Fast Enough (Closed)

[Ambrosia_64]

Velocity II was on the scene. Little more than a shimmering light blue and silver blur currently, she raced in and out of the burning apartment building, rushing people out onto the sidewalk at breakneck speeds. A few of the folks threw up, but that was to be expected.

The young heroine had appeared six months ago, sporting an updated costume similar to her predecessor's and foiling an armed robbery. At first, people thought Velocity was back, that she had been brought back from the dead. The girl was wearing the shimmering blue costume with the silver accents, the silver gloves and boots. A familiar matching blue mask extended from her hairline to her cheekbones. She was a speedster and she had the dark hair. But instead of a perky ponytail it was short, not even brushing her shoulders. Chin length and a tousled, windswept look to it.

Eventually a clearer picture was obtained, some footage where she was moving at normal speed or standing still. Velocity had been a tall, dark haired, fair skinned Caucasian woman with pale blue eyes-but this new girl was petite and had a russet, reddish brown skin tone. Oversized silver goggles concealed her eyes. She seemed younger than the original Velocity had been, and once she started working with police-was confirmed to be a different woman altogether.

So, Velocity II was what the papers had termed her, eventually dropping the roman numerals.

She had only grown in popularity since that first outing-and had even gained the approval of a few veteran heroes in other parts of the country, helping with a mission here and there. For the most part, however, she stayed close to home.

Clever, cheerful, and endearingly optimistic, she took care of the city and had become something of a mascot-standing up for the little guy wherever she could.

And averting the occasional disaster.

She checked every room, every nook and cranny in the space of minutes as the building burned around her, clearing it top to bottom. But that basement-well, that gave her pause. Jerry cans littered the floor in the subterranean space, the heroine snagging one and rushing out with it just as fire trucks pulled up, ambulances.

"Any inside?" A red faced fireman with furrowed brows asked, and Velocity shook her head. "Not anymore. Looks to be arson, though." He nodded and then turned to bark orders, taking the jerry can from her. Fire investigators would get out here once the fire was out. In the meantime-Jenna raced from person to person, handing out emergency blankets from the back of the police cruisers and hustling people to be checked out by the emergency workers, clearing the sidewalk so the hoses could be put into use.

Something caught her eye across the street and Jenna turned towards it, a brief moment of study-and then the figure turned and ran. Well, that was suspicious.

In a blur, she darted across the street and down the alley in a blink, cutting the man off at the alley's exit.

The heroine skidded to a stop, a hand propping on her hip and the other giving a short wave. "Hi there." She greeted brightly, her concealed eyes sweeping over him. "Where's the fire? Oh wait, nevermind." She nodded back towards the flaming building across the street with a slight frown on her full lips. "There it is."

Her suit was made of a heat resistant, thicker material reminiscent of protective motorcycle garb-tight fitting but modest enough, the suit a light blue color with a bit of shimmer to it. A thin silver line was on the in side of each leg, curving outward just at her knee and continuing up along the sides of her suit and down each arm. The goggles were silver and opaque, the flat heeled boots velcroed up along the front and the soles made of a durable, high grade material that, unlike rubber-wouldn't be melting during her sprints.

 

[Ephemeron9]

"It's not exactly inconspicuous, don't you think?" Alex Whipple immediately regretted his compulsive quip.

He had been looking for work, not trouble, although given his track record, he felt it was fair to blame the numerous instances of unpunished recklessness for being so rash today. "Too many, indeed" he though to himself as he gripped the parcel of vulgar narcotics under his ill-fitting trench coat--the drug is useless on his own poison-immune nervous system, but he felt confident that it would fetch a good price somewhere, perhaps even from the exact peddler out of whose pocket it was originally stolen. Alas, that has to wait after he had dealt with the dashing young heroine before him.

Despite her surprising alteration in appearance and mannerism, Alex recognized the swift vigilante from a few month ago, when his anonymous employer hired him for the sabotage of the city's subway network--a rapid silhouette blinking amidst plumes of smoke and fire, and on several other occasions, Alex recalled seeing her face among squadrons of uniform policemen, arriving just too late to prevent his monetized villainies, but soon enough for brief confrontations--infinitesimal moments of eye contact--before he practically disappear behind clouds of homemade smoke-bombs.

