Previously: Bart Allen, now living in the speed force, sought out Max Mercury when a series of storms began tearing the speed force apart. Max traced the destruction to Bart's young friend, Jase, who had appeared mysteriously out of nowhere. Jase ran off in fear of Bart and Max holding him responsible, but was immediately captured and taken to the true villain behind the storms: Inertia!
Bart arrived to save his new friend, just in time for Inertia to reveal that Jase really wasn't human, but a creation of Inertia's to drain the speed force of its energy!
# # # # #
Some Time Ago
Thaddeus Thawne, having been murdered by the Flash's Rogues in retaliation for tricking them into murdering the then at the time Flash (the first time that Bart Allen had died), found himself alone in the speed force. With no real imagination beyond doing horribly evil things to Bart Allen, or any true love to rely on, his place in the speed force was a black void. The villain known as Inertia, Bart Allen's cloned evil twin, stood up and looked around his new home.
"Where am I?"
It didn't take long for Inertia to realize where he was, and what possibilities there were for him to take control of his new surroundings.
"Dying might be the best thing that's ever happened to me," Inertia smirked as he got to work.
Bart arrived to save his new friend, just in time for Inertia to reveal that Jase really wasn't human, but a creation of Inertia's to drain the speed force of its energy!
# # # # #
Some Time Ago
Thaddeus Thawne, having been murdered by the Flash's Rogues in retaliation for tricking them into murdering the then at the time Flash (the first time that Bart Allen had died), found himself alone in the speed force. With no real imagination beyond doing horribly evil things to Bart Allen, or any true love to rely on, his place in the speed force was a black void. The villain known as Inertia, Bart Allen's cloned evil twin, stood up and looked around his new home.
"Where am I?"
It didn't take long for Inertia to realize where he was, and what possibilities there were for him to take control of his new surroundings.
"Dying might be the best thing that's ever happened to me," Inertia smirked as he got to work.
It didn't take long for the villain to realize that he could create whatever his evil heart desired, and for a brief period of time, all he could do was think of ways to endlessly kill his rival, Bart Allen. Every day he spent in the speed force, Inertia would kill and re-kill Bart endlessly, in increasingly brutal and gory ways, each death being more horrific than the last.
After a few months, this became boring to the young speedster. While he still had hundreds of ideas left in which to maim and destroy his enemy, he started to realize that this wasn't really Bart that he was killing day in and day out.
"I never thought I'd say this," Inertia said as he held Bart's flayed skull in his hands. "But this bores me. Oh, don't get me wrong, cousin, being able to endlessly slaughter you has brought me nothing but joy these last couple of months. But I'd prefer to slaughter the real deal. But to do that, I'd have to escape this place. Yes, make the speed force my personal playground. A place that bends to my will alone."
Inertia carried the skull with him, leaving behind thousands of corpses of Bart Allen, all laying in massive piles behind him.
It took some time, but Inertia had finally managed to construct the machinery he needed to siphon off the speed force's energy, giving him full control from his fortress.
"Here we go," Inertia said as he pushed the button, but the energy started to overflow and caused the machinery to explode. Vibrating his way out from under the debris, the villainous speedster started to think. "Of course, why didn't I see it before? I need a conduit, something physical to control the flow of the speed force into me so as to not overload things."
Sometime later, Inertia had constructed a glass tube to harbor a battery. The glass would protect him from the overflow of energy should the battery itself explode. He pushed the button, siphoning off just enough speed force energy to construct a conduit he could use to drain the rest of the speed force. He smirked as he saw the energy taking shape, but it didn't look like anything mechanical.
Before he could get a really good look at it, the glass started to crack, exploding in a burst of light as... something made of pure speed force energy shot out, sending Inertia flying onto his back and getting knocked unconscious. When he finally woke up hours later, Inertia found that he was alone and that his experiment seemingly failed.
# # # # #
Meanwhile, in Bart Allen's part of the speed force, the energy had struck the middle of a field. Moments after striking, the energy started forming into what would eventually be known as Jase.
"What the--" Bart started to say as he got closer, seeing that there was a boy lying in a fetal position, shivering and whimpering like he'd just experienced something deeply traumatic. He had a mixture of shaggy red, orange and yellow hair and looked to be no older than twelve. "Are-- are you okay, kid?"
Before Bart could put a hand on his shoulder, the boy sat up and gasped. He looked up at Bart, and in a blur, ran off into the forest like a timid rabbit. Bart quickly gave chase, but the boy was somehow faster and was long gone before Bart could even see which direction he went.
