The Eye of Anubis - Chapter 02 (Part 01)
Main Pairing: Batman / Catwoman
Rating: PG-13 for now
Author's Notes: Uhm... We're sorry for completely messing up our Legion of Super-Heroes references? Between the two of us, we only have approximately the first fifteen issues of the Post-Zero Hour LoSH, which is the Legion we're using here, and the Teen Titans/Legion cross that led to the 3Boot. Please don't kill us for completely mucking up Jenni's Legion.
Summary: Being the Hand of a Goddess isn't easy, especially when duty pits a girl against the Dark Knight, but the new Catwoman has a mission, and nothing is going to stand in the way of its completion. Not even Batman.
The Eye of Anubis
By Nightmare and Winged Dreamer
Author's Notes: Uhm… We're sorry for completely messing up our Legion of Super-Heroes references? Between the two of us, we only have approximately the first fifteen issues of the Post-Zero Hour LoSH, which is the Legion we're using here, and the Teen Titans/Legion cross that led to the 3Boot. Please don't kill us for completely mucking up Jenni's Legion.
Chapter Two, Part One
----- Keystone City, Kansas. Home of the Flashes ----
A predawn glow lit Keystone Park, setting the trees on fire with color and adding warmth to the cool late summer morning air. All was quiet in the park, the occasional creak of a swing pushed by an errant breeze dampened by the peaceful aura surrounding everything. Only the birds and squirrels were awake, their daily song slowly building as the sun began to lift over the horizon.
Suddenly, branches were yanked and leaves were rustled as if by a furious storm, breaking the serenity of the morning. Songbirds shrilled in alarm as they were shaken from their perches into the air and squirrels chattered their disapproval, dashing to find safe hiding places beneath the more sturdy bushes. The storm - a blur of scarlet and yellow trailing false lightning - stuck to the paths, its wake pulling at the surrounding vegetation.
"I still can't believe you lost Barry," laughed Bart Allen, known to the world as Kid Flash, as he ran beside his cousin Wally West, the Flash, the Scarlet Speedster himself. Bright golden eyes surrounded by a yellow mask shone with mirth below wind-tousled auburn locks. "I mean, come on. How hard is it to lose a four-year-old in your house, even if he is your kid?"
"Not very hard at all when your four-year-old is a little Speedster in the making. Trust me. Those little adorable monsters are more than even I can handle. It takes a mother, I tell you," Wally informed him solemnly, but there was humor in his voice and a smirk on his lips. "Kick it up a notch?"
"That depends. Think you can keep up, old man?" Grinning, Kid Flash drew on the Speed Force and rocketed forward ahead of his cousin, simultaneously releasing his hold on the dampening effects of his powers, allowing them to reduce his wake to little more than a stiff breeze like they normally did. When he was running below the speed of sound, he liked to actually see a real wake follow him as proof that he had been there, but there was no point to destroying things with the tug of supersonic winds or sonic booms when there was no need to.
Out of nowhere, something barreled into Bart's side at near lightspeed, shoving him off the path to tumble uncontrollably through bushes and knock over at least one young tree. Almost a quarter mile from the site of impact, Bart and his attacker finally slid to a stop. Groaning, Kid Flash rolled onto his back and blinked dust from his eyes. "The hell?!" he coughed.
"Bart!" exclaimed a very female voice in a very excited squeal from within the settling dust clouds, and then he was pounced again, at normal speed, with strong, slender arms hugging him around the neck. "It's been so long! It'ssogoodtoseeyou!!Howhaveyoubeen?Igotyourletters,andthankyousomuch!Icherishthemlikeyouwouldn'tbelieve!!"
"Jenni?!" Bart would know that voice anywhere, and he managed to push his attacker off just long enough for his surprised gold eyes to meet their twin pair set in a dusky face and framed by dark lashes. There was only one person he knew with eyes exactly like his own and she was Jenni Ognats, the daughter of his father's sister. Shock gave way to excitement and he caught her in a crushing hug. "Ohmygod!!Whatareyoudoinghere?!Whendidyougethere?!Lookatyou!!Ohmygod!!WALLY!!Wally,getoverhere!!It'sJENNI!!"
Jenni crushed him back, giggling.
The Scarlet Speedster stepped toward the tumble of Speedster pups and shook his head. He'd caught up with them just as they'd stopped. Wally hadn't been surprised to see Jenni at all if the smirk on his face was any indication.
"Hi,Wally!Longtimenosee.How'sLinda?" Once in hyperspeed it was hard to slow down and at least with these two, Jenni didn't even have to try. Containing her exuberance was not something she wanted to have to worry about at the moment.
"Hey.Linda'sgood.Thetwinsareholyterrors,butthat'sparenthoodforyou.Howareyou?"
"Greatnow!!" Tightening her hold on Bart some more, XS buried her face into the side of his neck and purred. "I'vemissedyou…"
"I'vemissedyoutoo,cuz." Grinning, Bart winked at Wally and blew a loud raspberry on Jenni's neck.
Wally laughed outright when Jenni squealed in surprise, pulled back and slapped Bart right across the face. He had earned the blow - Bart could be downright evil sometimes, and the twins strangely loved it when he did that - but she hadn't hit him terribly hard. The one time Bart had gotten him with that move, Wally had decked him. He had pulled the punch, but decked him nonetheless.
"KOKO!! Don'tdothat!!"
Kid Flash just laughed and, for the first time ever, didn't protest the "hated" nickname, instead hugging Jenni again. "Whendidyougethere?!Jeez,Ihaven'tseenyouinyears!!Howhave youbeen?!"
"Great!I'vebeengreat!Youlookamazing!Wow,you'vegottensobig,babycousin!Lookatyou!" Jenni pulled back again to more closely examine Bart. "Ijustgothere!Well,probablyalittle bitago. Ranintoatreeand… gotknockedout. I'm lucky that's all I got…"
"Youran into a tree? What happened tomakingphasing through stuff automatic?" Laughing, Bart grabbed Jenni's head and tried to peer into her head through her ear. "Didn't shakeanymorebraincells loose, did you?"
