A/N: My first YJ fic! :D I'm so excited about this, like, you don't even. I love this show. And I love Wally. Just, so much... My friend thinks he's annoying, 'cause I guess all heroes are supposed to be badass and hardcore, but the fact that he's so full of life and energy in spite of secret I.D.'s and daily flirtations with death and serious baddies - well, that's kinda awesome. He's kinda awesome. C: I love him good. I love the rest of them too, don't get me wrong.

Well, not Artemis. The team would've been some kind of awesome if it was Speedy (er, Red Arrow) there instead of her. But I guess every show's gotta have that character.

-i-
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The masked villain - a new baddie - sneered as he lifted a harmless looking remote above his head and pressed a button. "I trust this will make things more difficult for you," he snickered giddily, spinning in place and disappearing in a whirl of cloak and cape, leaving four confused YJ-leaguers and a multitude of frightened civilians standing dumbly in an otherwise very empty campground.

"I hate when they're crazy," Wally muttered after a tense beat of silence; and Kaldur shot him a small smile, half-amused, half-exasperated. Wally shrugged mentally; if his teammates were going to stand around and let things get dangerously close to a standstill, he'd be the one to get the ball rolling again.

Levity in the face of seriousness and gravity usually evoked some kind of reaction - and it was action he wanted, instead of ridiculous stillness and silence.

This is where Robin would interject with something about how weird it is that there's a "re-" in front of the "action", he mused, rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Crazy, maybe, but still potentially dangerous. We need to find out where he went," the Atlantian continued, glancing at the other two teammates present.

Megan looked apologetic. "I don't feel him anywhere nearby. If I were to strain - perhaps I might, but if that's necessary, he'd be far beyond our reach."

"Why cause a commotion and lure us out here, just to press a button and vanish?" Conner's voice was dangerously low. Wally couldn't help but smile at him; the clone just hated being confused.

"It doesn't add up," Kaldur agreed. "So let's contact the League and - "

The ground quaked from the force of a sudden explosion, and civilians cried out as trees toppled and heavy rock tumbled down the face of the mountain. They had the God-given sense to run, one less thing for the young heroes to worry about as they started moving steadily in the opposite direction as the crowd.

"So that device he had was a detonator?" Megan called out over the chaos.

"Some detonator." Wally was sweeping the area with eyes alert behind his goggles. Hyper-accelerated thoughts were filing up in his brain, thirty new ones replacing thirty old each millisecond. "If Rob were here he could've probably told us exactly what that stupid thing was."

No one had the chance to answer him, as the quaking and rumbling seemed to only get worse, in a very ominous way. "The explosion might have triggered a rockslide," Kaldur yelled. "We need to get all the people out of harm's way!"

As if on cue, a woman screamed and Wally whipped around in the same instant. Then he was moving, and the others were left to put together the situation in relative time. They were a team, but could Wally really sacrifice the precious moments it would take for them to catch up, or for him to explain? When lives were on the line, the answer was a spectacular, resounding no.

There was a small cave on the far side of the grounds; it was once used for mining, but as of a few years ago, the mine had been abandoned, the shafts all closed up, and it was reduced nothing more than a hole in the side of the mountain. Apparently kids took to playing there; because there were two confused-looking children standing very much in the way of the collapsing rockface.

And as the pieces were still coming together for the other sidekicks, and horror was just beginning to set in, Wally bet it all on a chance in a million and yelled "Superboy!" as he dove under the mass of rock, lunging for the children; and Conner, who must have followed behind him when he realized the speedster had a plan in mind, caught the largest of the boulders on his shoulders, hefting them up with a growl - actively shielding Wally, who rolled around with impossible speed and grabbed the, by now terrified, civilian boys.

Then he glanced up into bright, determined blue eyes, and, for a split-second, hesitated. He could feel the rumbling getting louder. The kids in his arms were crying now, light hiccupping sobs, and he thought they couldn't be older than seven. Conner's face was strained as the weight doubled, tripled - he couldn't hold up for much longer.

A hundred thoughts occurred to him in an instant, and he focused on one.

Save them.

With a split second left to spare, he tossed the children unceremoniously past his teammate and relatively out of harm's way, and, with an apologetic smile that flashed across his face so quickly there was a chance the clone never saw it, delivered a solid kick to Superboy's chest, that sent him flying back - out of the way of the next round of falling stone.

And then Wally was backing up until he felt solid rock behind his back, watching the stones pile up endlessly in the mouth of the small cave, blocking out the last of the light and leaving him confined in a small, dark place that - with each falling rock - was becoming steadily smaller.

He pressed his back against the wall of the cave and prayed for it to be over soon.