Reset! - Chapter Nine

[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 Nine: Devil's Deal

"Aren't you going to thank me?" Inertia sneered.

Bart stared at the body of the impostor lying in a growing red pool. "You killed him!" He glared at the unmasked blond standing before him. "You killed him!"

"He's just a clone sent to destroy you," Inertia remarked offhandedly, "I don't see why you're so upset." Seeing Bart's stance shift to an aggressive posture, Inertia rolled his eyes and threw his knife into the corpse, burying it to the handle. "Oh, please. I'm not here to kill you today. Today, it was all about him."

"Who is he?"

"Version 2.1." Seeing Bart's horrified confusion, Inertia added bitterly, "What? Did you think that our dear "Grandfather" Thawne would stop at just one clone? He likes to think big. He also isn't one for second chances. I succeeded in impersonating you, but failed to kill you. Let me put this in terms you can understand: Mission failed is Game Over."

Bart's thick eyebrows furrowed. "But-"

"Talk later," Inertia interrupted, "First, we dispose of this wretch. I'm not about to chance our DNA landing into the hands of another splice-happy megalomaniac and, from what I've learned about this time period, there are plenty here."

"But-"

"Go get some wood or other combustibles," ordered Inertia, "It's a crude method of disposal, but effective."

"But-"

"Fine. I'll do it myself." Inertia ran through the settling dust cloud, leaving Bart behind with the body.

Bart felt sick and lost and confused. He was too slow to stop Inertia. All he needed was another step to close the gap and the other clone would still be alive. Now what? Did he fight Inertia? Why did Inertia want to talk? That was unsettling. It wasn't expected. That wasn't how things worked. They were supposed to fight. What was he supposed to do if Inertia didn't want to fight? Bart looked around and surveyed his surroundings, trying to get a bearing on his location and a distraction from the gore that lay nearby. This looked like badlands of some sort. There were no signs of civilization anywhere in sight. His gaze wandered back to the bloody body. It looked just like him, but dead. His stomach soured and his breath became shallow and rapid. This wasn't Apokolips, he tried to remind himself. He needed to go home. He needed to go get help. From whom? He wiped at his stinging, blurring eyes and swallowed against the bile.

Inertia returned with an armful of woody brush. Glancing to Bart, he scowled. "What's your problem? If it bothers you so much, help me build a bonfire and we'll make it go away."

Bart numbly nodded and ran off to gather as much dead scrub as he could. Soon, they had a pile to lay the body on and covered it with more brush. From somewhere unknown, Inertia brought a can of gasoline and a book of matches.

The fire crackled and Inertia wiped at the dried blood on his face. "I could use a bath." He looked to Bart, who was likewise soiled. "I said that we would talk. You can ask questions now."

Bart tore his wet eyes away from the flames. "Why did you kill him?"

"Why are you crying over it?" Inertia retorted, "He's just a clone."

"He was alive! You didn't have to kill him! You could have just stopped him!"

"And then what?" snarled Inertia, "Where would you put him? What would you do with him? Eventually, he would get out and finish his mission and that would be the end of you. We aren't playing games here, moron. The loser's run ends forever and there's no reset. You should be thanking me for doing the dirty, necessary work for you. You obviously have no chance of surviving, otherwise."

Bart wiped at his eyes and sniffed. "You didn't have to kill him."

Inertia crossed his arms and watched the fire with satisfaction. "You keep telling yourself that."

After his eyes dried enough that he could see clearly again and his chest stopped hitching, Bart glanced to Inertia. "There are more clones like you?"

"Not like me," he replied, "Supposedly, they are improved versions. I doubt that. Granted, that one's plan to discredit you in the eyes of your allies to the point that they would restrain you was inventive. Once you were restrained, it would have been child's play to finish you. But, he wasn't much for combat. I'm surprised, actually."

"So, why did you-?"

"Save your sorry hide? Simple, I didn't want him to succeed where I had failed. Schadenfreude, I suppose." Inertia shrugged at that, and then saw Bart's puzzled expression. "Go look it up, shortbus. And would you take those things out of your hair? You look ridiculous. I'm embarrassed to admit that I share genetic material with you."

Bart pulled the elastics out of his hair and shoved them into his pocket. "So, what are ya gonna do now?"

Inertia crossed his arms and frowned. "I'm not certain. I'll be candid here. Either I finish you or I depose President Thawne. You would be easier, but you never lied to me. As far as I can tell, nearly everything I was told regarding about our family history and my development was a lie. Besides, if I killed you, Max... Did Max recover after I left?"

Bart nodded quietly, "Yeah, but-"

"But what?" Inertia icily snapped, "Don't tell me that you let something happen to him."

