Reset! - Chapter Eleven

[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.

---

 

Reset! - Chapter Eleven: 1932

Carol stepped into the kitchen while Bart and Kon finished their early lunch. Spotting the bespectacled girl unknown to him, Kon stood and held out his hand with an easy, appreciative smile. "Hi! I'm... Carl, Bart's cousin from Hawaii." Bart visibly bristled and took a step to place himself between Kon and Carol. In his mind's eye, he could see Kon flirting up a storm with Carol, and then Carol would giggle, and then... And then what?

Amused, Carol pressed a finger against the rim of her glasses and raised a dark eyebrow. "Otherwise known as Superboy?" Kon's jaw slackened and she chuckled. "Not many of Impulse's friends come to visit."

Kon sat down, somewhat relieved. "Oh, so you're in on the whole secret identity thing?"

"I figured it out a while ago," she answered, "What brings you out to Manchester?"

Bart piped up, "He's gonna help me rescue Max!"

Carol brightened and stepped closer to the speedster. "Really? You found out when Rival is?"

Nodding, Bart replied, "Yup! Empress helped with that! Now she's gonna help get Rival out of Max. Superboy and Inertia are gonna help too."

"Inertia?" Dumbfounded, Carol could only repeat, "Inertia?"

A voice answered behind her. "You called?"

Carol twisted around to face the blond boy. She took a step backwards and bumped into the table. "You're not going to hurt him!"

Thad's yellow eyes rolled again and he strode towards the refrigerator. "I'm getting tired of repeating that I have no intention to do so. If anything, I need Bart's help."

Bart added, "Remember the Hyperguard? Inertia needs my help to stop President Thawne from making it out of clones of me."

Carol held a hand over her mouth. "Oh, my God. Are you serious? How many times do we have to change future to keep the Hyperguard from happening?"

Now, it was Thad's turn to be confused. "You know about the Hyperguard?" he asked Carol.

"It was my fault that it was created in the first place, but that's a long story."

Thad scrutinized her with a disbelieving stare, and then shook his head. "We don't have time for long stories." To Bart, he ordered, "Go bring the Empress here. I want to lay out the plan for getting to our destination."

Anita set her toddler mother on the floor to play. On the couch, Bonnie King-Jones and Ishido Maad watched the children crawl about. Ishido leaned back in the cushions and frowned, "Do you think they'll ever remember anything of their previous lives?"

Anita shrugged, "I don't know."

A breeze heralded Bart's arrival. "Hi, Anita! Hi, Agent Maad! Hi, Cissie's mom! Where's Cassie and Cissie?"

"Getting lunch," Anita answered, "What are you doing here? I thought you went home."

"I did, but it's a long story." Bart fidgeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Me and Kon and Inertia are gonna go save Max and you need to come with us to get Rival out of him."

"Now?"

"Yup."

Anita looked at her toddler parents and then to her adult guests. Bonnie moved to crouch next to the children. "We'll take care of them until you get back."

"Thanks." Anita turned to Bart, "Let me get ready."

It wasn't long before Bart was carrying Anita and her gear across the countryside to Manchester. Inside the house, Carol was arguing with Thad. "I'm coming whether you like it or not! I'm not leaving you alone with him!"

"I won't be alone with him!" Thad retorted, "And if I take any more people on this mission, the risk of our capture at the time portal increases beyond tolerance! Bart and I have a carrying capacity of one each! No more!" He turned to Bart and Anita. "This is the Empress, I presume?"

"Yup!" Bart answered. He looked to Anita and jerked his thumb towards Thad. "This is Inertia. He's my evil clone."

Thaddeus winced and facepalmed at that. "Yes, I am the evil clone," he affirmed through clenched teeth.

Anita tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. "He's blond."

"There was some tweaking with the genetic sequence to correct some of Bart's defects. The hair color was incidental," Thaddeus explained, "I am the improved third-generation speedster." He sat down at the table and nested one fist into the other hand. "As to the task at hand, our window to travel to the thirtieth century, reset the chronoportal, and travel to 1932 will be very narrow. The Science Police will be on the lookout for me and they will put the chronoportal into lockdown the moment they figure out that their preferred clone isn't the one coming home. That means we move with as much speed as possible. All of us. Bart and I will carry one passenger each through this phase." His yellow eyes locked onto Carol, "That means you stay here. In any case, it's too dangerous for you."

