“The Flash is one of the only superheroes who never had formal fighting training. Likewise, he is one of the only superheroes who had multiple genius scientists backing him up. The Flash fought with science and intellect, not his fists”- Excerpt from The Flash, A History

The arena, which I quickly learned was called "The Pit," looked extremely well for being the location of a superpowered brawl just twenty-four hours prior. There were still some scorch marks scattered around, but every slight divot was filled in, making the floor flat once more. Besides me and Dick, who was passing time walking around on his hands, the Pit was empty and quiet. Even though we were told that today's training was less dangerous, apparently the Flash himself was going to lead it, causing anxiety to form in my stomach. Trying to shake the heaviness in my stomach, I wandered over to Dick planning on instigating some banter, watching him as he flips to his feet turning to face me.

"Do you think we could beat the Flash?" I asked, genuinely curious. "We beat his nephew like a rented mule with only using one alien if I had some that actually were meant to use against speedsters, I think we could do better than that even." I knew Goop, Way Big and Cannonbolt could all do it, the first two hopefully immune to physical damage, and Cannonbolt was, well, Cannonbolt.

Dick looks at me as if I was stupid. "If the Flash walked through that door wanting to kill us," he says looking exasperated, "we wouldn't even realize it we would just die. Kid-Flash is one, way slower than his uncle, and two, Flash knows about the Omnitrix. If Kid-Flash took the fight seriously and tried to knock you out before you could shift, it would be possible, and Flash wouldn't even need to try that hard, just cut of your arm." He scratches the back of his head, looking slightly ashamed. "Plus, Kid-Flash wasn't trying his fullest yesterday, I didn't tell you because I didn't know we would catch him, but the standard response to a spar between heroes is around fifty percent of your possible strength. Going beyond that is just a good way for someone to get permantly injured, and to destroy the environment your in."

"You told me to go as dangerous as possible yesterday," I slowly say, voice rising louder and louder. "I could have permanently hurt a fellow hero and you just encouraged it. If I had crippled him it would've been my fault!" While Kid-flash was an ass to me, evident in my still sore body, I never would have wanted to permanently injure him, especially when I was stationed in Central City for the near future.

Dick just waves my complaints away, and I can see him rolling his eyes. "Again, I didn't think we would be able to touch him, he has super healing so would be fine unless we permanently crippled him, and you're really halfway exempt from all of the unspoken hero rules anyway." He sits down, starting to stretch. "While you have powers, and are training to be a hero until you officially become someone's sidekick or join a junior team, no one would expect you to know the rules, especially since you started two weeks ago."

I'm about to respond, when the Flash appears, slightly skidding his shoes on the ground, appearing next to Dick out of nowhere. Unlike the last times I saw the Flash, his red suit wasn't on, and he was only wearing a STAR labs shirt and sweatpants, and I could clearly see his face. Like Batman, who wasn't a clear one-to-one from his actor counterpart, his face was handsome, but still more normal than the face I would've expected. I could clearly see his brown hair but didn't know if that would even be different based on what DC piece of media he was.

Snapping his fingers, he flickered, and when he reappeared the only difference I could see was that he was now holding a gently steaming mug. Taking a small sip, he let out a relaxed breath before looking over at Dick and me, both wary.

"I would like to apologize for my nephew's rashness the other day, allow me to formally introduce myself, sans costume. My name is Barry Allen, and some call me the fastest man alive," Barry cracks a smile, and I can tell he’s said this line several times before. "I sent Kid-flash to play a game of low contact tag…. Though he went a little overboard. I tried stressing the low contact part, but he stopped paying attention when he heard me say Robin and his sidekick were in the Pit."

"I'm not his-" "He's not my"- Both Dick and I start talking at the same time, trying to refute the implication. While we were definitely closer now than my first couple of days, neither of us wanted the association of one being a subordinate of the other.