"Hey!! Nolice,Koko!" Jenni scolded with a laugh as she twisted away. Looking suddenly sheepish, Jenni decided to give them as truthful an explanation as she possibly could. "Actually… I was kind of panicking. I was running errands for the Legion when everything suddenly went white, and then BAM! I hit a tree while trying to slow down."
"Ouch, that's never fun," Wally interjected with a sympathetic wince. The other two Speedsters were starting to slow down, coming down from the high of seeing each other for the first time in way too long. It was good to see such a large portion of his family, and that was made obvious by his huge grin and shining green eyes.
Excitement giving way to worry, Bart sat up properly on the remains of the grass they had skidded into and fixed Jenni with a concerned look. "Everything went white? You mean your vision or your surroundings?"
"My surroundings. I was… so scared. I panicked. It happened so fast, I thought for a second that I had let myself go too far and ended up… in…"
"The Speed Force," Wally supplied as he brought himself to kneel beside the Legionnaire they called family. Jenni's costume was dirty, but Wally didn't hesitate to hug her. "But you're okay, right?"
"I don't feel any different. It just scared me."
"Well, you're here now, and that means everything's going to be alright." Bart hugged Jenni tight from the other side. "All we need to do is hop on the Cosmic Treadmill and take you back to the 31st century to make sure nothing bad happened there. Hopefully this was just an accident and not somebody trying to get you out of the way."
"Yeah… Rokk must be worried. At least some time has had to have passed there, and I was supposed to be right back."
"So we'll take you back to right after when you left. You remember what time you left, right?" asked Bart.
"Sometime after nine in the morning. So showing up after ten would probably be best. To avoid overlap."
"Good plan. Let's head over to the museum then." Wally got to his feet slowly and offered both youngsters a hand up. "I'm sure Bart would like to see Melani while we're there, and I won't mind saying hello."
At the mention of visiting his mother, Kid Flash was instantly ready to take off like a shot, virtually vibrating in place. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go, while the museum's still closed!" Air whooshed to fill in the empty spot he had left behind, rustling trees marking his path into Keystone's downtown.
------ The Flash Museum ------
Arms folded across her chest, the Speedster known as XS watched in nervous silence as her two cousins went over the Cosmic Treadmill, checking it for damage or flaws. An invention of the grandfather of XS and Kid Flash, Barry Allen the second Flash, it was designed to take a runner to any point in time of their choosing… provided they could get up enough speed. With three Speedsters running on the thing, Jenni would be surprised if they couldn't.
"Almost done," Wally informed her with a reassuring wink and a grin. Jenni gave him a small nod and a weak smile in return. She couldn't help but hope she would get to go home, even if she knew it was a very slim possibility.
"Okay," she murmured. "I'm ready whenever you two are."
Looking at the Treadmill's panel, Kid Flash rattled off the date, time, and destination they had programmed into the machine. "That sound right, Jenni?"
"Perfect." Her heart fluttering and her stomach knotting a little in nervousness, Jenni nodded after responding almost too quickly. "Just… how much longer?"
"We're ready. Let's go," Wally answered and motioned Jenni up over to the Treadmill as he stepped up beside it. "Bart will get her going and then you'll have to hop on up and join him. Can you do that?"
"Of course."
Nodding, the Scarlet Speedster turned to Kid Flash. "Have at it."
Energy soon crackled around the Cosmic Treadmill, building a small lightning storm around the two Speedsters. A sudden yet expected force grabbed Kid Flash and he had a brief moment of vertigo as the museum vanished. Seconds later, the world reformed around him to reveal the control room of the Legion of Super-Heroes' training simulator. Bart saw Leviathan in the VR chamber and, grinning, he dove for the controls, turning the simulation off.
"Hey!" His protest echoing over the speakers, Leviathan yanked his headset off and spun towards the control room. "Who turned the- Bart?!" Eyes widened in surprise, and then he was running out of the VR chamber, his headset forgotten on the floor, to catch Kid Flash in an embrace. "How have you been? What are you doing here?"
Bart eagerly hugged the taller young man back and let him go, grinning. "Hey, Gim! Just here to bring XS home. Jenni… is gone?" The rest of his body followed his head to turn towards the Treadmill. "She was behind me just a second ago."
"So that's where she got off to! That's a relief… but if she's not with you… Heh, never mind. I bet I know where she bolted off to. C'mon. Cosmic Boy's this way." Leviathan took a moment to set his VR headset back in its case and, with a wave of his arm and a small grin, set off for the Legion HQ control room.
"Let me guess. She still hasn't gotten over her crush on Rokk," said Bart with a large grin.
"Gotten over? Yeesh, Bart. She didn't tell you? They've been together for a while now." Pushing open the door to the control room, Gim immediately sought Cos. "Hey, Rokk, guess who… Where's Jenni?"
Cosmic Boy, the leader of the Legion, immediately straightened from his lean over Brainiac Five and turned around at the sound of Jenni's name. "What do you mean, where's Jenni?" Anxious blue eyes landed on Kid Flash and immediately filled with questions. "Bart? What are you doing here?"
Brainy turned around in his computer chair and softly groaned at the sight of Bart. "That explains the energy anomaly in the training simulator room," he muttered.
Ignoring Brainy's attitude for once, Bart's brows drew together in confusion. "Hey, guys. Jenni didn't come this way?"
Hope and relief swept over Cos' face. "Jenni's here?"
"She should be. She was on the Treadmill with me when the time jump happened."
"I'm not picking up XS' flight ring signature on the scanner," announced Brainy, flipping through channels on the main computer in search of her signal.
Now Kid Flash was really confused. "That's weird. I could have sworn she made the time jump with me."
"Bart," Garth greeted the Speedster as he entered the room. He sighed, casting the frazzled Cosmic Boy a small, sympathetic smirk. If Imra had been the one missing, Lightning Lad didn't doubt for a second that he'd be just as much of a wreck as their leader was at that very moment.