Bart piped up, "Carol's pretty tough. She's already done time travel and kicked butt!"

"She's still an ordinary human," Thad retorted, "And we don't have the capacity in this mission. There is no discussion on this." He ignored the matched glares from Bart and Carol. "The next phase of the mission will be in locating and restraining Rival." He looked to Anita, "After the exorcism is complete, we will return to the chronoportal and reset it to send us back to this time. Max should be able to keep up with us." He stood up and pushed his hair away from his face.

"I still don't get why we have to follow you," Kon scowled, "Why are you bothering to help Bart when you tried to kill him before?"

Yellow eyes narrowed and shifted to glare at Kon. "Max is why I'm helping. That he is too important to lose is why I'm leading. Bart lacks the capacity of forethought that is required in an operation like this."

Bart frowned with indignation. "Hey! I still beat all of your plans! I'm not stupid!"

"I'm still smarter than you and your victories had nothing to do with your intelligence," Thad stated. "We can argue about this later." He disappeared for a moment and returned in his black and green costume. Inertia held out a tiny disc that looked like it was made of green glass. "This is the Craydl interface that I took from the other clone. It will open the time portal for us. When we go through, an alarm will likely sound because of the excessive extra mass coming through." He slipped the disc behind his ear. "I will carry Empress. You will take Superboy."

Bart quickly changed into his own costume. He held out his hand to Kon. "Tow? You're kinda heavy to carry."

Inertia had Empress on his back. "Do not grab the earpieces under any circumstance," he warned her, "I don't know what the discharge that comes off of them will do to you."

Empress eyed the golden metal stylized to look like something between a lightning bolt and a wing. "Not handlebars. Right. Got it, mon."

Inertia clamped a hand on Impulse's shoulder. "Time jump in three... two... one..."

Impulse felt that familiar wrench of moving through the timestream and fought against closing his eyes. Time jumping always messed with his head. Soon, he was standing in a large room. The familiar, almost comforting scent of sterilized air wrapped around him. Just as predicted, alarms sounded. Inertia zipped to the control panel and punched in new coordinates. The portal hummed as it reset. A blast of air blew through the room when the doors opened and men in the armored uniforms of the Science Police poured in. With a flash of light, the time portal reopened and both boys dashed through with their passengers.

The scent of dust and water greeted Impulse's nose. He squeezed his eyes shut against the ache building up in his skull. Stars flickered and popped in the darkness. When he finally opened them again, the image of a barren field filled his yellow-tinted vision. He let go of Superboy's hand and regained his bearings.

"That's right," Inertia mused to himself, "Keystone City would be smaller in this time. I was aiming for the outskirts of town."

They could see the river that Keystone City grew along and a shantytown clustered on one edge. Empress frowned under her mask, "1932, right? The worst of the Great Depression, the last year of the Prohibition, and the beginning of the Dust Bowl. Why would anyone want to come here? There's not even many metas to help in this time."

"Not even Jay Garrick?" Impulse mused, "No Flash?"

Inertia approached the riverbank. "According to the historical records, not for a few more years."

Impulse perked up. "What about Max? He was in running around in the forties."

"I don't know," Inertia absently answered. "Now we must track down Rival before he realizes that we're here."

"Empress saw a theater when she did her voodoo thing," Impulse supplied helpfully. "We can start there!"

"Yeah, like we're gonna blend in," Kon remarked, gesturing to the costumes that the others wore. He looked at the street clothes he and Anita were still wearing, "I don't even know if this will pass for this time." He aimed a blue-eyed stare at Inertia, "So, what are we gonna do about that, genius?"

Inertia scowled. "Wait here." He zipped away, kicking up dust in his wake.

Impulse poked his boot at a drift of dust piled against an old, weathered fencepost. "It's kinda dirty here," he idly remarked.

Empress watched him move the dust around. "It's 1932, right? You heard of the Dust Bowl?" When Bart and Kon shook their heads, she added, "Between severe drought and overfarming, the conditions were right for huge dust storms. Oklahoma was the worst hit, if I remember right. Just think, the worst of it is yet to come." She looked at the tenement camp and sighed. "And after that, it's World War Two."