"I didn't!" Bart countered. He told Inertia about the Rival, the possession, and the disappearance. "And now I know where to start looking, but it's in the past and I don't know how to get there yet."

Inertia scowled and glared at him. "You are pathetic." His yellow eyes flicked to one side with a thought. He regarded his genetic original contemplatively. "I'm willing to make a deal with you. I help you take on this Rival fool and free Max in the past and you help me destroy President Thawne and his clone circus in the future."

Bart shifted anxiously on his feet. "I dunno."

"What are you afraid of? You know that we would be stronger against our common foes as allies instead of enemies. United we stand, divided we fall, isn't that right?"

"I guess so." He saw the edged gleam in Inertia's eyes, and felt like a rabbit under the scrutiny of a predator. "But... I dunno."

"I'm as much of a target as you are, now," Inertia assured, "I've been thrown away. I need your help and you need mine. I can get you into the past easily and I can run just as fast as you. You need me to capture Rival successfully."

Bart was still apprehensive. "If we do this, and then go into the future, can I go visit Mom first?"

"Of course."

"And no killing." He glanced to the still burning pyre.

"You won't have to, I swear." Inertia held out his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

Uneasily, Bart accepted the offered hand. "Okay."

"I knew you had a functioning brain cell somewhere under all of that hair. Now, let's go home and clean up." He let go and darted away, leaving Bart to follow him all the way back to Manchester.

Helen felt a breeze from the kitchen and got up from the couch. Dox perked up his ears and then lowered them with a low growl. Seeing that, Helen moved with more caution towards the kitchen. What she saw there made her gasp.

"Bart! What happened to you? Who is this?"

The blond speedster raised his hand in greeting. "Hi, Helen. My real name is Thaddeus Thawne, although Inertia is probably more familiar to you."

Alarmed and confused, Helen looked to Bart, "What is going on?"

"He's gonna help save Max," Bart replied.

Helen approached the boys and stared at the stains on their clothes and skin. "Is that blood?"

Bart nodded, "Yeah."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah." His tone was flat.

Inertia spotted Dox standing in the kitchen doorway. His face brightened with a smile. "Ivan!"

Bart didn't follow what he was referring to. Helen, however, remembered. "His name is Dox."

"Dox? What kind of name is that?"

Bart answered with a hostile glare. "It's his name."

Inertia curled his lip and crossed his arms. "What did he do to deserve that?"

Helen spoke up, trying to head off a rebuttal from Bart. The last thing she wanted was a speedster fight in her kitchen. "Um, Thaddeus? Why don't you go take a shower first? Bart, could you help me find a spare change of clothes for him?"

Leaning over Bart's shoulder, she watched as Bart tried to decide what clothes he wanted to part with. She could hear the shower from behind the bathroom door just down the hall. "Bart, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"No."

"That didn't exactly put me at ease," Helen muttered, "So, why is he helping?"

"We made a deal," Bart answered, "If he helps me, then I'll help him."

She picked up a black t-shirt and a pair of baggy black pants. She remembered that during the time the Inertia had spent masquerading as Bart in her house, he had been rather fond of that combination. A gust of wind blew through the room and the clothes that Helen had in her hand were gone. Bart's eyes were wide and he snapped around towards his bedroom door, where a freshly clothed Thaddeus stood. "Use a towel!"

"It's not like there's anything you haven't seen," Thaddeus replied flippantly, "We're near identical. The shower's free now." He looked to Helen, "Where should I put my suit?"

"Is it machine washable?"

"I don't know."

Helen took a steadying breath. "Well, it's not red and white, so it might be worth a shot. We could try the gentle cycle."

Bart stepped into the shower and let the warm water rinse the dried blood off his skin. Closing his eyes so he didn't have to see it run down the drain, he washed as quickly as he could. After he was dry and in fresh clothes, he found Thaddeus sitting on the couch with Dox. The dog's tail was wagging in anticipation of the treat that was in the boy's hand.

Seeing Thaddeus in civilian clothing and relaxed made Bart realize that he was just another person. He recalled White Lightning sitting on the bed and playing her guitar. She wasn't a bad person then. Then he remembered her heist and Inertia killing the impostor. Why did they do those things? What made them change from people to bad guys? What made them change back?

Thaddeus noticed Bart standing nearby and gave Dox the treat. "What are you looking at?"

"I've never seen you in normal clothes," Bart answered, "You look different."

"Heh, I suppose so," Thaddeus replied with a wry grin, "Were you expecting something else under the mask?"

Bart shook his head, "It's not that. You just look different." Dox hopped off of the couch and trotted to Bart, who kneeled down to pet him. "When are we gonna go into the past and save Max?"

