Child of the Lightning
Born in the far future, Bart Allen is the grandson of the legendary Barry Allen. When his wicked maternal grandfather Thaddeus Thawne kidnapped Bart and separated him from his parents, a daring rescue sent Bart to the past, where he took on the superhero identity of the Fleet-Footed Impulse. Famous for his short attention span and reckless temperament, Bart matured into a capable young superhero, though he still prefers to live in the moment!
Personality
Imagine if you lived in a world where everyone taaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllked liiiiiiiiike thissssssssssssss all the time and you, being a fundamentally good-natured guy, had to endure it because you knew it wasn't their fault? That's one of the reasons Bart Allen sometimes seems like he's on another wavelength, because if he wasn't he'd go nuts. As Impulse, he's something of a good-aligned trickster, hyperkinetic, frenetic, a laughing menace to criminals and a terminal frustration to would-be allies, especially ones who don't know that the kid behind the chaos has only the best of intentions. Bart Allen is actually a little more subdued and ambiverted, not always "up" - he can be sarcastic, frustrated, fed-up, or just plain exhausted too. To those who've had the patience to earn his friendship, he's steadfast, with unflappable loyalty and unwavering support. He's spontaneous, curious, artistic, deeply caring, but also can be distractable, impulsive (it's in the name), headstrong and stubborn. He loves a good time and hates, hates, hates being bored, and even his friends know not to let him create his own excitement or all hell might break loose, with a grinning Bart sitting on top of the rubble.
Background
Born a thousand years in the future to one half of the superheroic Tornado Twins Don Allen, and Meloni Thawne, the daughter of the twins' nemesis Thaddeus Thawne, Bart Allen was born to run, gifted with the powers of a Flash from birth - and some other problems. Held captive by his grandfather Thaddeus virtually from birth, Bart was sent to the current era to escape his grandfather's clutches in a daring rescue, where Wally West, the Flash, could stabilize his powers and train him to be a super-hero. The first part was a success, the second part really wasn't. The two were like oil and water from the day they met. Bart was handed to the speedster mystic Max Mercury, who trained him to be a superhero and get a handle on living like a normal person, which Bart has succeeded at, more or less. He thinks he's perfectly normal, it's the rest of the world that's cock-eyed. Sometimes a Titan, sometimes other things, as the chaotic Impulse, Bart fights for what's right while speeding toward a destiny that has yet to fully reveal itself.
SKILLS
Artist - Competent Level
Bart is a very talented artist, especially at freehand drawing, where he can produce excellent sketches at high speed, and frequently draws things he sees or remembers, especially if he needs to give someone a look into what he saw in a more detailed manner than words alone. He's a good photographer with fast hands on a camera and good instincts, though he has no patience to sit and wait for the perfect shot. His painting is artistic and enthusiastic... but tends to get a little messy. He prefers to work in pencil, and everyone else prefers he does too.
Athletics - Expert Level
The enhanced physicality of those attuned to the speed force couples with a natural athleticism; though not terribly large or heavy Bart is stronger than he looks, having demonstratd the ability to carry friends larger than he is without much trouble, especially when moving at speed; he has very much has a "rope and pulley" physique that makes him an all-rounder athlete good at swimming, climbing, and especially running. Once he actually learned how to do it he became a strong swimmer and is particularly good at baseball.
Combat - Novice Level
Bart is a good fighter, with natural instincts and (super) fast reflexes, who's much stronger than he looks. He was trained in self-defense by Tim Drake, and while his powers do a lot of the heavy lifting, he's not to be underestimated.
Computers - Competent Level
Bart is actually better with futuristic computers than current gen ones. Put him in a fully immersive Virtual Reality matrix run by an Actual Intelligence and he'll have it reprogrammed and doing his bidding inside of a few hours. With modern computerized technology he's good at some things - he's created mods for games, for instance - and is good at fast-guessing passwords and figuring out how to navigate a system.
Musician - Competent Level
Bart learned how to play guitar when a situation required him to save the day by taking the place of a knocked-out lead guitarist for a band during a school dance. He discovered he had a taste for it, and kept doing it. Since he has little desire to be famous as Bart Allen, he mostly does it for fun, though he will gig here and there when someone he knows needs a guitarist or bass player. He can read music, learns to use instruments quickly, can read music and is a decent backup vocalist.