Jase, having outrun Bart, found himself at a nearby lake. The boy stared into the water, seeing his reflection staring back. Jase tried to touch his reflection, only getting his fingers wet in the process. Jase looked at his fingers, feeling how wet they were. Everything that was happening to Jase was a totally new experience, and he was enjoying it. Every sensation was something that he loved. From walking barefoot in the grass to getting his finger pricked on a thorn bush, or jumping into the water and feeling the coldness slowly became a warmth around his body. Then he soon saw Bart again, and life started becoming much more fun.
# # # # #
"I have to find that conduit," Inertia said as he started pacing around. "Without it, I can't fully control the speed force, I can only... store it in energy cells where I can't use it. Of course! I'll destroy the speed force a piece at a time until I find it and store it here. By then, I'll have enough energy siphoned off to where I can break free of this place and conquer the world. I'll be the only one with speed powers, and not even the Justice League would be able to touch me. I just need that conduit."
# # # # #
Now
"Max Mercury has been indisposed, any speedster on the outside of the speed force is now powerless, and my greatest enemy is now mine to torment as I please," Inertia smirked as Bart stood helplessly with his boots frozen to the ground.
"There's nothing you can do to me that'll be any worse than what you've already done," Bart said. "You've already destroyed my life, tortured my friends, and had me killed. What else could you possibly do?"
"We'll see," Inertia said as he pointed to the piles of dead Bart Allens that were laying not too far from them. "I've been working on the most brutal, painful, and intensely agonizing death that you can possibly have. Every atom in your body will be in severe pain. You'll be begging to die, but I won't let you, at least not until I decide it's time for you to go. And it all starts when I start tearing the speed force down."
"Bart!" Jase said from inside the glass tube. "Help me!"
"I wish I could," Bart said. "But I can't be in two places at--- oh, son of a bitch, I forgot! I can totally do that!"
Inertia pushed the button and started draining the rest of the speed force, funneling the energy through Jase as he screamed in pain.
"Don't worry, this won't kill you, not that you were ever really human to begin with," Inertia said. "You're just a tool, a puppet to further my goals. Do you really think that--" Inertia turned around and saw that Bart's boots were still frozen in place, but the rest of him was gone. "Now what?"
A punch from one of Bart's speed force clones punched him from the side, while another uppercut him. Another dozen of Bart's Scouts suddenly dog piled him as Bart made his way to Jase to free him.
"Don't worry, kid, I'll get you out," Bart promised him.
"I'm not even real," Jase said, tears falling from his eyes as the pain coursed through his body. "Why do you care about me?"
"You are real to me," Bart said as he put his hand on the glass. "Jase, before you showed up, I was leading an empty life here. I had no one, just... games that weren't really that fun because I was alone. Then you showed up, and things started getting fun again, even if things didn't go as planned. You're my little brother, Jase. I love you, you're the little brother I never really had because Mom was ten centuries away."
"Aw, how sweet," Inertia said as he punched Bart in the back, causing him to scream in pain. As he punched Bart, he vibrated his hand into Bart's spinal cord to render him immobile. "I absorbed your Scouts, by the way. They're made of speed force energy, you idiot, they're mine now!"
Bart started to crawl away as Inertia kicked him in the stomach. "What's the matter? Can't run? That's because all of the energy in the speed force is coming directly to me now. Thanks to my conduit, everything is getting funneled directly through my fingers. Every other speedster is now powerless. You, Max Mercury, the Flash, everyone! I. AM. GOD NOW!"
"BART!" Jase shouted as he pounded on the glass.
"The only reason you're not dead yet is because I want to savor peeling the flesh from your skin," Inertia said as he kicked Bart, sending him flying across the room. "I'm going to destroy you atom by atom, like a flesh-eating virus. And you're going to feel every painful moment of it, Bart. And I'll make your suffering last a thousand years, maybe more."
Bart started trying to pick himself up as Jase started breathing heavily as he backed away from the glass. He was starting to get angry, seeing the only person he truly cared about being threatened.
"Just let Jase go," Bart said as Inertia picked him up by the collar.
"Are you kidding? After I've absorbed all of the speed force, who do you think is going to be dessert? I'll absorb the last piece of the speed force, and I'll make sure he screams loud enough so that you'll hear it where ever your pathetic soul ends up."
"NOOO!" Jase shouted as the glass tube exploded. Inertia dropped Bart and turned to see what had happened, only seeing a massive surge of yellow, orange and red energy. When the energy faded, Jase emerged from the broken tube wearing the Impulse costume, with the white parts replaced with yellow. Energy flowed from the boy's angry eyes as he stood there.