Inertia soon returned with arms full of clothing. To Anita, he gave a navy blue skirt, a white blouse, and a pair of stout heeled shoes. She eyed them warily. "Where did you get these?"

"No one will miss them," Inertia assured her as he handed a heavy canvas work jacket to Kon. "They weren't taken from anyone who needs them."

He handed Impulse a short-sleeved work shirt, a pair of work pants, and a pair of boots. They were all obviously never worn. He quick changed into a pair of trousers, a sport shirt, and a pair of oxford shoes. "There, we should blend in a little easier." He eyed Bart's wild hair and Anita's long wavy locks. "Though as far as hairstyles go, we're a little anachronistic." His gleaming thoughtful expression advertised that he was considering fixing that. Bart wrapped his arms over his head in protective protest.

"I think we can deal with that, mon." Anita changed as quickly as she could behind a tree and stuffed her discarded clothing into the bag she carried the rest of her gear in. Rejoining the boys, she walked towards Keystone City. "Finding that theater shouldn't be too hard."

Thad quickened his stride just enough to put him in the lead. "Until we encounter Rival, do not use your metahuman abilities under any circumstance."

Kon frowned and remarked, "Don't spook the locals. Yeah, I think we can figure that one out for ourselves. We don't all ride the short bus."

"I was more concerned about Bart," Thad added.

"Hey! I know how not to use my powers!" Bart protested.

Thad muttered under his breath "That's obvious."

As they walked the streets of Keystone, Kon noticed the flitting, fearful glances and outright hostile stares from the populace. "Maybe we're not blending enough?"

Thad murmured in return, "Their focus appears to be on Empress. Her hair is too anachronistic."

Anita was watching the locals. "I don't think that's it's anything we can change."

Bart looked at his friends and then at all of the people cautiously watching them. He could not see anything too different, certainly nothing that was of any importance. "What is it?"

Chuckling, Anita ruffled his hair. "Oh, mon, don't you ever change." She saw the puzzled expressions on Kon and Thad. "You too? You don't see it either?" The boys glanced uneasily to each other and shook their heads.

Thad was the most displeased about his supposed ignorance and crossed his arms. "Enlighten us."

"We're in the black part of the town," she pointed out, "And here I am, surrounded by an escort of strapping white boys. It doesn't look good for this time and place. That I'm unknown here, that I'm comfortable around all of you, and that there's three of you is probably why nobody's decided to do anything about it yet."

Kon facepalmed and muttered, "I forgot about that. It's not going to get any better in the other part of town, either."

Bart and Thad exchanged confused glances. The blond boy shook his head. "I don't understand."

"I don't either," Bart added in.

"It's not supposed to make sense," Anita assured them, "But it's good to know that it goes away in the future. C'mon, mon, let's go find your friend."

After a while of wandering, they finally reached downtown Keystone and found the theater. Just as Anita's vision revealed, "A Bachelor's Affair" was listed on the marquee.

Kon shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the movie title. "So, now what?" He wandered a little closer to the movie posters. He didn't recognize any of the titles.

"We wait," Thad answered. "If Empress is correct, then he will be here eventually."

Anita yawned and stretched before joining her teammates and admiring the posters. "I wonder how long this movie was listed on the board? That's how long this could take."

Kon stared at her in alarm. "What?" He sighed and his broad shoulders slumped. "Great." He planted a hand on top of Bart's head. "The things I do for my friends." Bart beamed a bright smile at him.

While the others were looking at posters, Thad kept his eyes on the people on the street. Rival could show up at any time. A group of teenaged boys approached the theater from the cafe across the street and paused in front of the posters.

"Anything look good?" one asked.

"It doesn't matter to me," another replied.

"Jay?"

A brown haired youth peered at one poster. "We haven't seen this one yet and it's playing in a few minutes."

"Works for me."

Bart glanced towards the group and did a double take at one who answered to the name of Jay. His jaw dropped and his heart kicked up a gear in his chest. When the local boys paid and entered the theater, Bart frantically whispered to his friends. "That was him! That was Jay! Jay! Flash Jay! Oh my god, he was our age! I mean, the age we look, not the age we really are. I almost didn't recognize him, but I'm sure that was him!"

