake? Bart kicked up his speed, hoping to catch up.

He hit land and didn't slow in the slightest. Ahead, he could see the speedsters he tracked kicking up a dust storm. One was wearing the familiar white and red, the other a pattern of black and green. Bart's heart thumped in his chest and a chill coursed through his blood. Inertia was attacking the false Impulse. There was no slow motion between the two as they brutally fought.

The glint of metal in Inertia's hand caught Bart's attention and he strained to close the last steps between him and the interlocked battle. He heard Inertia snarl, "I am not disposable!" Reaching out, Bart tried to stop the black-clad arm's arc towards the red throat. A hot scarlet spray splattered across his face, shoulder, and arm.

Inertia let the false Impulse drop to the ground. He pulled his bloody mask off to see past the crimson mist that coated his goggles. Around the gruesome scene, the dust hung still in the air. Hard yellow eyes met the shock-widened gaze of his witness. A wicked, savage smile curled on his face and he reaffirmed his grip on the crude and bloody knife.