"You want the speed force? Come get it!"
# # # # #
Elsewhere
"We barely got him defrosted in time," Superman said as looked through the med-baby window, where Barry Allen was lying in a bed. "He has extreme hypothermia, but he's alive."
"Thanks for saving the day on this one, Superman," Wally said in his Flash costume, with his cowl down. "Every speedster on Earth is currently powerless. Me, Barry, Jesse... It's like our connection to the speed force has been completely severed. I have no way to access it to figure out what's going on."
"We'll find a way to restore your powers, I promise," Superman said. "Has there been anything else strange happening?"
"I've been having these strange dreams about Max Mercury," Wally told him. "It's as if he's trying to warn me about something, but I can never make out what he's trying to say. All I know is that involves Bart and some kid I've never seen before. Do you think that something's happening in the speed force, and Max and Bart could be in trouble?"
"I wish I knew," Superman told him. "If whatever trouble is happening in the speed force spills out into our world, there may be no way to stop it without a Flash to fight it."
To Be Continued...
After a few months, this became boring to the young speedster. While he still had hundreds of ideas left in which to maim and destroy his enemy, he started to realize that this wasn't really Bart that he was killing day in and day out.
"I never thought I'd say this," Inertia said as he held Bart's flayed skull in his hands. "But this bores me. Oh, don't get me wrong, cousin, being able to endlessly slaughter you has brought me nothing but joy these last couple of months. But I'd prefer to slaughter the real deal. But to do that, I'd have to escape this place. Yes, make the speed force my personal playground. A place that bends to my will alone."
Inertia carried the skull with him, leaving behind thousands of corpses of Bart Allen, all laying in massive piles behind him.
It took some time, but Inertia had finally managed to construct the machinery he needed to siphon off the speed force's energy, giving him full control from his fortress.
"Here we go," Inertia said as he pushed the button, but the energy started to overflow and caused the machinery to explode. Vibrating his way out from under the debris, the villainous speedster started to think. "Of course, why didn't I see it before? I need a conduit, something physical to control the flow of the speed force into me so as to not overload things."
Sometime later, Inertia had constructed a glass tube to harbor a battery. The glass would protect him from the overflow of energy should the battery itself explode. He pushed the button, siphoning off just enough speed force energy to construct a conduit he could use to drain the rest of the speed force. He smirked as he saw the energy taking shape, but it didn't look like anything mechanical.
Before he could get a really good look at it, the glass started to crack, exploding in a burst of light as... something made of pure speed force energy shot out, sending Inertia flying onto his back and getting knocked unconscious. When he finally woke up hours later, Inertia found that he was alone and that his experiment seemingly failed.
# # # # #
Meanwhile, in Bart Allen's part of the speed force, the energy had struck the middle of a field. Moments after striking, the energy started forming into what would eventually be known as Jase.
"What the--" Bart started to say as he got closer, seeing that there was a boy lying in a fetal position, shivering and whimpering like he'd just experienced something deeply traumatic. He had a mixture of shaggy red, orange and yellow hair and looked to be no older than twelve. "Are-- are you okay, kid?"
Before Bart could put a hand on his shoulder, the boy sat up and gasped. He looked up at Bart, and in a blur, ran off into the forest like a timid rabbit. Bart quickly gave chase, but the boy was somehow faster and was long gone before Bart could even see which direction he went.
Jase, having outrun Bart, found himself at a nearby lake. The boy stared into the water, seeing his reflection staring back. Jase tried to touch his reflection, only getting his fingers wet in the process. Jase looked at his fingers, feeling how wet they were. Everything that was happening to Jase was a totally new experience, and he was enjoying it. Every sensation was something that he loved. From walking barefoot in the grass to getting his finger pricked on a thorn bush, or jumping into the water and feeling the coldness slowly became a warmth around his body. Then he soon saw Bart again, and life started becoming much more fun.
# # # # #
"I have to find that conduit," Inertia said as he started pacing around. "Without it, I can't fully control the speed force, I can only... store it in energy cells where I can't use it. Of course! I'll destroy the speed force a piece at a time until I find it and store it here. By then, I'll have enough energy siphoned off to where I can break free of this place and conquer the world. I'll be the only one with speed powers, and not even the Justice League would be able to touch me. I just need that conduit."
# # # # #
Now
"Max Mercury has been indisposed, any speedster on the outside of the speed force is now powerless, and my greatest enemy is now mine to torment as I please," Inertia smirked as Bart stood helplessly with his boots frozen to the ground.