Leviathan shook his head. "Did you maybe knock her off by mistake? You have to run pretty close together, don't you?"
Bart cast Gim a flat look. "She was running behind me. There's no way I could have knocked her off."
"Brainy, keep searching in case Jenni is here," ordered Cos, automatically falling back into leader mode as a possible solution came to mind. "Kid Flash, go back to the Treadmill and go back to the 21st century to make sure she didn't accidentally get left behind. Garth, stay with Brainy. Move." All it took was a half-formed thought for Rokk's magnetic powers to grab the iron in Bart's blood to make him turn around and push him towards the training room.
----- Back in the 21st Century -----
Slowly, XS picked herself up off the ground and stared at the place that Bart and the Treadmill had just been occupying. "I… I don't understand… Why…"
Wally had no idea what had just happened. Everything had appeared to be going smoothly. The jump had been clean as far as he could tell, but finding Jenni sitting on the floor where the Treadmill had been definitely should not have happened, not when she had been running on it as it disappeared. "I don't know. Come here." Taking her arm, he pulled her towards him. "Don't want Bart coming back on top of you. You were running as fast as him, weren't you?"
"I-I think so. I wasn't having any trouble keeping up. I… Why didn't it work, Wally?!" Jenni felt the tears flow even more freely. "What if I can't ever go back?!"
Strong arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace. "It'll be okay. It'll be okay, Jenni, I promise," the Flash murmured, stroking her hair. Fast as lightning, his mind ran through all the possible reasons for why she hadn't jumped with the Treadmill, each reason less likely than the last and none of them a real possibility. "We'll take care of you."
"I know you will, I just… I miss him, Wally. It feels like I've been away forever." Sniffling a little, Jenni hugged her cousin back tight. Wally and Bart were the best cousins anyone could ever hope for. They took good care of their own and loved their family members whole-heartedly. Not for the first time, Jenni felt an intense and tight swelling of pride in her chest. Being a member of this superhero family was amazing and wonderful… but she wanted Rokk and the rest of the Legion. They were her most familiar family. Not that she didn't love Wally and Bart and their respective, immediate families. She just missed her own. "Sorry… I sort of lost it there for a second."
"I would have been worried if you hadn't." Flash managed a small smile for XS and loosened his embrace. "Bart should-"
The air around them shifted and crackled as the Cosmic Treadmill reappeared in a quick burst of light. Bart didn't even wait for the spots to stop dancing in his cousins' eyes before jumping off the Treadmill towards them. "Jenni! What happened? Why didn't you make the jump?"
"I don't know. I just… didn't go. Everything started to go white and then I was dropped on my butt. You disappeared and here I still am." A soft sniffle and Jenni pulled away from Wally to move in a little closer to Kid Flash. "Is… everyone okay? Did they even know I was missing?"
"Cos is going nuts. You didn't tell me you guys are together now!"
"Yeah… We've been together for a while. I had other things on my mind so it didn't come up in the last hour." She flashed him a small, truly apologetic smile and said, "Let's try again." Already moving toward the Treadmill, Jenni found herself nothing but eager to see Rokk's bright blue eyes again. She was so close and, as the saying went, so very far away.
Wally was right behind her. "I'll give a little extra umph. Maybe it was a matter of power somehow. This thing's tricky sometimes."
Nodding, Jenni climbed up and launched into a full out run. Seconds later, Wally hopped up behind her and the last thing she heard were Bart's boots hitting the tread before everything started to go white. She ended up on her rear on the ground again, blinking spots out of her eyes and totally alone.
----- Back in the 31st Century -----
Wally blinked away the spots as rapidly as he could and looked about him. There was only one person waiting for them in the room they ended up in. He was a hopeful looking young man with heroic good looks, messy black hair and blue eyes that dimmed as his expression turned from hopeful to crestfallen. "You must be Rokk," Wally greeted him, then looked to Bart. "And Jenni didn't make it here this time either."
"Dammit! God frickin'…" Muttering a string of blistering curses, Kid Flash kicked the Treadmill. "She was right behind me! She was!"
Any other time, Cosmic Boy would have been elated to be in the presence of a Justice League member. Right now, he just wanted his girlfriend back and to know why she had disappeared in the first place. "Do you have any idea why this is happening?"
"I wish." Bart kicked the Treadmill again. "She was running right behind me! She should have jumped with us!"
"I don't have a clue." Shaking his head, Wally sighed and folded his arms as he gave the Cosmic Treadmill a calculating once over. "Bart, stop kicking it. I'd like to be able to make it home." He paused for a moment before continuing, answering Cosmic Boy's question to the best of his ability. "The only thing I can think of is that something is forcing her to stay in the past. What, I haven't a clue, but that's all I've got. The Treadmill's science is… unique and only the second Flash really knew much about it. Unfortunately, he didn't impart the knowledge before he went. Or at least, if he ever did I never understood it enough to remember it."
"And we can forget about asking Grandma Iris. I bet even she doesn't know." Frowning, Bart pulled his leg back to kick the machine again and put it back down at the Flash's warning look.
"Maybe if I get Brainy, he can figure out what's going wrong," suggested Rokk. "We need XS to come home. She was carrying documents that our sponsor needs as soon as possible."
"We'll get you the documents one way or another, kid. Don't worry about that. I'd be more worried about the thing keeping XS from making it back. Whatever it was that sent her to the 21st century in the first place might have needed to get her out of the way or something." Pacing around the Treadmill, Wally stopped exactly opposite of his original position and looked to Bart. "Let's give this thing one last shot. Third time's usually the charm."
"If it doesn't work this time, I'm letting Brainy play with this stupid thing until it does work," muttered Bart, hopping up onto the Cosmic Treadmill with the Flash. "Unreliable hunk of junk."
Rokk backed away from the Treadmill and watched as the Speedsters ran themselves into another time jump, hoping. Before the spots had disappeared from his eyes, they reappeared in the same crackling storm of energy.
Without Jenni.
That was it. Frustrated and worried, Cosmic Boy turned for the door to get Brainiac and make the twelfth-level intelligence figure out why XS couldn't come home. Kid Flash's heated swearing followed him out of the room.
