Retired

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I'm unfortunately going to officially bow out. I had high hopes for this rendition, but I think things just didn't pan out for me the way I wished and as a result, my motivation mostly died.

Best of luck.

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Sure are a lot of aliens in 1968.

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As promised.

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I M P U L S E

---

The world was brighter.

That was the first thing that Bart noticed about the past. This world some six decades removed from his own was vivid and cheerful and radiant in ways he had never known possible.

It wasn't just that the skies, devoid of perpetual smog and ash, were a beaming shade of blue; nor was it only the distinct lack of rubble and tell-tale signs of devastation everywhere he looked. It was the people that were brighter, too. Smiles and laughter abound, but even those without still held purpose and pasion, regardless of how routine, that had almost entirely been cleansed in the time Bart had come from. Society still fully existed in this period, and with it came light.

They didn't yet know what it was to truly be without hope. To despair beyond belief. To be trapped in a living nightmare where all one could do was struggle and fight to survive to the next Hellish, dark day.

It was a reality that Bart Allen intended to ensure the people of this world would never have to face.

He had first rematerialized five days ago precisely where the time machine had ferried him away from back in the future: Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. Barely a hundred feet outside of a cavern entrance that led deep into a mountain that had once, in the world that had been his home, served as a secret sanctuary of sorts during the various alien invasions that had laid havoc to the Earth.

During the Dominator's occupation, the twisting network of caves had been used by Max Mercury, Richard Grayson, and the rest of the freedom fighters to plan their four-year-long insurgency and later as a staging ground for the final assault that had driven the invaders from the planet. Seven years following, it had functioned as a hiding place for nearly two thousand civilians during the height of Apokalypse's assault on Earth, and six years further still the mountain's caverns had been the headquarters for what became the Young Justice League.

Now, it fulfilled its role as the birthplace for Bart's new life in the past.

He had wasted no time upon exiting the contraption that had shunted him through time. Immediately, Bart set about dismantling the device just as Max had instructed him to, rushing each component he stripped away to various sections of the Harbor and discarding them thousands of feet into the bay. It was of the utmost importance, he had been told, that no one could ever find any of the future technology the time machine had utilized, so Bart had taken the extra precaution of speedily pulverizing certain pieces until nothing remained but dust.

In the several days since, Bart had spent his time acclimating to his new surroundings. At least, as best as one could acclimate when they were racing across the continental United States at subsonic speeds. The time-displaced youth had been doing his best to adhere to Max's guidelines, and not revealing himself unless necessary was second only to avoiding "needlessly contaminating the timeline" as the elder speedster had put it. So, Bart was doing all of his sightseeing with powers engaged.

He had already visited several American cities that had been annihilated in his time. New York and Metropolis, Chicago and Fawcett, Keystone and Central; all were rubble the last he had seen them. Now, they were sprawling hubs of civilization that practically danced with activity. Bart had observed more people in Fawcett City in a single hour than there had been in all of the Eastern United States in the year 2030.

To go along with his tourism, Bart had also been partaking in some careful liberation of items throughout the country. Clothing, food, blankets, and the like. Nothing of genuine importance and mostly taken from those who would not be in dire need without them. Excluding, perhaps, a tempting blueberry pie that had been sitting out on a windowsill the previous day. Not a necessary meal by any means, but it was hungry work running across the United States at speeds even jetliners would be envious of, and he was, after all, a growing boy.

He would run for an hour, then explore for a handful more, before pilfering some food to restock his energy reserves, after which he'd bunk down in some isolated field far away from towns and prying eyes. Each day, he repeated the process. This was the fifth since he had arrived, and by his estimations, he was only about six hundred miles from his destination. By evening, Bart would arrive on time at the location Max had drilled into his head.

Of course, the speedster could have easily made it there, completely on the other side of the country from where he had begun, in less than an hour. Less than ten minutes, actually, if he really pushed himself. However, breaking the sound barrier near populated areas was never an ideal situation, let alone reaching hypersonic rates. In his time, achieving supersonic speeds had rarely been something he had to concern himself with. Most things that could be damaged from the pressure wave when going supersonic were already destroyed in the future, and human beings were so sparse that there was seldom a danger if Bart chose to stretch his legs a little.

Here, in 1968, that wasn't the case. Even traveling across the midwest with its vast open fields, the sound waves he would leave in his wake while running at such speeds could easily damage crops and cattle if nothing else. With an entire timeline at risk, Max had warned Bart of taking such chances with the butterfly effect.

So, Bart made sure he never reached speeds approaching Mach 1, and thus his journey was much longer. Not that he minded much, truthfully. Even running at barely 600 miles per hour, it would have taken less than half a day to reach the West Coast. Instead, he had used the excuse to move extra leisurely so that he could truly take in the wonder that was the past.

Besides, according to Max's plan, Bart had until January 6th, 1968 at 7:58 PM to be in place. At that time, and no earlier, would the first event occur the young man was instructed to change. Therefore he saw no harm in taking in the sights and appreciating a normal world until then, even if he could not actively enjoy the normality himself.

He had a little over eleven hours until then and intended to make every use of that time.

So, as he crossed the California borderline, Bart wondered if he could find another blueberry pie to borrow.

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The man just wants to get that extra credit.

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Zoom zoom, bitches.