Waving his hand, cutting us off, Flash kept talking. "Yeah, Yeah. Anyway, Wally is okay, just taking a breather today due to some light burns and a small concussion, he'll be up tomorrow for sure. However, since he's out of the picture, I decided that I would give you both some tips," Turning his head to look at me specifically, he continued, "While I'm impressed with your Heatblast, I wanted to train you specifically XLR8, because fight as a speedster is quite different." He then turns to Dick, taking a small remote out of his pocket, pressing a couple of buttons. "And for you Robin, I'll have you train against one of my practice opponents, just because I don't really have anything specific for you."

I turn my head as I hear a clanking sound getting louder and louder from across the arena, and laugh a little when I realize that the "practice opponent" was a robot twice the size of a normal person, running towards the three of us. Even though I doubt that the robot could hurt Dick-he's wearing his personalized blue and black outfit, giving him more protection- I'm not sure Dick could even damage the robot himself either. Whenever I get hit in my human form by him it hurts a lot, especially when he uses his staff or Kali stick, it barely does anything to Heatblast, and his robot opponent could easily be as tough as Heatblast.

As the Flash beckons me to the other side of the arena I watch in glee as Dick starts to start fighting his opponent. The robot hasn't come close to landing a hit, but the repeated strikes of his Kali sticks are producing no visible damage. Finally getting to the other side of the Pit, I get very confused as the Flash flickers again, this time switching his coffee for what looks to be a pillow. As it's softly thrown to me, I realize when I catch it that it is just a regular pillow.

I look up and hesitantly ask "This wouldn't happen to be a secret speedster weapon would it be? It looks just like a regular pillow to me." I flip it over in my hands trying to find a secret switch, but come up empty.

"Do you happen to remember Newton's Second law?" Barry asks again, starting to stretch his legs, and taking his shoes off.

I think back to my one physics class, and take my best guess at the second law, even though I know the first one. "For every action, there's an opposite reaction?" I respond.

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"Nope! That's the third. Newton's Second law is actually nicknamed the Speedster's law in some textbooks nowadays, or just The Second. It states that force equals mass times acceleration, which you could guess is very useful for a speedster to know if they are accelerating at extremely high speeds. For a practical example," he says, taking the pillow from my hands, and appearing across the Pit. I barely realize he's moved, then all I can see is a blur of red light, and then him stopping in front of me, this time without the pillow. Looking to the left at the concrete wall were standing by, I can hardly believe it when the pillow has sunk into the wall, creating a spiderweb of cracks from the impact.

What the fuuuuuck. I reach over to try and touch the pillow, jumping when it completely breaks apart, revealing a pillow shape hole in the concrete. Hearing laughter, I look back at Barry, only to see he's holding out a cellphone, taking pictures of my expression, laughing.

"Your...face..." He can barely contain his laughter doubling up. "I got Wally the exact same way as well." He stops laughing, and stands up straight, tapping his head. "Because of our massive acceleration, any object we hit something or someone with hits way harder than it should. It also damages the object way more too, but usually if your body can handle running at those speeds, it can handle hitting at those speeds." He walks up to the wall. arms blurring as he punches the concrete, leaving faint knuckle divots in the wall. "However, if the object your using can not handle those forces," He points at the disintegrated pillow, "So be careful."

I nod blankly, trying to comprehend all the words he said, my brain going very slow after seeing a pillow easily break a concrete wall. I flinch when I feel his hand cap me on the shoulder, images of his fists leaving dents in concrete flashing through my mind.

"Let's see what your XLR8 is capable of, yeah?" He says, and I internally groaned as I twist the Omnitrix, slamming down on the Kineceleran.

----

Running as XLR8 is a very surreal experience. Partly because I'm using an alien from a TV show I watched as a child, trying to tag the Flash, but also because the movements were different than running like a human. Instead of griping the ground with my feet, there was no friction on the soles of my wheels? balls? so the action was more like rollerblading at some points.