An hour and four more failed tries later, even Brainy's nerves were frayed. "There's nothing wrong with it," he declared, tapping a frustrated tattoo on his data pad with the stylus as he glared at the Treadmill. "Nothing. The only thing that can be stopping XS from coming through is that someone or something is blocking her passage, and I can't find any interference in this time."
"But what or who in the 21st century would want to keep Jenni there?" Cosmic Boy turned to Flash, hoping he might have an answer.
Wally tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling as a list of so many possibilities drifting through his head. He dismissed almost all of them as they came into his head as most of those people were no longer threats or didn't even know that Jenni existed. "It could be someone from your time that's made it back to our time… or… Max or Johnny if they know something we don't. Although that's not very likely, I've learned that nothing is impossible in this world."
"Max or Johnny?"
"Max Mercury or Johnny Quick. Two Speedster's from his time." Bart jerked a thumb in Wally's direction to answer Brainy's question. "They're part of the Speed Force now, so it is possible that they could be messing with things. Why they would do that, though, I have no idea."
Sighing, Rokk ran a hand through his hair. "Is there any possible way to contact them?"
"Technically they're dead, but technically they're not. It's complicated. Look. Bart can run those papers we brought with us to your sponsor if he hasn't already. I'm not sure what else we can do…" Ignoring the urge to rub the back of his neck in helplessness, Wally shrugged one shoulder and shook his head. "We'll probably just have to wait this one out."
"I ran 'em to Brande when you were going over the Treadmill's schematics with Brainy." Kid Flash crossed his arms and glared at the offending piece of technology. "This bite- Wait a second. I'll be right back." He took off running.
"I don't want to know," said Brainiac Five, heading for the door. "Whenever he gets ideas, it always means a headache for me."
"Go see if you can detect anything strange from the control room," Cos called after him. Frowning, he turned back to the Treadmill. "I don't understand this at all. What could be keeping Jenni in the 21st century?"
"I honestly don't have a clue." Curious about where Bart ran off to, but unwilling to go traipsing about in a time not his own, Wally cast a few quick glances to the place Bart had been before focusing solely on Rokk. He looked far more than worried. It wasn't really his frowning face or the set of his shoulders that told Wally how much the situation was getting to Cosmic Boy so much as his eyes. "How long has Jenni been gone here?"
"Almost five hours. She left a little after nine this morning to make the run and was supposed to have come right back. Fifteen, twenty minutes at most. Thirty if Brande got talking. But when she still hadn't come back after an hour and Brande called to ask where the documents were, we knew something was wrong. According to Brainy, her signal just up and vanished while she was running to Tokyopolis not even two minutes after she had left." Cos' tone was tight with worry.
"Hey." Wally lowered his voice and reached out, putting a gentle hand on Cos' shoulder. "Easy, buddy. Jenni's just fine. She's a little upset and missing you, but she's fine otherwise. Everything's gonna be okay."
"Okay, as far as Mom knows, Grandpa Thawne doesn't have any stupid plans involving Jenni, so that idea's out. She says hi, by the way. What's wrong with you, Cos?"
Willing his heart to slow back down to a normal pace, Rokk just shook his head and decided to not tell Kid Flash that he had almost had the iron reflexively yanked out of his body by Rokk's magnetic powers. He hadn't realized he had been wound so tightly. "Nothing."
Bart shrugged and looked to the Flash. "So. Now what?"
"We go home and take a look around the 21st century. See if we can flush whatever might be holding her up in our time." Turning to Cosmic Boy, Wally asked, "So, are you free for the next two or three minutes?"
----- Back in the 21st Century Again -----
Things were beginning to look utterly hopeless. Jenni turned back to where the Treadmill had been sitting only a minute before and almost instantly found herself blinded by the sixth reappearance of the Cosmic Treadmill. Spots danced before her eyes, blinding her almost entirely. Blinking rapidly, Jenni forgot all about eye discomforts when strong arms suddenly hugged her tightly to a warm body. Enveloped in a wonderfully familiar scent, XS felt tears brim in her eyes and hugged him back. "Oh, Rokk…"
His nose buried in Jenni's sleek hair, Rokk tightened his embrace, relieved to see that at first glace Jenni appeared to be perfectly fine.
Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Bart looked up at Wally and nodded at the Flash's gesture towards the other side of the large room. They could wait to take Rokk back home for at least a few minutes.
A couple long minutes later, Rokk loosened his embrace just enough to lean back and meet his girlfriend's beautiful golden gaze. "Grife, Jenni, I was so worried about you. Are you okay?" he murmured, brushing a few errant strands of dark hair from her forehead. A small frown creased his forehead as he noticed something odd. "Is… your hair longer?"
"I'm fine, Rokk," Jenni murmured and reached up to cradle his hand in both of hers, holding the backs of his fingers to her cheek with a watery smile. "We need to talk. C'mon."
Lacing their fingers together, Jenni lead Rokk over to Wally and Bart who met them a little over half way. Flashing them a sheepish smile, she cleared her throat, glanced at her boyfriend and then asked of her two cousins, "Do you think I could borrow enough money to get a hotel room for a while? Rokk and I need to talk…" She knew she wouldn't even have to say "in private."
Wally blurred for a split second. His image stabilized with the addition of a wallet in his left hand and the offering of three twenties in the other. "It's enough for the rest of the day. Go to the Sweet Dreams Motel on Lawrence Avenue. It's got the best rates. I don't have to remind you that he can't stay for too long."
The money left Wally's hand with a gentle tug and Jenni leaned closer to plant a thankful peck on her elder cousin's cheek. "Thank you."
"Any time, sweetie. And don't worry, guys. We'll find some way to get you home, Jenni. Right, Bart?"
"Right," said Kid Flash with a resolute nod.
Rokk smiled at them both. "Thank you for all your help."
"It's nothing. We'll see you in a bit." Grabbing Bart by the elbow, Wally turned and the two Flashes vanished, leaving Jenni and Rokk alone.