Video Games - Expert Level
Bart was literally raised in a video game for a large part of his life, and playing them comes to him naturally. He's a pro-gamer level player, and can go from zero to expert on a new video game in just a few minutes of play. He doesn't play in professional pro-gamer tournements, but one of the ways he makes some scratch is by running a twitch stream where he live-plays games based on viewer challenges, and makes an ass of himself in other entertaining ways.
ABILITIES
Power: Flash - Supreme Level
Being a Flash is something different than other meta-human abilities that grant super-speed. A Flash is chosen by the Speed Force, an extradimensional... something that controls motive force and selects chosen ones to do good in the world. All Flashes have the same basic suite of powers, but develop different specialties, such as Wally West being "Fastest Man Alive" and pushing movement to its limits, or Bart's former mentor Max Mercury's mystical powers developed by training with Native American medicine men.
If you want to know how Bart specializes in using the Force, it's in his name - spontaneous action. Chaos. Impulse. Bart is capable of the following feats built into being a Flash:
Super-Speed: Bart can move at super-speed, generating a speed force aura that lets him break the laws of relativity, bypassing friction, gravity, inertia (not Inertia, he's different) and impact, which means he moves faster, hits harder, and takes hits better. He begrudgingly acknowledges he can't match his cousin Wally's acceleration or top speeds (though he's a solid second place) but he can still move at speeds approaching the speed of light, and has an even easier time entering the Speed Force itself than his cousin.
Phasing: Flashes can move themselves at such high speed they "vibrate", effectively moving their molecules out of sync with solid matter so that they can pass through it unharmed. For most Flashes, this agitates the molecules of whatever they passed through... which causes that thing to explode. Bart doesn't have this problem, and can vibrate through solid matter without harming it. Of course, matter with more molecular density is harder to pass through, and some is too molecularly dense to pass through at all.
Enhanced Metabolism: Flashes have accelerated metabolisms that make them all but immune to illness, poison, and chemical antigens, they simply metabolize them before they have a chance to harm the body. The downside of this is that medications like painkillers... or ADHD meds don't work on them either. Also, Flashes are always hungry. Do not feed your Impulse after midnight.
Air Manipulation: By moving at high speed Flashes can affect air currents, creating funnels, tornadoes, and waterspouts and controlling their direction through precise movement, such as slowing the fall of a car,creating a waterspout to bring a large amount of water to a fire, slowing your own fall, lifting yourself into the air, or just blowing enemies away. This isn't Bart's specialty, though; he refuses to talk about the time he tried to manipulate air currents in order to fly. His manipulations remain crude, but effective.
Sonics: By moving at high speed, Flashes can create sonic booms. The Speed Force normally allows Flashes to bypass breaking the sound barrier, but they can still do it, creating percusive sonic booms by moving quickly, or even by clapping their hands or snapping their fingers.
Fast Healing: Linked to their metabolisms, Flashes heal faster than ordinary people. They can heal cuts and scrapes in a matter of seconds, or more serious injuries like broken bones in a matter of minutes. The potential peril of this is bones that heal wrong before they've been properly set and the like - Bart has been known to snap a broken rib into place on the field or set a broken leg because he just has no choice otherwise. Also, no Flash has yet demonstrated the ability to regenerate lost limbs; though this hasn't been put to the test, thankfully.
Power: Scouts - Enhanced Level
Bart is able to spin off replicants of himself via the Speed Force. These "Scouts" as he calls them are fully autonomous beings capable of thinking reasoning and acting all on their own, though they all cheerfully obey Bart Prime (they call him "Boss") and share his powers and abilities. Though somehow they seem even ditzier than Bart himself can be, which frustrates him to no end. When these Scouts return to Bart, he receives their memories and experiences. However, the Scouts' connection to Bart also feeds back onto him, and he feels what they feel. Due to an incident with one of the scouts, Bart seldom uses them anymore, reserving them paradoxically only for minor things like 'Hold this flashlight' and 'Put your finger here' or major crises.
ADVANTAGES
Flash Ring
Originally created by his grandfather, the Flash Ring is a ring containing a hypercompression chamber that can store a speed suit. When opened, the ring spits the suit out, and it rapidly returns to its full size. How you get it back in there? Well, that's a proprietary secret.