Kon and Anita were still turning their heads to look at him. Thad blasted a sigh in exasperation. "Try it again for the slow people," he admonished, "Slowly."

With an embarrassed grin, Bart took a steadying breath and spoke at a speed that Kon and Anita would be able to understand. "That was Jay, the first Flash." Yellow eyes widened with realization. "Rival wants to kill him!" Before anyone could say anything, Bart added, "Rival is Jay's enemy! So, that would be why he would come to this time period, 'cause Jay doesn't have any powers yet! He's just a normal kid! We gotta help Jay!"

He turned to approach the theater doors, but Thad put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll keep an eye on him. I'm just as fast as you and Jay doesn't know me in future."

"No spoilers, mon," Anita remarked with a grin. Then she stepped forward and added, "I'll help. If Rival really is here for Jay, then I should be close by to exorcise him when we get the chance."

Thad nodded in agreement. "Superboy and Bart will stay out here and keep watch, in case Rival shows up." He turned to the other boys. "Do you understand that? Sit and stay."

Kon scowled and crossed his arms. "We're not stupid. We got it."

Anita looked at the theater doors. "So, how are we going to get in? We don't have any money."

Smirking, Thad replied, "You don't need a door when you're with me. Come this way." He and Anita turned the street corner and disappeared out of sight.

Kon slid down the theater wall and sat on the sidewalk. "This is great. A stakeout in the Great Depression." He sighed and leaned his head against the wall. "I don't like him. He's a bossy jerk."

"Inertia?" Bart asked as he joined Kon on the sidewalk. "Yeah, but he's helping. He's doing more than Wally or Jay ever did to save Max." He perked up with a grin. "Hey, d'ya think that he'll be good now? That would be cool."

"I hope so," Kon answered, "I got a feeling that I don't want to ever have to fight him. Your powers with Rob's brains and a villain's bad morals? If I hadn't learned how to hold you down from all of this, we could pretty much be screwed."

"He's not that tough." Bart stretched his legs out on the cement and let the warm rays of the sun beat down on them. "Y'know, it might be kinda cool if he stayed with me and Helen in Manchester. I wouldn't be alone anymore."

That caught Kon's interest and he lifted his head off of the wall. "Alone? When are you alone?"

"Not alone alone," Bart clarified, "Just not with anyone like me. Someone who's not slow all of the time. You guys are cool, but it takes forever for you to say or do anything and I have to wait for everything. It was awesome when my cousin Jenni was visiting. She could keep up with me. I miss that."

"Huh, I had no idea. Learn something new every day." Kon leaned against the bricks. "Speaking of, what's the deal with you and that Carol chick? Is she your girlfriend or something?"

Rubbing at his warming face, Bart shrugged, "I dunno. Maybe."

"Maybe? Well, I gotta admit, the thought of you being, y'know, interested in girls is something I gotta get used to." Kon quirked an eyebrow at his own phrasing and hoped that Bart wouldn't notice. "But I guess you had to catch up sometime. She's a bit nerdy-looking, but still smokin' hot. I wouldn't have guessed that you would go for the short-skirt-long-jacket naughty scientist type, but whatever floats your boat."

Bart was staring blankly at him. Floating in a boat with Carol? Been there, done that. He was trying to imagine Carol in a short skirt and a long lab coat. It wasn't difficult at all. He couldn't understand what the big deal was about it. Kon was weird sometimes.

Kon was still talking, "Maybe it's the whole raised in a test tube thing? Oedipal complex for lab-rats?"

"I wasn't raised in a test tube," Bart corrected.

"Virtual reality tube, then." Sitting up a little taller, he asked, "Does she know how old you really are?"

"Carol? Yeah, she knows everything."

"And she's okay with it?"

Bart was confused by this question. "What's the big deal?"

"Dude, we should be finger-painting and eating paste right now," Kon reminded, "Not dating hot girls and thinking about getting it on."

"Getting what on?"

"Okay, maybe I'm just a little farther ahead in development than you are, but you get my point, right? It's like she's freaking robbin' the cradle. Not that I'll ever point it out to any girl I might want to go out with, though. I'm old enough where it counts. Besides, I've dated girls older than Cassie. Seriously, I was the jailbait."