Part Two
Rating: PG-13 for now
Author's Notes: Uhm... We're sorry for completely messing up our Legion of Super-Heroes references? Between the two of us, we only have approximately the first fifteen issues of the Post-Zero Hour LoSH, which is the Legion we're using here, and the Teen Titans/Legion cross that led to the 3Boot. Please don't kill us for completely mucking up Jenni's Legion.
Summary: Being the Hand of a Goddess isn't easy, especially when duty pits a girl against the Dark Knight, but the new Catwoman has a mission, and nothing is going to stand in the way of its completion. Not even Batman.
The Eye of Anubis
By Nightmare and Winged Dreamer
Author's Notes: Uhm… We're sorry for completely messing up our Legion of Super-Heroes references? Between the two of us, we only have approximately the first fifteen issues of the Post-Zero Hour LoSH, which is the Legion we're using here, and the Teen Titans/Legion cross that led to the 3Boot. Please don't kill us for completely mucking up Jenni's Legion.
Chapter Two, Part One
----- Keystone City, Kansas. Home of the Flashes ----
A predawn glow lit Keystone Park, setting the trees on fire with color and adding warmth to the cool late summer morning air. All was quiet in the park, the occasional creak of a swing pushed by an errant breeze dampened by the peaceful aura surrounding everything. Only the birds and squirrels were awake, their daily song slowly building as the sun began to lift over the horizon.
Suddenly, branches were yanked and leaves were rustled as if by a furious storm, breaking the serenity of the morning. Songbirds shrilled in alarm as they were shaken from their perches into the air and squirrels chattered their disapproval, dashing to find safe hiding places beneath the more sturdy bushes. The storm - a blur of scarlet and yellow trailing false lightning - stuck to the paths, its wake pulling at the surrounding vegetation.
"I still can't believe you lost Barry," laughed Bart Allen, known to the world as Kid Flash, as he ran beside his cousin Wally West, the Flash, the Scarlet Speedster himself. Bright golden eyes surrounded by a yellow mask shone with mirth below wind-tousled auburn locks. "I mean, come on. How hard is it to lose a four-year-old in your house, even if he is your kid?"
"Not very hard at all when your four-year-old is a little Speedster in the making. Trust me. Those little adorable monsters are more than even I can handle. It takes a mother, I tell you," Wally informed him solemnly, but there was humor in his voice and a smirk on his lips. "Kick it up a notch?"
"That depends. Think you can keep up, old man?" Grinning, Kid Flash drew on the Speed Force and rocketed forward ahead of his cousin, simultaneously releasing his hold on the dampening effects of his powers, allowing them to reduce his wake to little more than a stiff breeze like they normally did. When he was running below the speed of sound, he liked to actually see a real wake follow him as proof that he had been there, but there was no point to destroying things with the tug of supersonic winds or sonic booms when there was no need to.
Out of nowhere, something barreled into Bart's side at near lightspeed, shoving him off the path to tumble uncontrollably through bushes and knock over at least one young tree. Almost a quarter mile from the site of impact, Bart and his attacker finally slid to a stop. Groaning, Kid Flash rolled onto his back and blinked dust from his eyes. "The hell?!" he coughed.
"Bart!" exclaimed a very female voice in a very excited squeal from within the settling dust clouds, and then he was pounced again, at normal speed, with strong, slender arms hugging him around the neck. "It's been so long! It'ssogoodtoseeyou!!Howhaveyoubeen?Igotyourletters,andthankyousomuch!Icherishthemlikeyouwouldn'tbelieve!!"
"Jenni?!" Bart would know that voice anywhere, and he managed to push his attacker off just long enough for his surprised gold eyes to meet their twin pair set in a dusky face and framed by dark lashes. There was only one person he knew with eyes exactly like his own and she was Jenni Ognats, the daughter of his father's sister. Shock gave way to excitement and he caught her in a crushing hug. "Ohmygod!!Whatareyoudoinghere?!Whendidyougethere?!Lookatyou!!Ohmygod!!WALLY!!Wally,getoverhere!!It'sJENNI!!"
Jenni crushed him back, giggling.
The Scarlet Speedster stepped toward the tumble of Speedster pups and shook his head. He'd caught up with them just as they'd stopped. Wally hadn't been surprised to see Jenni at all if the smirk on his face was any indication.
"Hi,Wally!Longtimenosee.How'sLinda?" Once in hyperspeed it was hard to slow down and at least with these two, Jenni didn't even have to try. Containing her exuberance was not something she wanted to have to worry about at the moment.
"Hey.Linda'sgood.Thetwinsareholyterrors,butthat'sparenthoodforyou.Howareyou?"
"Greatnow!!" Tightening her hold on Bart some more, XS buried her face into the side of his neck and purred. "I'vemissedyou…"
"I'vemissedyoutoo,cuz." Grinning, Bart winked at Wally and blew a loud raspberry on Jenni's neck.
Wally laughed outright when Jenni squealed in surprise, pulled back and slapped Bart right across the face. He had earned the blow - Bart could be downright evil sometimes, and the twins strangely loved it when he did that - but she hadn't hit him terribly hard. The one time Bart had gotten him with that move, Wally had decked him. He had pulled the punch, but decked him nonetheless.
"KOKO!! Don'tdothat!!"
Kid Flash just laughed and, for the first time ever, didn't protest the "hated" nickname, instead hugging Jenni again. "Whendidyougethere?!Jeez,Ihaven'tseenyouinyears!!Howhave youbeen?!"
"Great!I'vebeengreat!Youlookamazing!Wow,you'vegottensobig,babycousin!Lookatyou!" Jenni pulled back again to more closely examine Bart. "Ijustgothere!Well,probablyalittle bitago. Ranintoatreeand… gotknockedout. I'm lucky that's all I got…"
"Youran into a tree? What happened tomakingphasing through stuff automatic?" Laughing, Bart grabbed Jenni's head and tried to peer into her head through her ear. "Didn't shakeanymorebraincells loose, did you?"
