A wild Bart Allen appears!

[kid_flash_found]

"Run, Flash, RUN!"

Those were his last conscious words, his whole being as the Speed Force poured from him into his grandfather, giving him everything he had, everything he'd taken from every other speedster, that last push he needed to finish things. Bart knew he was lost, but this would let the world, everything he fought for, his grandfather, win. That was the important thing.

He'd never expected to feel anything. To live. Except...something had happened, and the Speed Force spat him out, all the worse for wear. That was the only thing he could guess. No, wait, this place...he’s never been here. Bart knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he would remember every place he’s been. This place is new, different. It feels subtly off, or is that just the way he feels his connection to the Speed Force?

There really is only one thing to do, and that’s gather information, learn, find out if he’s alone or if there’s anyone else he knows here. Making certain his cowl is firmly in place, Bart Allen, better known as Kid Flash steps out to see what he can see.

"Star Labs, huh? I wonder if Val is here..." he muses aloud.

Comments

[kid_flash_found]

"You've watched this before, I take it." Or he's got some precognition, although three minutes is pretty far for that talent. Rose at her best was able to do a few seconds without chemical aid.

"I'm Bart."

[thishouseisbitchin]

A square, then a set of four smaller squares, then an upside down arrow. "Faster than a bullet."

[kid_flash_found]

"Only when I run," Bart said, considering. After all, what harm did it do?

"How about you?"

[thishouseisbitchin]

"Faster." Almost as if to prove it, as if that was even a response to what Bart was asking him, he takes a moment to speed away and is back in barely an instant with another ice cream bar. There are...quite a few sticks from previous bars on top of the tv set.

[kid_flash_found]

Bart almost blinks, but then, in a blur of his own speed, he snags the bar for himself. "You could have brought two."

Maybe he's pouting, just a little. Sure, he could have given chase, but the microseconds it takes to react would still have him eating the other speedster's dust in a short distance like that. Being the fastest Flash didn't mean all that much when you were already moving at relativistic speeds.

[thishouseisbitchin]

At the sudden loss of his bar, he frowns. Oh well. Back to drawing, then. How rude you are, Bart Allen. "The stars are draining."

[kid_flash_found]

"Well, they'll all go out in the end," Bart agreed, trying to follow the logic here. There was one, for all it was chaotic and jumbled. "Sometimes, though, when one star goes out, a new one is born."

[thishouseisbitchin]

"No I don't think so, maybe tomorrow." He draws a line around one of the starbursts. "Good people don't destroy lives and call it noble."

[kid_flash_found]

"No, not noble. But sometimes it's necessary," Bart said, the last almost too soft to hear. And to further the pretense of not talking, he started in on the ice cream bar, eating it at a fast but normal speed.

"Which star are you thinking of? Does it have a name?"

[thishouseisbitchin]

"Iris." It's entirely possible, probable and likely that they are having two different conversations. If, in fact, they are having a conversation at all.

[kid_flash_found]

"My grandmother's name is Iris," Bart said, wanting to see if there was a reaction. Clearly the stars had something to do with lives, both saved and extinguished.

[thishouseisbitchin]

Is Bart sure about that? "She runs into danger. No. I don't know where she is."

[kid_flash_found]

"Running towards danger doesn't mean that she's not still here, somewhere. I sometimes wished I had a lightning rod like her."

[thishouseisbitchin]

"Bury it in the earth and call it Moonday."

[kid_flash_found]

"Maybe it won't end like that. We still see the light from stars that have gone out long ago." If this man, this stranger, was somehow his grandfather, who knew what was possible.

[thishouseisbitchin]

"Cosmic echoes into a dark star, throwing diamonds in the sky and watch them rain. Pain. Brain."

[kid_flash_found]

"Yeah, it hurts," Bart agrees, and starts to reach out to the man. He wants to help, but a part of him worries that maybe, like when Jay's heart stopped, the Speed Force had other ideas.

"But you taught me there's always hope."

[thishouseisbitchin]

Barry pulls back, slightly. Draws another square, this time with a line through it. "No, I don't know. Probably not yet, maybe."

[kid_flash_found]

"Some things in time are just...meant to happen. They resist change, like a boulder in a stream."

[thishouseisbitchin]

"There's nothing here, just making time and making strings."

[kid_flash_found]

"We're here, Grandpa. Two Allens are better than one, right?

[thishouseisbitchin]

"Oh, Harry, Right now we have bigger issues than dealing with delayed-choice entanglement swapping." A circle, a square, a diamond.

[kid_flash_found]

"Being trapped in an interdimensional space. Again."

[thishouseisbitchin]

"That's a terrible price to pay."

[kid_flash_found]

"Better than dying," Bart says, smiling sadly. "That really hurts."