"After I get some food and rest," he answered peevishly, "I'm not going to go into this underprepared. Getting out and chasing down that replacement drained a great deal of my resources." Dox returned to Thaddeus for more attention.

Bart approached the couch at sat down on the far side away from him. "How'd you know the difference anyways? Between me and the fake?"

"He had an active Craydl interface and you don't," was the succinct answer. Thaddeus closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the cushion. "We'll have to use the one I've taken to access the time portal. It will transport us forward in time first, and then I'll have to program in the correct space-time coordinates to the location of Max. You do have something I can work with for that?"

"Yup."

"Good." Thaddeus sat up and leaned forward to pet the dog at his feet. "We should expect some resistance at the portal. My escape should have been detected and they will be on alert. The worst-case scenario is that the portal will be completely shut down and the interfaces reset. I should be able to find a way around that, but it would be difficult." He rubbed at his face and sighed. "So many variables."

"We'll take care of it when we get there," Bart remarked.

Thaddeus blinked and held his head in his hands. "That's not reassuring."

"Just trying to help. What's wrong? Does your head hurt? When I'm thinking too hard, my head hurts, too."

The blond speedster shifted on the couch to lay his head on the armrest and closed his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Hey, Iner-, uh, Thad-, uh..."

"Thad will do."

"Okay. How many clones of me are there?"

"As many as Thawne wants. His only limitation is facilities. Should he progress beyond the development phase, then that wouldn't be an issue."

"Is he trying to make the Hyperguard?"

Thaddeus bolted upright and stared at Bart. "How do you know about that?"

"Um, time travel to the future, except it's a future that doesn't exist any more because we changed it," Bart answered.

"So, you saw the end product of Thawne's cloning project?"

"No, he had a hyper-ray built," Bart helpfully clarified, "There weren't any clones at all."

Squeezing his eyes shut, Thaddeus leaned back on the armrest. "It's a future that doesn't exist, so it's currently irrelevant and I'm not going to ask further on it, until I am fully coherent and capable of processing such insanity."

"Okay. Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No."

Bart left the couch and disappeared into the kitchen. Since Helen was busy with laundry, he took it upon himself to prepare the meal. Eggs, cheese, sausages, pancake batter mix, milk, and other ingredients soon appeared on the counters. While a pan heated on the stove, he followed the instructions on the box for the pancakes, making sure not to mix the ingredients together too fast this time. He didn't want to clean the kitchen again. Not long after he had a stack of pale pancakes sitting on a plate, sausages sizzled and he played a handheld game while he waited. It usually took a couple of levels before the meat was cooked through.

Helen walked into the kitchen and helped herself to some coffee. She was pleased to see him progress beyond cereal and toast. On the counter, she spotted a plate piled with enough cooked breakfast sausage to feed four people. She briefly wondered how many eggs would be scrambled this morning. At least there wasn't a grease fire yet. Usually, Helen had to worry about the food not being cooked enough.

On the fingertips of both hands, Bart held the egg over the hot pan. Tongue poking out, he vibrated his hands and the shell of the egg. The white and yolk fell out and cooked on the sausage-greased surface. Pleased, Bart cracked open the shell to see how much of the egg was still inside. He dumped out the remaining egg white, no longer quite as satisfied.

Helen poked her head into the living room and saw Thaddeus fast asleep on the couch with Dox curled up nearby. Turning, she saw Bart attempt to empty an egg without cracking it open again. "Was Inertia the fake Impulse?"

"No, it was another clone," Bart answered as he opened the egg to check his success.

She gripped her cup and sucked in a breath. "There's another clone?"

"There was. Inertia killed him." Bart's chest tightened and he swallowed. "It was really bad and I couldn't stop it. I was too slow, Helen. I just needed another step and I could have stopped it." His eyes were stinging now. "And I didn't know what to do and Inertia didn't want to fight me, so we talked, and there was the dead me, and I didn't know what to do, so I helped make a fire, 'cause we can't let anyone get the DNA and... and... Now we're gonna go save Max together and I don't get it, but I don't know what else to do."

Helen's jaw slackened and she glanced towards Thaddeus, just to make sure that he was still sleeping on the couch. Bart continued to speak and scramble eggs. "Empress is going to help save Max too. If we can get Max to her, she can get Rival out of him. And there's more clones of me, so we're gonna go into the future and stop the project, 'cause they're all gonna come after me and they might turn into the Hyperguard and that would be really bad. But that's after we save Max. Max comes first."

Reaching for her phone, Helen tried to make sense of everything Bart said. "I'm going to give Wally an update."

"Okay," Bart replied absently, "I should let Cassie know, too. She would be mad if she was looking for a fake and there wasn't one anymore."