"Hey!! Nolice,Koko!" Jenni scolded with a laugh as she twisted away. Looking suddenly sheepish, Jenni decided to give them as truthful an explanation as she possibly could. "Actually… I was kind of panicking. I was running errands for the Legion when everything suddenly went white, and then BAM! I hit a tree while trying to slow down."
"Ouch, that's never fun," Wally interjected with a sympathetic wince. The other two Speedsters were starting to slow down, coming down from the high of seeing each other for the first time in way too long. It was good to see such a large portion of his family, and that was made obvious by his huge grin and shining green eyes.
Excitement giving way to worry, Bart sat up properly on the remains of the grass they had skidded into and fixed Jenni with a concerned look. "Everything went white? You mean your vision or your surroundings?"
"My surroundings. I was… so scared. I panicked. It happened so fast, I thought for a second that I had let myself go too far and ended up… in…"
"The Speed Force," Wally supplied as he brought himself to kneel beside the Legionnaire they called family. Jenni's costume was dirty, but Wally didn't hesitate to hug her. "But you're okay, right?"
"I don't feel any different. It just scared me."
"Well, you're here now, and that means everything's going to be alright." Bart hugged Jenni tight from the other side. "All we need to do is hop on the Cosmic Treadmill and take you back to the 31st century to make sure nothing bad happened there. Hopefully this was just an accident and not somebody trying to get you out of the way."
"Yeah… Rokk must be worried. At least some time has had to have passed there, and I was supposed to be right back."
"So we'll take you back to right after when you left. You remember what time you left, right?" asked Bart.
"Sometime after nine in the morning. So showing up after ten would probably be best. To avoid overlap."
"Good plan. Let's head over to the museum then." Wally got to his feet slowly and offered both youngsters a hand up. "I'm sure Bart would like to see Melani while we're there, and I won't mind saying hello."
At the mention of visiting his mother, Kid Flash was instantly ready to take off like a shot, virtually vibrating in place. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go, while the museum's still closed!" Air whooshed to fill in the empty spot he had left behind, rustling trees marking his path into Keystone's downtown.
------ The Flash Museum ------
Arms folded across her chest, the Speedster known as XS watched in nervous silence as her two cousins went over the Cosmic Treadmill, checking it for damage or flaws. An invention of the grandfather of XS and Kid Flash, Barry Allen the second Flash, it was designed to take a runner to any point in time of their choosing… provided they could get up enough speed. With three Speedsters running on the thing, Jenni would be surprised if they couldn't.
"Almost done," Wally informed her with a reassuring wink and a grin. Jenni gave him a small nod and a weak smile in return. She couldn't help but hope she would get to go home, even if she knew it was a very slim possibility.
"Okay," she murmured. "I'm ready whenever you two are."
Looking at the Treadmill's panel, Kid Flash rattled off the date, time, and destination they had programmed into the machine. "That sound right, Jenni?"
"Perfect." Her heart fluttering and her stomach knotting a little in nervousness, Jenni nodded after responding almost too quickly. "Just… how much longer?"
"We're ready. Let's go," Wally answered and motioned Jenni up over to the Treadmill as he stepped up beside it. "Bart will get her going and then you'll have to hop on up and join him. Can you do that?"
"Of course."
Nodding, the Scarlet Speedster turned to Kid Flash. "Have at it."
Energy soon crackled around the Cosmic Treadmill, building a small lightning storm around the two Speedsters. A sudden yet expected force grabbed Kid Flash and he had a brief moment of vertigo as the museum vanished. Seconds later, the world reformed around him to reveal the control room of the Legion of Super-Heroes' training simulator. Bart saw Leviathan in the VR chamber and, grinning, he dove for the controls, turning the simulation off.
"Hey!" His protest echoing over the speakers, Leviathan yanked his headset off and spun towards the control room. "Who turned the- Bart?!" Eyes widened in surprise, and then he was running out of the VR chamber, his headset forgotten on the floor, to catch Kid Flash in an embrace. "How have you been? What are you doing here?"
Bart eagerly hugged the taller young man back and let him go, grinning. "Hey, Gim! Just here to bring XS home. Jenni… is gone?" The rest of his body followed his head to turn towards the Treadmill. "She was behind me just a second ago."
"So that's where she got off to! That's a relief… but if she's not with you… Heh, never mind. I bet I know where she bolted off to. C'mon. Cosmic Boy's this way." Leviathan took a moment to set his VR headset back in its case and, with a wave of his arm and a small grin, set off for the Legion HQ control room.
"Let me guess. She still hasn't gotten over her crush on Rokk," said Bart with a large grin.
"Gotten over? Yeesh, Bart. She didn't tell you? They've been together for a while now." Pushing open the door to the control room, Gim immediately sought Cos. "Hey, Rokk, guess who… Where's Jenni?"
Cosmic Boy, the leader of the Legion, immediately straightened from his lean over Brainiac Five and turned around at the sound of Jenni's name. "What do you mean, where's Jenni?" Anxious blue eyes landed on Kid Flash and immediately filled with questions. "Bart? What are you doing here?"
Brainy turned around in his computer chair and softly groaned at the sight of Bart. "That explains the energy anomaly in the training simulator room," he muttered.
Ignoring Brainy's attitude for once, Bart's brows drew together in confusion. "Hey, guys. Jenni didn't come this way?"
Hope and relief swept over Cos' face. "Jenni's here?"
"She should be. She was on the Treadmill with me when the time jump happened."
"I'm not picking up XS' flight ring signature on the scanner," announced Brainy, flipping through channels on the main computer in search of her signal.
Now Kid Flash was really confused. "That's weird. I could have sworn she made the time jump with me."
"Bart," Garth greeted the Speedster as he entered the room. He sighed, casting the frazzled Cosmic Boy a small, sympathetic smirk. If Imra had been the one missing, Lightning Lad didn't doubt for a second that he'd be just as much of a wreck as their leader was at that very moment.
Leviathan shook his head. "Did you maybe knock her off by mistake? You have to run pretty close together, don't you?"
