This is my speculation of how the future developed into the one seen in the How Long Is Forever episode, but of course this focuses on the H.I.V.E. because we all know the sad state the Teen Titans are in already. After starting "Desperation, Says the Villain" I realized how I stunted my own opportunities, so here we are. This fic is either Teen or Mature because it references bad stuff. How bad? Not sure, but it's bad. I'm trying to mix in a jaded bent to the tone the show already has.

The chapters will be sporadically updated and so shouldn't interfere with Desperation. I pretty much know how this fic ends.

That said, I wanted to write a firmly villain Jinx who would fit within the confines of the postulated future. No happy-happy Jinx here, peoples. The premise is Gizmo grew up into Mikron (who is DC canon), who had some sort of reign of terror in the country before he got offed. Time passed and 'Mikron' became an urban legend, but now suddenly a new Mikron shows up. Jinx is not happy. Superheroes aren't happy. Hell, even Cyborg's not happy because he's tired, middle-aged, and old at this point but gets dragged into the mess anyway. What inspired me? Well, the episode for one. And the 1995 crime movie, "The Usual Suspects."

"How do you know if he's even still around?" A coy smile played at her lips, even if her eyes were inscrutable as ever. "It's been twenty years, kid. Wouldn't you think the guy would be dead by now?"

"Gizmo was a boy before the Catalyst—"

"We were all children before that disaster, kid. You don't have to remind me."

"Tell me what you know," the Titan said in a low voice, fists shaking. "Tell me it now."

Unexpectedly, she barked out a laugh. "You? Give you the info? What're you gonna do, kid? What can anybody do now? Word is the city's been hell since I've been slammed."

"People are dying!"

"And you're an idealist. Even if Mikron exists," she drawled, "he's hardly going to walk up to your doorstep and nicely give you a solution to all your little problems. The point of terrorism, kid, is to keep it alive and going. Playing hero and going after the bad guys is not helping the situation any. Actually, I think you're part of the problem."

"The problem! You're a criminal! You don't know what you're—"

"Oh, I know plenty enough." Her eyes narrowed while her slits of pupils widened and fairly glowed. "There was once a merry band of Teen Titans who thought they could do big things. Great things. Well, look at them now. One bint up and leaves and the rest of the team falls apart. Did that wretched Cyborg tell you where to find me? What about that one freak wonder downtown?"

"Don't talk about them that way!"

"Who are you supposed to be, kid?" she sniffed. "Some tidy widy superhero who's barely out of his cradle?"

" Stop calling me a kid! I'm Kid Flash. Get it right!"

"Oh, so your mentor being dead is reason enough to declare yourself as such? You're, what…in your teens? A bit of a misnomer, don't you think?"

"He died because people like you killed him!" Kid Flash gripped the edge of the table, furious. "It's because you people exist that he died! It's all your fault!"

Something flickered in the criminal's expression then, but then it hardened. "Let me tell you a story, kid. Let me break through that rose-colored lens of yours."

"I don't need to hear anything you have to say. All criminals do is lie!"

"So you don't want that info? A certain terrorist is in the story. It also deals with Kid Flash, the real one. Your boy mentor."

"What does Wally have to do with Gizmo?" he said warily.

Her grin was positively catty. "You're actually not sure how he died, are you? No one is. Did you know Wally West once dated a villain? It's true. Boy Wonder of the Teen Titans found out and it was hardly something he could let on by, right? Too ingrained with righteous injustice. Too full of hate. By then Starfire of the team had long gone. Nightwing doesn't have it together, does he? Never mind the fact that he's of Gotham origins and is the Batman's protegee!"

"You're rambling," he cut in. "Get to the point."

"If you don't know how he died then I suppose I don't really know how he died. After all, I'm just a criminal, one of the last vestiges of metahuman freaks from before the Catalyst still around on this side of the country. How did you end up here anyway? Last I heard, you were dallying around with some league or another—"

"There's an illegal trafficking of biotechnology, a kind of weapon that's threatening the populace. I tracked it here. Its origins are from Mikron, formally Gizmo! You know this, but thousands are being threatened right now."

"You can't stop it. You can't fight it. You can only wait until all the humans drop dead like the flies they are...? Don't look at me like that, kid. Gizmo wouldn't have pulled this off. That kid died before the Catalyst," she said easily, "and I very much doubt he'd come back from the grave for this."

The Flash glowered. "You're lying," he growled. He slammed a fist down. "Tell me what you know!"

"I'm the only H.I.V.E. operative around with information about your supposed Mikron and you're not going to believe me? That's fine. I'm going to die anyways. Let's see where you end up then. It's simply a matter of who breaks first and, kid, I'm not talking anytime soon." Her smile was amused. "You have all the speed in the world at your disposal, but you don't even have the advantage of time. You failed from the start once you decided to rely on me."

"You have to help me."

"And why would I? Why should I be making this any easier for you? What's in it for me?"

His face tightened in frustration and she leaned back, smiling. "You can't say it can you? You can't offer me a way out of this."

Face scrunching up, Kid Flash spat, "This is where you belong. In prison!"

"And on death row," she said dryly. "I didn't do much. I'm a petty robber compared to this Mikron guy of yours. He's the one you should be focusing on, not catching individuals like me. No need to kill us off when you've got a big, bad terrorist on hand."

"You hacked into hundreds of companies and sent them bankrupt. Because of you, economies had fallen into depressions like the one of the last century." Disgusted, he glared at her to which she only shrugged. "In some ways, you're worse than Mikron. You were only in it for the money!"

"Look, it's all business to me. Don't tell me today's superheroes don't rely on hacking, either. You're all such hypocrites. Vigilantes? Give me a break. You're all in it for yourselves, too. There is no honor. There is no glory. There is only survival and the means to do so. And the only means to survive is through money. I chose my path and now I'm going to pay for it, but," she slowly drew up a smirk, "if I'm going down, the rest of the world will go down with me. So I destroy some countries. Big deal. Millions of others have dominated the Internet and millions more will do so. Anarchy will be our legacy. The H.I.V.E. is growing. You can't stop us."

"With your death it'll serve as a precedent for others," he whispered. "Don't you care?"

"Of course I care," she sneered. "Now go run along like a good boy and catch your Mikron because I'm not helping."

This Kid Flash character makes me cringe. In that crippled, straggling world, idealistic young superheroes are popping out of nowhere like daisies and the clash of old and new metahumans are just ugly. With 'Kid Flash' I tried to bring in an element of the old universe twenty years back, the one of those bright and shining Teen Titans. I don't know Bart Allen's DC Comics history and I don't care; I probably badly skewed the timeline by making him in his 'teens' at this point in time. Wally West is really dead and he's not coming back; how he died was purposely skimmed over because I haven't quite figured it out yet. Some other characters are also dead and aren't coming back, and Jinx only thinks she knows Gizmo's dead.

This takes place technically at least twenty-one years from How Long Is Forever as this 'future' is set in motion after Episode 60: Lightspeed. Gizmo will not be an actual character despite what this fic's character listing says, but you bet he's a huge part of it. He is that important. No, there is no romance in this fic. The only 'romance' will be in flashbacks of the doomed, star-crossed KFxJinx pairing. Wally, not Bart. Ugh. Beyond that, this fic is character-based and so I'll explore what happened to the others.