That didn't mean I couldn't handle very fast speeds, because the instincts of XLR8 combined with its enhanced thinking and extremely high agility made running a breeze once getting into the zone. I would just have to think about being at a place, and then I would just be there in no time. I raced after the Flash, always just being inches away from grabbing him as he appeared in another place, and then bounced on his toes, waiting for me to see him, then sprinting off as soon as I got close. Even though I knew he was faster than me, my ability to cut corners and change angles were almost better than him, as he had to waste a couple of steps to compensate for the speed, while I could just instantly turn. Even though it felt longer, in no time at all was the Omnitrix timing out, sending me stumbling as I turned into a human, tripping at the high speeds I was going.

I sat down panting, feeling a water bottle being pushed into my hands, and looked up to see a grinning Barry, not looking that winded at all. I hastily unscrewed the bottle, drinking half of it immediately, trying to catch my breath as the Flash sat down next to me, the same coffee cup in hand.

"That was a pretty good job for a new speedster," he said, and I felt a sliver of happiness when I heard just the smallest slice of tiredness in his voice. "I'll give you fifteen, then when the watch turns back on well do some combat training". I nod, trying to drink the remaining water slowly. Once I sadly finish the water, I try to emulate the stretches I've seen Dick do, even though my tiredness is more mental, as my human muscles did not spend time running.

As soon as the Omnitrix turns green, I quickly shift back into XLR8, letting out a soft cry under my breathe as the transformation unfolds. Once I'm ready to run, I glance at Barry, waiting for instructions.

Barry cleared his throat, pointing at the still struggling Dick, who had yet to damage the robot, but slowly becoming closer to being hit by one of the limbs. "When we attack something, or more usually someone as a speedster, people assume we land a flurry of blows all at the same time but that's incorrect. All you have to do is run very fast, use the enhanced perception to find one weak spot, then run at it and hit it with all the speed you can. "

"That's it?" I ask, scratching my tail with my claws. "All the advice you have is finding where it would do damage to hit, and hit it there only once?"

"Yep!" He replies, voice filled with perkiness. "You only have around three tries to destroy that robot before it lands a hit, so I would get running unless you want to see your friend get punched."

I glare at him, once again confused about the tonal shifts of the Justice League, and started to run in circles around the robot looking for a weak spot. I quickly ruled out the head, mainly due to the fact that it was twelve feet in the air, and try to focus on the joints. As I studied the robot, looking like it was barely moving due to my speed, I made out a small green light where the left knee would be. I blitz to the other side of the arena, took half a second to focus in on the left knee, waiting until the Robot lifted it up to take a step, and then Ran.

Getting closer and closer to the robot, I bent down extending my arm directly at where I saw the green light, lightly pressing my claws against the joint. The metal parted like oft butter, flowing around my claws, and I realized that I had shorn the left leg into two pieces with no effort. Sliding past the robot, I slowed down enough to see the robot try to put weight on the leg, but immediately fall down. I smiled, then immediately frowned when I realized that the broken knee joint, was slowly producing a fire, raising it back up to full height.

That is some bullshit- was my only thought, freezing. I quickly made a plan and ran to the other side of the Pit again. Looking back, seeing the robot slowly rising back up, I guessed that ripping off its other leg would not produce the results I wanted, namely a defunct robot. I looked, calculating how far up high its head would be based on how it moved when it tried to punch with a missing leg, then I got ready to sprint fully.

With a small leaning movement, I started running directly at the robot, trying to time it that I would be closest to it when its head was the lowest. I stopped moving right behind it, placing one of my feet on the tilted ankle, and then jumping. Using more force than I thought, I overshot the head and had to wait for what felt like an hour, for me to eventually start dropping. Bringing my elbow back, as soon as I was right behind the head I shot my hand forward, three claws burying in its head, and pushing through, allowing half of my arm to completely go inside its skull. When I tried pulling my arm out, however, it was stuck, forcing me to put my feet on its back and push, trying to yank my hand out.

Finally ripping my hand out, I jumped down from the now, hopefully, deactivated training tool, softly landing on my feet. Seeing the practice opponent teetering unsteadily I gave it a small push, allowing it to completely free fall face down to the ground. As it fell I tapped my chest, shifting back to human form. Seeing Dick with his mouth wide open in surprise, I tried to give my best "robot-killing-smile," putting one thumb up.