Metropolis.
Inside a luxury hotel, Eric stood in the room, surveying his surroundings.
A somewhat familiar backpack lay on the table.
The kid who had pushed his father back then was carrying a red backpack just like that one.
It seemed the person staying here was indeed the one he was looking for.
Eric walked to the table and dumped out the contents of the backpack with a clatter.
Keys, credit cards, several ID cards, a razor, a hairdryer, Pokémon cards.
Eric shook his head, first putting away his own credit card, then picking up a few ID cards to examine them.
"Hey!"
As he was rummaging through the backpack, a voice came from the second floor.
A blond teenager, looking fifteen or sixteen, slowly came down the stairs wrapped in a blanket.
He seemed to have just finished showering.
"Are you lost?"
The person looked at Eric, paused for a moment, and said, "I think so, because this is my home."
"No!"
Eric stood up and shook his head. "Strictly speaking, this should be my home, because you rented this place with my card."
"I've never taken anything from anyone else."
The blond kid immediately denied it.
"Is that so? But I found that you've been constantly swiping my card ever since you stole it, and it doesn't seem like you have any intention of stopping."
Seeing Eric immediately expose him, a hint of panic flashed in the blond kid's eyes, but he quickly composed himself.
He smiled and shrugged, "So you went through my backpack? That's an invasion of privacy!"
"Your things? These are all things you stole."
"Is that so? Do you have any proof?"
"Whoosh!"
As soon as the blond kid finished speaking, he was standing behind Eric.
His bathrobe had disappeared, replaced by jeans and a red open-front hoodie, and his hair was dry.
It seemed that in the two seconds he was speaking, he had changed clothes and dried his hair.
Eric turned around to face the blond kid.
"Not bad speed! But it's still not enough."
Eric picked up the ID card on the table and said, "I saw you push my father earlier today. In a way, I should thank you."
The blond kid scoffed, "Impossible, no one can see me."
"You think you're the only fast man."
Eric casually flipped through the ID cards. "Jack Garrick, Barry Allen, Wally West, so which one is your real name?"
"Bart Allen!"
The blond kid directly stated his name. "It doesn't matter if I tell you, anyway, before you can even blink, I'll be gone without a trace."
Eric threw the ID card onto the table and said calmly, "Hard to say, I blink pretty fast too."
Bart Allen?
Eric immediately retrieved information about him based on his knowledge from his previous life.
Bart Allen, Impulse, briefly served as the fourth Flash, a being who traveled from the 30th century to the present.
His father was Don Allen, Barry Allen's son, and his mother was Meloni Thawne, a descendant of Professor Zoom, the Flash's arch-nemesis.
Bart inherited the Flash's bloodline abilities but had difficulty controlling this power.
Staring at Eric, who seemed serious, Bart shook his head solemnly, "Bro, I warned you."
"You can try."
Eric's voice remained as calm as still water.
"Alright."
Bart nodded and instantly vanished from Eric's sight.
Everything in the time domain seemed to slow down; the speed of all moving objects was paused in Eric's eyes.
In just a breath, in the slowed time domain, Eric saw Bart instantly run to the street below.
Shaking his head, Eric glanced at the moon outside the window and instantly activated.
A black lightning bolt chased after Bart.
Due to his extreme speed, only a blurred black afterimage was left behind.
If it were daytime, he would still have doubts about whether he could match Impulse's speed.
But with the amplification of his home field at night, Eric did not believe his speed would be unable to catch up to him.
In the instant he activated, Eric moved downstairs.
In the pitch-black night, Bart unleashed his speed to the fullest.
Only when running could he forget his troubles.
In the crowded commercial shopping street, Bart ran from one end of the street to the other in the blink of an eye.
He wore a baseball cap, a pair of popular frog-eye sunglasses, and held a bag of potato chips.
When he ran, he expended a lot of calories, which made him feel hungry after running for a while.
That's why he would casually grab potato chips from a store mid-run to replenish his calories.
He didn't think anyone could catch up to him.
"Hey, Impulse, you seem a bit slow."
As he was stuffing potato chips into his mouth, Bart suddenly heard a familiar voice from ahead.
Bart's eyes widened as he looked forward, and he was astonished to find the guy who had broken into his room earlier sitting at an outdoor cafe not far from him, leisurely sipping coffee.
"How—how is this possible?!"
Bart's mouth hung open, and his eyes showed an expression of disbelief.
"How did you do that?!"
He pointed to the hotel where he lived in the distance, then pointed at Eric in front of him.
"Do you have a twin brother who somehow knew my route in advance and was waiting for me here?"