Yellow eyes stared at Kon. Bart visualized himself in an armchair with a notepad, while Kon stretched out on a couch. "If it wasn't a problem before, why's it a problem now?"

"I don't know." Kon thumped the back of his head on the brick wall. "Maybe I just have issues. We're not officially teammates anymore, so it's not like I'm fishing off of the company pier and setting up for some obligatory teen-angst drama. Maybe I'm just worried about what's going to go wrong."

Bart rolled his eyes and let an exasperated sigh blast. "You're thinking too much. Stop it. Cassie knows all about how old you really are already. Carol told me that she didn't try going out with me earlier because she thought that I wasn't mature enough in the head for it. If Cassie thought the same way, she wouldn't have gone out with you. She would have just talked to you the same way she talks to me."

"Like an obnoxious little brother?" Movement on the street caught his eye, "Well, thanks for the session, Dr. Impulse, but we need to cut this short. Is that our guy?"

Bart's heart skipped a beat and he stood. It looked like Max stepping into the cafe across the street. "Yeah. I think that's him. He's not younger like Max should be in this time. I'm gonna go tell Inertia. Keep watching him for me, okay?" He darted around the corner and into the alley behind the theater, where he vibrated through the wall. It was dark on the other side, save for the light from the projected film. Staggering through the theater, he managed to find Thaddeus and Anita sitting behind Jay and his friends.

"Rival's outside," he whispered just loud enough for Thaddeus and Anita to hear.

They stood and filed out of the theater. Kon was nowhere to be seen. Bart pointed to the cafe. "Rival went in there."

"Take Empress to the spot we landed at," Thad ordered, "Then come back here. We'll use that point as our trap. I'll stay here and watch for Superboy."

Bart obeyed the order, returning as soon as he could. It meant violating the no powers agreement, but now was not the time to take things slowly. He ducked behind a car that was parked near the cafe. Through the windows, he could see Rival drinking a cup of coffee. Kon was sitting at a table beside the window, watching him. Breathing a sigh of relief, he waved to Kon, hoping that he would see the signal. After a couple of attempts, Kon stepped out of the cafe and approached the car. "Go to where we landed," Bart relayed, "Empress is waiting there. Me and Inertia will chase him there."

Kon silently nodded and continued to casually walk down the street. He turned a corner and Bart could only assume that he flew the rest of the way. He peeked around the car and saw Thaddeus standing on the corner on the other side of the cafe. Now, they just had to wait.

It seemed like forever before Rival got up and left the cafe. Just then, the doors of the theater opened and some of the theater crowd exited onto the sidewalk. Crouching, Bart primed his muscles for a sudden burst of speed. The lightning in his blood hummed with his pulse. The street scene was still with birds and dust hanging in the air. In one way, Bart was happy to see Max again. He just wanted to race up and pounce him with the biggest hug ever. Knowing that it was Rival beneath that familiar skin killed that urge. He watched Rival stride down the street towards the theater. The tension in his legs turned to an ache and then to agony as he waited for Thaddeus to signal the chase.

After a near eternity, Thaddeus gave the signal and Bart burst forward. Rival's head turned to look at him and the surprise on his face unmistakable. His fists clenched and he grinned, ready for a fight. Bart's eyes widened; this was unexpected, but he did not slow his steps. Thaddeus joined him on the rush, filling his peripheral vision. Rival's expression twisted to confusion. He turned and fled. Impulse and Inertia followed close to his heels and drove Rival towards Superboy's trap. Rival could not dare to turn if they did not want him to, or he would be within their arm's reach. It was not long before they were past the limits of Keystone City.

The chase ended abruptly when they ran into the telekinetic trap and Superboy locked down Rival. Rival fought against the invisible bonds, but could not get free. The costumed Empress began the ritual to evict unwanted tenant of Max's body.

The boys understood nothing in her chants and did not want to know what the foul smelling water in the bowl she held really was. She spat on Rival and splashed him with the contents of the bowl. Nothing seemed to happen. She turned to Bart. "I thought you said he was possessed!"

"He is!" Bart affirmed.

"Whatever is in there isn't the standard-issue spirit," Empress retorted, "My ritual isn't doing anything!"