"There's nothing you can do to me that'll be any worse than what you've already done," Bart said. "You've already destroyed my life, tortured my friends, and had me killed. What else could you possibly do?"
"We'll see," Inertia said as he pointed to the piles of dead Bart Allens that were laying not too far from them. "I've been working on the most brutal, painful, and intensely agonizing death that you can possibly have. Every atom in your body will be in severe pain. You'll be begging to die, but I won't let you, at least not until I decide it's time for you to go. And it all starts when I start tearing the speed force down."
"Bart!" Jase said from inside the glass tube. "Help me!"
"I wish I could," Bart said. "But I can't be in two places at--- oh, son of a bitch, I forgot! I can totally do that!"
Inertia pushed the button and started draining the rest of the speed force, funneling the energy through Jase as he screamed in pain.
"Don't worry, this won't kill you, not that you were ever really human to begin with," Inertia said. "You're just a tool, a puppet to further my goals. Do you really think that--" Inertia turned around and saw that Bart's boots were still frozen in place, but the rest of him was gone. "Now what?"
A punch from one of Bart's speed force clones punched him from the side, while another uppercut him. Another dozen of Bart's Scouts suddenly dog piled him as Bart made his way to Jase to free him.
"Don't worry, kid, I'll get you out," Bart promised him.
"I'm not even real," Jase said, tears falling from his eyes as the pain coursed through his body. "Why do you care about me?"
"You are real to me," Bart said as he put his hand on the glass. "Jase, before you showed up, I was leading an empty life here. I had no one, just... games that weren't really that fun because I was alone. Then you showed up, and things started getting fun again, even if things didn't go as planned. You're my little brother, Jase. I love you, you're the little brother I never really had because Mom was ten centuries away."
"Aw, how sweet," Inertia said as he punched Bart in the back, causing him to scream in pain. As he punched Bart, he vibrated his hand into Bart's spinal cord to render him immobile. "I absorbed your Scouts, by the way. They're made of speed force energy, you idiot, they're mine now!"
Bart started to crawl away as Inertia kicked him in the stomach. "What's the matter? Can't run? That's because all of the energy in the speed force is coming directly to me now. Thanks to my conduit, everything is getting funneled directly through my fingers. Every other speedster is now powerless. You, Max Mercury, the Flash, everyone! I. AM. GOD NOW!"
"BART!" Jase shouted as he pounded on the glass.
"The only reason you're not dead yet is because I want to savor peeling the flesh from your skin," Inertia said as he kicked Bart, sending him flying across the room. "I'm going to destroy you atom by atom, like a flesh-eating virus. And you're going to feel every painful moment of it, Bart. And I'll make your suffering last a thousand years, maybe more."
Bart started trying to pick himself up as Jase started breathing heavily as he backed away from the glass. He was starting to get angry, seeing the only person he truly cared about being threatened.
"Just let Jase go," Bart said as Inertia picked him up by the collar.
"Are you kidding? After I've absorbed all of the speed force, who do you think is going to be dessert? I'll absorb the last piece of the speed force, and I'll make sure he screams loud enough so that you'll hear it where ever your pathetic soul ends up."
"NOOO!" Jase shouted as the glass tube exploded. Inertia dropped Bart and turned to see what had happened, only seeing a massive surge of yellow, orange and red energy. When the energy faded, Jase emerged from the broken tube wearing the Impulse costume, with the white parts replaced with yellow. Energy flowed from the boy's angry eyes as he stood there.
"You want the speed force? Come get it!"
# # # # #
Elsewhere
"We barely got him defrosted in time," Superman said as looked through the med-baby window, where Barry Allen was lying in a bed. "He has extreme hypothermia, but he's alive."
"Thanks for saving the day on this one, Superman," Wally said in his Flash costume, with his cowl down. "Every speedster on Earth is currently powerless. Me, Barry, Jesse... It's like our connection to the speed force has been completely severed. I have no way to access it to figure out what's going on."
"We'll find a way to restore your powers, I promise," Superman said. "Has there been anything else strange happening?"
"I've been having these strange dreams about Max Mercury," Wally told him. "It's as if he's trying to warn me about something, but I can never make out what he's trying to say. All I know is that involves Bart and some kid I've never seen before. Do you think that something's happening in the speed force, and Max and Bart could be in trouble?"
"I wish I knew," Superman told him. "If whatever trouble is happening in the speed force spills out into our world, there may be no way to stop it without a Flash to fight it."
To Be Continued...