Hyperthymesia
Bart has Hyperthymesia - above eidetic memory, he has near-perfect recall of anything he sees, hears, or reads. He also is able to permanently retain knowledge and skills learned at super-speed, unlike most other speedsters, who can only place them into short-term memory and forget them quickly.
Speed Force
The Speed Force is a dimension or possibly an entity or possibly both of motive force that exists alongside space and time, touching the entirety of both. It is the force that empowers all Flashes, and it seems to have a hand in directly chosing them to represent its interests. While there are Reverse Flashes, overall the Speed Force errs toward benevolence - and some evil entities openly fear it and seek to destroy it.
Unlike other Speedsters, Bart has been attuned to the Speed Force since he was conceived. He can enter it easily, and navigate it easily, traveling between worlds and even through time (though he hesitates to do the latter without a working Chronometer to tell him when he is).
Speed Suit
Based on tech pioneered by Barry Allen, Flashes use highly compressible form-fitting speed suits that minimize friction and allow unencumbered movement. Bart's even has goggles to protect his eyes when he's moving at high speeds, and heavy-treaded boots to make sure he doesn't lose traction. It also has earpieces that act as both communicator and headphones, for running with tunes. The downside? No pockets. Where does Bart stow his phone? It's a mystery.
WEAKNESSES
From Ancient Grudge
Two households, both alike in dignity... The Thawne family has been feuding with the Allen family for over one thousand years, and much of that feud breaks the boundaries of space-time so it's technically even longer than that. From child-snatching (Bart's great-uncle Malcolm, born an Allen and kidnapped and raised by Thawnes) to murder, the Thawnes have plagued the Allens at every turn, the worst of them stealing super-speed and becoming Reverse-Flashes.
Bart's father is Don Allen, son of Barry Allen. Long story. His mother is Meloni Thawne, daughter of Thaddeus Thawne, a thirty-first century businessman and tyrant. He's both a Thawne and an Allen, and is generally regarded by both sides as the end point of the Feud... though they have different intepretations of what that means. To the Allen's, he's the triumph of love over hate. To the Thawnes, he's their rightful usurpation of the Allens through blood, and they won't be happy until he's gone over to the dark side. Bart tries really hard not to think about this.
Bart also has an identical twin, Thaddeus Thawne II, AKA Inertia. Inertia is Bart, flipped. Meticulous where Bart is whimsical, patient where Bart is chaotic, exacting where Bart is artistic. Thaddeus claims to have been slowly cloned from Bart and "spliced with superior Thawne DNA" over eons to "perfect" him so he could replace Bart as the endpoint of the Thawne-Allen feud. Bart thinks this all a load of hooey, and isn't even sure Thad is actually his clone. Twins run in the Allen family after all. Bart's grandfather Barry was a twin (his aformentioned great-uncle Malcolm), his father was a twin... he suspects that circumstances related to his birth are more complex and tragic than anyone realizes, and one day he's going to need to confront his grandfather Thaddeus to learn the truth and straighten things out for good.
Keep Running
It's not that Bart doesn't know fear, he has plenty of fears. Fears for his friends, his family. Fear of what the future holds, fear of a murky destiny he knows is ahead of him but which he doesn't understand and suspects he won't until it's too late. Fear of his wicked grandfather Thaddeus and what else he might do to afflict Bart from a thousand years away. What he's not afraid of is danger. Danger, he's confident he can handle, though he probably should be more careful. He takes unnecessary risks, and has been accused of seeing life as a video game where he's playing on one life but doesn't seem to care. He has openly admitted he gets afraid for other people, but never for himself, and if he stops to think about that it disturbs him deeply. Bart doesn't think about the danger, doesn't think about the tragedy of his birth or the uncertainty of his future. He stubbornly chooses to live for the moment, because if he stops running, all the stuff he's running from might catch up to him at once. And that... that really scares him. So he just keeps running. Can't stop, won't stop.
Top Gear
Bart was born attuned to his super-speed. He doesn't rise to meet it, he has to throttle down to match pace with the rest of the world. This manifests in a scattershot attention span, frustration with others for moving so slow, becoming easily bored, and simply being on a different wavelength than other people. It's better than it used to be; his mentor Max taught him good coping skills, and friends like Robin and Kon-El taught him to be a little more patient with other people. Even so, sometimes it can get the best of him, making him seem ditzy or causing him to miss important information because it's just being given to him too slowly for him to effectively pick it up before he chooses to act.