Bart cast Gim a flat look. "She was running behind me. There's no way I could have knocked her off."
"Brainy, keep searching in case Jenni is here," ordered Cos, automatically falling back into leader mode as a possible solution came to mind. "Kid Flash, go back to the Treadmill and go back to the 21st century to make sure she didn't accidentally get left behind. Garth, stay with Brainy. Move." All it took was a half-formed thought for Rokk's magnetic powers to grab the iron in Bart's blood to make him turn around and push him towards the training room.
----- Back in the 21st Century -----
Slowly, XS picked herself up off the ground and stared at the place that Bart and the Treadmill had just been occupying. "I… I don't understand… Why…"
Wally had no idea what had just happened. Everything had appeared to be going smoothly. The jump had been clean as far as he could tell, but finding Jenni sitting on the floor where the Treadmill had been definitely should not have happened, not when she had been running on it as it disappeared. "I don't know. Come here." Taking her arm, he pulled her towards him. "Don't want Bart coming back on top of you. You were running as fast as him, weren't you?"
"I-I think so. I wasn't having any trouble keeping up. I… Why didn't it work, Wally?!" Jenni felt the tears flow even more freely. "What if I can't ever go back?!"
Strong arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace. "It'll be okay. It'll be okay, Jenni, I promise," the Flash murmured, stroking her hair. Fast as lightning, his mind ran through all the possible reasons for why she hadn't jumped with the Treadmill, each reason less likely than the last and none of them a real possibility. "We'll take care of you."
"I know you will, I just… I miss him, Wally. It feels like I've been away forever." Sniffling a little, Jenni hugged her cousin back tight. Wally and Bart were the best cousins anyone could ever hope for. They took good care of their own and loved their family members whole-heartedly. Not for the first time, Jenni felt an intense and tight swelling of pride in her chest. Being a member of this superhero family was amazing and wonderful… but she wanted Rokk and the rest of the Legion. They were her most familiar family. Not that she didn't love Wally and Bart and their respective, immediate families. She just missed her own. "Sorry… I sort of lost it there for a second."
"I would have been worried if you hadn't." Flash managed a small smile for XS and loosened his embrace. "Bart should-"
The air around them shifted and crackled as the Cosmic Treadmill reappeared in a quick burst of light. Bart didn't even wait for the spots to stop dancing in his cousins' eyes before jumping off the Treadmill towards them. "Jenni! What happened? Why didn't you make the jump?"
"I don't know. I just… didn't go. Everything started to go white and then I was dropped on my butt. You disappeared and here I still am." A soft sniffle and Jenni pulled away from Wally to move in a little closer to Kid Flash. "Is… everyone okay? Did they even know I was missing?"
"Cos is going nuts. You didn't tell me you guys are together now!"
"Yeah… We've been together for a while. I had other things on my mind so it didn't come up in the last hour." She flashed him a small, truly apologetic smile and said, "Let's try again." Already moving toward the Treadmill, Jenni found herself nothing but eager to see Rokk's bright blue eyes again. She was so close and, as the saying went, so very far away.
Wally was right behind her. "I'll give a little extra umph. Maybe it was a matter of power somehow. This thing's tricky sometimes."
Nodding, Jenni climbed up and launched into a full out run. Seconds later, Wally hopped up behind her and the last thing she heard were Bart's boots hitting the tread before everything started to go white. She ended up on her rear on the ground again, blinking spots out of her eyes and totally alone.
----- Back in the 31st Century -----
Wally blinked away the spots as rapidly as he could and looked about him. There was only one person waiting for them in the room they ended up in. He was a hopeful looking young man with heroic good looks, messy black hair and blue eyes that dimmed as his expression turned from hopeful to crestfallen. "You must be Rokk," Wally greeted him, then looked to Bart. "And Jenni didn't make it here this time either."
"Dammit! God frickin'…" Muttering a string of blistering curses, Kid Flash kicked the Treadmill. "She was right behind me! She was!"
Any other time, Cosmic Boy would have been elated to be in the presence of a Justice League member. Right now, he just wanted his girlfriend back and to know why she had disappeared in the first place. "Do you have any idea why this is happening?"
"I wish." Bart kicked the Treadmill again. "She was running right behind me! She should have jumped with us!"
"I don't have a clue." Shaking his head, Wally sighed and folded his arms as he gave the Cosmic Treadmill a calculating once over. "Bart, stop kicking it. I'd like to be able to make it home." He paused for a moment before continuing, answering Cosmic Boy's question to the best of his ability. "The only thing I can think of is that something is forcing her to stay in the past. What, I haven't a clue, but that's all I've got. The Treadmill's science is… unique and only the second Flash really knew much about it. Unfortunately, he didn't impart the knowledge before he went. Or at least, if he ever did I never understood it enough to remember it."
"And we can forget about asking Grandma Iris. I bet even she doesn't know." Frowning, Bart pulled his leg back to kick the machine again and put it back down at the Flash's warning look.
"Maybe if I get Brainy, he can figure out what's going wrong," suggested Rokk. "We need XS to come home. She was carrying documents that our sponsor needs as soon as possible."
"We'll get you the documents one way or another, kid. Don't worry about that. I'd be more worried about the thing keeping XS from making it back. Whatever it was that sent her to the 21st century in the first place might have needed to get her out of the way or something." Pacing around the Treadmill, Wally stopped exactly opposite of his original position and looked to Bart. "Let's give this thing one last shot. Third time's usually the charm."
"If it doesn't work this time, I'm letting Brainy play with this stupid thing until it does work," muttered Bart, hopping up onto the Cosmic Treadmill with the Flash. "Unreliable hunk of junk."
Rokk backed away from the Treadmill and watched as the Speedsters ran themselves into another time jump, hoping. Before the spots had disappeared from his eyes, they reappeared in the same crackling storm of energy.
Without Jenni.
That was it. Frustrated and worried, Cosmic Boy turned for the door to get Brainiac and make the twelfth-level intelligence figure out why XS couldn't come home. Kid Flash's heated swearing followed him out of the room.