Bart noticed that Thaddeus seemed panicked now and could hear the desperation in his voice when he asked Empress, "Isn't there anything else you can do?"

Empress shook her head. "I have no idea what I'm really dealing with, mon."

Bart didn't like this. Superboy couldn't hold Rival down forever and Thaddeus was paralyzed without any sort of plan. It was time for Impulse to do what he was good at and save the day. "We have to get him to Doc Morlo! Can you knock him out for a while?" he asked Empress.

She thought about this, and then nodded. Thaddeus darted to Bart's side. "What are you planning?"

"I'm not planning anything," Bart replied, "We just can't stay here and Morlo might be able to help us." A dull thud alerted him that Rival had fallen limp onto the ground. "Kon, grab him and make sure that he don't move. He's gonna be real mad when he wakes up." Kon sighed and cringed, but did as Bart asked of him.

Thaddeus played with the Craydl interface with a frown growing on his face. "Grife. This one is already locked out. We can't use it to get out of here." He shook his head. "It's going to take a while for me to override it. If I can override it from here."

Empress sucked in a breath. "How are we going to get him back to our time if you can't?"

Bart recalled the last time Rival escaped from him. "Rival came to this time in a chronopod from the sixty-fourth century. We can use that. We can't leave it laying around here, anyways."

Thaddeus could not disguise his surprise. "Another long story?"

"Yeah, that's how Carol was able to come home," Bart remarked. "Too bad we don't have a tricorder or a sonic screwdriver or something that can help us track down where he put the pod."

Empress crossed her arms and muttered, "If I had known about that, I could have compelled him to tell us before I put him to sleep."

Kon muttered, "This is going south fast. So much for the evil genius."

Thaddeus snapped at him, "I did not have all of the information I needed! If I knew Rival's true nature, I would have anticipated this! If I knew that he came here in a chronopod, I would have tried to trace its location! A plan is only as good as the information used to build it!"

Bart was not listening to the tirade. Instead, an idea coalesced and sparked in an instant, flooding him with epiphany. "I know how to find it!" A glowing duplicate popped into existence beside him. To the scout, he ordered, "When I tell you run, go back to the moment Rival escaped in the chronopod and hitch a ride. Then come back here and tell me where it landed. Don't let anyone see you, okay? Got it?"

The scout saluted and affirmed, "Got it, boss!"

"Don't call me boss," Bart muttered. "Run!"

The scout blinked out of their time, leaving Bart to wait impatiently. "They always take so long."

Thaddeus's yellow eyes were wide, making it seem like he was doing the impression of a startled cat. "What was that?"

Bart paused his tapping foot. "What was what?"

"There were two of you." Thaddeus circled around Bart. "What was that?"

"Oh, the scout? That's another long story." Just as he finished his sentence, the scout reappeared next to him. After reabsorbing the duplicate, Impulse blurted, "I know where it is!"

He led the way to the woods along a creek, where the chronopod laid waiting.

Empress sighed and rubbed at her face through her mask. "Mon, if you could do this, why did you bother with asking me where Rival went to?"

"I didn't think of it before," Bart answered as he opened the pod door and peered inside. "It wasn't easy for the scout to hang onto the pod. I couldn't do it, but the scout is made of different stuff and he can move through the timestream by himself, so he would be okay if he fell off. He had to hide in the ground, so that Rival wouldn't see him when he came out, too."

Kon peeked into the pod over Bart's shoulder. "That's going to be uncomfortable. This looks like it's supposed to be a two-seater."

Empress pushed past Bart and Kon and climbed inside. "I don't care if it's going to be a little cozy in here, as long as it gets us home. I don't want to find out if I'm my own grandmere."

It was a very tight fit inside of the chronopod. Bart could feel his ribs interlocking with Thad's and the pressure of every breath either one of them took. Kon was trying to ignore that he was in a very tight embrace with an unconscious man. Empress was trying to ignore Kon's rear in her face.

Bart tried to remember how Carol worked the controls the last time he was in the pod. "We shoulda brought Carol! She's the one who knew how to pilot this!"

"There's no room for Carol in here!" Thad snapped back.

After finally entering a set of coordinates in space and time, Bart hit one last button and the pod popped out of 1932.