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Alright. Now that I no longer have Covid and I have vacation for this week, I can finally get back to the RP. I'll catch up on posts the next couple of days and then get my own up.

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It's like the Discord conversation came to life and made an app.

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See? Sometime this year.

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I M P U L S E

---

_{The Future ♦ 62 Years Ago ♦ 2030
Happy Harbor, Rhode Island}

The ground shook and the sky thundered as the world Bart Allen knew was slowly torn apart. Huge expanses of ground cracked and split miles in each direction, cities collapsed in eruptions of dust, and the oceans boiled away. The very air itself burned his lungs with every shallow breath, and the purple flashes of energy far above brought with them deafening explosions that rattled the young man to his core.

It had only been five hours since the World Devourer had begun feasting upon the planet itself. Less than three since the first sign of structural damage to the Earth's surface. Merely an hour following that when the ozone layer had been ripped from the atmosphere like a bandaid from flesh. Thankfully, the citizens of the planet, what little remained, would be long dead before they suffered from the unfiltered radiation of the sun. At best estimate, the world had less than a dozen minutes before complete and total annihilation.

Max Mercury had made sure to utilize every single second left to its fullest.

Shortly following the arrival of the cosmic colossus that now loomed over the Earth and blotted out the sun, the one-time history professor turned resistance fighter turned adoptive father had put the final stages of his plans into motion. Or, relative motion. If there had been any onlookers remaining to witness, the pair of Bart Allen and Max Mercury would seem to be entirely unmoving. In fact, Max and his young mentee were holding a comprehensive conversation that had been lasting for nearly five hours but spanned decades worth of information. At closer inspection, the lips and lower jaws of the two speeders would appear entirely as a blur; their conversation taking place at such a heightened tempo that their voices were virtually soundless.

It was a monumental effort, even for the two of them, but it was one that must be taken. Everything hinged upon their exchange. Upon the attention and memory of one seventeen-year-old boy whose thoughts were dominated by the realization of what he was about to leave behind.

"Do you understand?" The older man asked after delivering the final, critical piece of instruction. "Can you do this?"

Bart grit his teeth and nodded. His muscles were sore, his head ached, and he knew that the moment he reverted to normal velocity the tears that had begun welling up hours ago would finally spring forth.

"Yeah," he choked out. "I know what I have to do. All of it. I promise I won't forget."

Max smiled softly and pulled the boy into a hug. "I know. I believe in you."

The two stayed like that a moment longer, though to the outside world nothing seemed to change.

"Max, I—"

"I'm afraid there's not much time left, kid. Even for us. I don't know about you, but I'm about at my limit." Max pulled away gently and turned towards the sky where the inconceivably monumental figure could be seen amid the stars. "And the moment we slow down is the moment you need to be gone. I know there's still a lot left to say. Not even a lifetime of words could change that. But this has to be it, kiddo. It's now or never."

Bart bit down hard, forcing the anguish he felt down inside. He knew Max was right. Even though part of Bart didn't want to go through with the plan; didn't want to leave.

Max stepped back and gestured toward the hunk of metal a few feet beside them. "It's now or never," he repeated softly as if reading Bart's mind.

Nodding once more, the teen steeled himself and entered the machine. The interior was barely large enough to house his body, and the exterior was only mildly better. It contained no inner controls, no visible circuitry, nothing at all to distinguish the highly sophisticated yet crudely constructed device from a random junkyard art piece. The only accouterments were a series of straps along the back wall meant to secure the passenger during the journey. The apparatus had been designed with one goal in mind, and its preprogrammed routine would take over the instant it was engaged.

As Bart fastened the straps across his shoulders and waist, Max approached and set one hand on the thick hatch door that hung open. In his other hand was a small device with a single touchpad button displayed; the normally blinking red light to indicate its safety was disengaged was frozen in time.

"I'd ask if you're all set, but we both know the answer to that," Max said.

The younger speedster looked away to gather himself before he dared to speak. When he did, he looked the man who had raised him the last twelve years in the eye and said with absolute conviction, "I'll find a way one day, Max. I'll make it back. I'll fix everything, I'll do just as you said, and then I'm going to find a way back. I don't care if it's not possible. I'll do it."

Max smiled back at the boy. "Kid, I believe you can do anything you set your mind to. It's why I know the future's safe in your hands."

As he moved to close the hatch, Bart caught Max's arm.

"Thank you, Max. For everything. I..." He hesitated, the words caught in his mouth, unable to come out.

Max's smile only grew larger. He knew what Bart had wanted to say. And that was all he needed.

The hatch closed and the locking mechanism settled into place. The two maintained eye contact through the tiny viewport as Max raised the device in his left hand up high, his thumb hovering over the screen just an inch above the red button.

Bart watched as his mentor suddenly dropped to regular celerity. The onrush of fatigue Max must have felt in that moment as his body screamed in pain caused him to stumble slightly, but he remained upright and smiling. Bart didn't dare do the same for fear of losing consciousness and missing even a nanosecond of seeing Max's face one last time. The older man's lips moved slowly, the time differential meaning Bart couldn't truly hear the words, but he could tell what was said just the same.

"I'm proud of you, son."

Then Bart's vision was cast in a disorienting white glow as the inside of the time machine he was strapped into seemed to rock back and forth, and the youth was jettisoned into the past.