An hour and four more failed tries later, even Brainy's nerves were frayed. "There's nothing wrong with it," he declared, tapping a frustrated tattoo on his data pad with the stylus as he glared at the Treadmill. "Nothing. The only thing that can be stopping XS from coming through is that someone or something is blocking her passage, and I can't find any interference in this time."
"But what or who in the 21st century would want to keep Jenni there?" Cosmic Boy turned to Flash, hoping he might have an answer.
Wally tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling as a list of so many possibilities drifting through his head. He dismissed almost all of them as they came into his head as most of those people were no longer threats or didn't even know that Jenni existed. "It could be someone from your time that's made it back to our time… or… Max or Johnny if they know something we don't. Although that's not very likely, I've learned that nothing is impossible in this world."
"Max or Johnny?"
"Max Mercury or Johnny Quick. Two Speedster's from his time." Bart jerked a thumb in Wally's direction to answer Brainy's question. "They're part of the Speed Force now, so it is possible that they could be messing with things. Why they would do that, though, I have no idea."
Sighing, Rokk ran a hand through his hair. "Is there any possible way to contact them?"
"Technically they're dead, but technically they're not. It's complicated. Look. Bart can run those papers we brought with us to your sponsor if he hasn't already. I'm not sure what else we can do…" Ignoring the urge to rub the back of his neck in helplessness, Wally shrugged one shoulder and shook his head. "We'll probably just have to wait this one out."
"I ran 'em to Brande when you were going over the Treadmill's schematics with Brainy." Kid Flash crossed his arms and glared at the offending piece of technology. "This bite- Wait a second. I'll be right back." He took off running.
"I don't want to know," said Brainiac Five, heading for the door. "Whenever he gets ideas, it always means a headache for me."
"Go see if you can detect anything strange from the control room," Cos called after him. Frowning, he turned back to the Treadmill. "I don't understand this at all. What could be keeping Jenni in the 21st century?"
"I honestly don't have a clue." Curious about where Bart ran off to, but unwilling to go traipsing about in a time not his own, Wally cast a few quick glances to the place Bart had been before focusing solely on Rokk. He looked far more than worried. It wasn't really his frowning face or the set of his shoulders that told Wally how much the situation was getting to Cosmic Boy so much as his eyes. "How long has Jenni been gone here?"
"Almost five hours. She left a little after nine this morning to make the run and was supposed to have come right back. Fifteen, twenty minutes at most. Thirty if Brande got talking. But when she still hadn't come back after an hour and Brande called to ask where the documents were, we knew something was wrong. According to Brainy, her signal just up and vanished while she was running to Tokyopolis not even two minutes after she had left." Cos' tone was tight with worry.
"Hey." Wally lowered his voice and reached out, putting a gentle hand on Cos' shoulder. "Easy, buddy. Jenni's just fine. She's a little upset and missing you, but she's fine otherwise. Everything's gonna be okay."
"Okay, as far as Mom knows, Grandpa Thawne doesn't have any stupid plans involving Jenni, so that idea's out. She says hi, by the way. What's wrong with you, Cos?"
Willing his heart to slow back down to a normal pace, Rokk just shook his head and decided to not tell Kid Flash that he had almost had the iron reflexively yanked out of his body by Rokk's magnetic powers. He hadn't realized he had been wound so tightly. "Nothing."
Bart shrugged and looked to the Flash. "So. Now what?"
"We go home and take a look around the 21st century. See if we can flush whatever might be holding her up in our time." Turning to Cosmic Boy, Wally asked, "So, are you free for the next two or three minutes?"
----- Back in the 21st Century Again -----
Things were beginning to look utterly hopeless. Jenni turned back to where the Treadmill had been sitting only a minute before and almost instantly found herself blinded by the sixth reappearance of the Cosmic Treadmill. Spots danced before her eyes, blinding her almost entirely. Blinking rapidly, Jenni forgot all about eye discomforts when strong arms suddenly hugged her tightly to a warm body. Enveloped in a wonderfully familiar scent, XS felt tears brim in her eyes and hugged him back. "Oh, Rokk…"
His nose buried in Jenni's sleek hair, Rokk tightened his embrace, relieved to see that at first glace Jenni appeared to be perfectly fine.
Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Bart looked up at Wally and nodded at the Flash's gesture towards the other side of the large room. They could wait to take Rokk back home for at least a few minutes.
A couple long minutes later, Rokk loosened his embrace just enough to lean back and meet his girlfriend's beautiful golden gaze. "Grife, Jenni, I was so worried about you. Are you okay?" he murmured, brushing a few errant strands of dark hair from her forehead. A small frown creased his forehead as he noticed something odd. "Is… your hair longer?"
"I'm fine, Rokk," Jenni murmured and reached up to cradle his hand in both of hers, holding the backs of his fingers to her cheek with a watery smile. "We need to talk. C'mon."
Lacing their fingers together, Jenni lead Rokk over to Wally and Bart who met them a little over half way. Flashing them a sheepish smile, she cleared her throat, glanced at her boyfriend and then asked of her two cousins, "Do you think I could borrow enough money to get a hotel room for a while? Rokk and I need to talk…" She knew she wouldn't even have to say "in private."
Wally blurred for a split second. His image stabilized with the addition of a wallet in his left hand and the offering of three twenties in the other. "It's enough for the rest of the day. Go to the Sweet Dreams Motel on Lawrence Avenue. It's got the best rates. I don't have to remind you that he can't stay for too long."
The money left Wally's hand with a gentle tug and Jenni leaned closer to plant a thankful peck on her elder cousin's cheek. "Thank you."
"Any time, sweetie. And don't worry, guys. We'll find some way to get you home, Jenni. Right, Bart?"
"Right," said Kid Flash with a resolute nod.
Rokk smiled at them both. "Thank you for all your help."
"It's nothing. We'll see you in a bit." Grabbing Bart by the elbow, Wally turned and the two Flashes vanished, leaving Jenni and Rokk alone.
Part Two