"I do have a brother, and he's also very fast, but we're not twins."
Eric stood up and the next second appeared in front of Bart.
"Do you still want to compete?"
"Of course."
Bart took off his glasses, an excited look on his face. "I'm even more excited! Because I've never met someone like me. This time, I'm getting serious!"
Under the clear moonlight, Eric, amplified by Hecate, fully activated Homelander's template, instantly catching up to the running Bart Allen.
Buzz!
A city tram sped past on the overpass, and Bart, unwilling to be outdone, surpassed the speeding subway.
Eric's figure transformed into a stream of light, like a flashing wave, surpassing the subway's speed and following the other party along the tracks.
Under the city lights at night, two afterimages formed a light that ran forward along the light rail.
In the slowed time domain, an excited Bart discovered that Eric was already running alongside him, and his speed was gradually surpassing his own.
With a smile on his lips, Bart sharply dodged forward, avoiding Eric's outstretched hand.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
After leaving the light rail, Bart continued to dash forward along the street.
People on the street didn't notice what was happening in front of them, only feeling a gentle breeze on their faces.
Bart ran to the city river, and without any hesitation, he continued to run forward, stepping on the water's surface.
Bang!
His feet struck the water, emitting a sudden dull sound, and ripples spread outwards from where his feet landed.
Bart's feet didn't sink into the water; the water provided him with enough tension.
In an instant, he had run to the middle of the river.
Just as he proudly looked back, thinking he had shaken off the other party, he found a stream of water behind him splitting in the middle and coming towards him.
"?!"
Before he could react, from the waves splitting to both sides, Eric's low-flying body grabbed the shocked Bart.
Changing his flying posture to running along the water, Eric ran onto the bank, stepping on the river surface.
Looking at Impulse, whom he held in his hand, Eric grabbed his collar and lifted him into the air.
"It seems your speed is useless against me!"
Regarding the other party's particularly annoying habit of running, Eric even thought of a trick Lex once used.
Lay an electrical circuit board on the floor of an iron cage, with a function: even if one stayed on it for a millionth of a second, it would blow them to smithereens.
The result was that the Flash was almost killed.
Such a device would surely cure the other party's habit of running around wildly.
"That's super cool! You can actually keep up with my speed. I—I thought I was the fastest person in the world. Not only do you have such fast speed, but you also kept up with me, bro, how did you do it?"
Held in Eric's hand, Bart showed no fear; instead, his eyes widened as he looked at Eric, speaking excitedly in a torrent of words.
"You don't seem to have any remorse for your thievery?"
Eric asked, frowning.
"I didn't hurt anyone."
Bart became a bit more compliant in Eric's hand. "I just often steal money from some rich people. Guys who are rich and unkind losing some money, that should be something everyone would feel good about."
"Do my father and I look like rich people?"
"Alright, I apologize to you."
Bart said somewhat dejectedly, "But this is credit card fraud, you should get compensated. And if I don't have money, I won't have anywhere to sleep."
"Are you very short on money?"
Eric asked him, frowning.
"Most of the time, yes."
Bart replied.
Holding the other party's collar, Eric's original idea of just teaching him a lesson disappeared.
Although the other party stole his credit card, he also saved Jonathan.
Even though he didn't need the other party's help, he still owed him this favor no matter what.
After thinking for a moment, he threw Bart to the ground.
Bart, whose butt was sore from the fall, was grimacing in pain when he suddenly saw Eric throw a credit card to him.
"This credit card, keep using it."
"Ah?!"
Looking at the credit card in his hand, Bart was stunned for a moment and asked, "Are you sure you want to give it to me? Didn't you say your family was poor?"
"My family being poor doesn't conflict with me being rich."
Eric turned to leave. "If you continue your thieving career, I'm afraid your legs will be broken sooner or later."
"Uh, thanks for the reminder, I'll be careful not to get ambushed."
Bart thanked Eric with a strange expression.
Kent Farm.
In the barn, temporarily used as a living quarter, Jonathan and Martha looked confusedly at a fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy behind Eric after he opened the door.
"Dad, Mom, I found the culprit who stole the wallet."
Eric said to his parents with a calm expression.
He had originally planned to let the other party go, but he didn't expect him to follow him.
The other party seemed very excited to find someone similar to himself, who could also defeat him, and had latched onto him.
"Uh..."
Jonathan didn't expect Eric to bring the thief back directly. After a moment of stunned, he quickly let the two in.
Although the other party stole his credit card, he also saved him.
Now it was not appropriate to say any words of blame.
-------------------------------
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