Smiling suavely, Alex managed to resist tipping his hat in a fashion befitting the attire's comedic anachronism, and took a light bow in lieu of a farewell. Hoping to slip away unmolested.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

It was hard for Velocity to sit still for any length of time, particularly if she was hopped up on adrenaline and thinking hard. She zipped to the left side of the alley.

"Probably can see it from space." She agreed cheerfully, her concealed eyes narrowing a fraction on about where his hands would be beneath the coat he was swimming in. Did he maybe have a gun? Wouldn't be the first time someone tried to shoot her. Ill advised, but hey-criminals gonna do what they gonna do. Didn't the Unabomber wear a trench coat? Er, maybe that was just a movie stereotype.

She zipped to the right, still keeping the same distance between them. A slight head tilt at his smile, his bow.

Suddenly she was two feet away and bent at the waist to catch his eye, despite hers being behind the opaque goggles. "You didn't see anything suspicious beforehand, did you? Kids playing with matches, evil insurance salesmen...maybe shady characters in trench coats?"

She wasn't into intimidation, this heroine. Didn't have it in her. Not a scrap of brutality or mean-but she could be a little overly enthusiastic, at times. Like cheerfully but watchfully talking up strangers in alleyways-despite their efforts to politely shake her. Close enough he'd be able to detect a faint vanilla scent to her skin, as well as something akin to...apple blossoms? clinging to her hair beneath the scent of smoke.

There...well, there was something not quite right about this guy. Not that she wanted to be profiling all men in trench coats, or anything.

 

[Ephemeron9]

Alex gritted his teeth behind his tight-lipped smile as he felt the fierce gust swept up by the superhuman girl--a cocktail of thrilling fear and excitement roiled in his stomach. Sure, he might have walked away from previous encounters against the heroine, but luck had been on his side more or less, not to mention her relative inexperience early on. On the other hand, Alex felt her palpably energetic presence wafting off an infectious liveliness that he had scarcely knew throughout his lifelong dwelling in dingy bars, dark alleys and musty basements where criminals from high and low consisted the known population--quite a change of scene, walking side by side with what he considered a flashy symbol of innocent justice.

"You didn't see anything suspicious beforehand, did you? Kids playing with matches, evil insurance salesmen...maybe shady characters in trench coats?" Said the girl, and Alex turned towards her with his well-composed grin.

In truth, he knew nothing about the fire, but judging from the average quality of infrastructure he had gathered in this city, it's not exactly implausible that some deliberation had been put in the orchestration of the fire, and so, the combination of his curiosity and the convenient distance of the scene had drawn him here.

"Well~" he said with a flourish, "does it help to say that I see the law enforcement of this city is being carried out by a sweet little girl?" Too belittling? Well, he doesn't exactly have the power to rewind time and retract his remarks, but it might be the right time to start looking for narrow spaces or clutter objects with which he could wriggle out of the scene should the need arise, he thought to himself.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

Ouch

There was a beat where the petite speedster seemed to dim a little, the smile that had been playing around her lips vanishing and a faint flush coming to her cheeks. It wasn't the first time someone had called her a kid, or even been a little condescending about her size -in AND out of costume-but it was a sore spot. She was plenty grown, thank you very much.

"The boys in blue have their hands full and are working hard." She said a little stubbornly, defending the police. Jenna flitted away a few paces, crossing her arms with a huff. "And I pay my taxes same as you, pal."

She darted back to the left side of the alley, a frown. "Assuming you pay taxes, anyway." There was something about...something about this GUY struck a chord in her memory. She wasn't sure exactly what it was, just yet, but...

It didn't take her long to overlook the jab, however. "See, a yes or no would have sufficed. I'm not trying to say you DID have something to do with that-" She jerked a thumb back towards the burning, smoking building. She had just raced up and down a gazillion flights of stairs, clearing every single apartment of anything living-including fourteen cats, two goldfish, and a parrot-and while she was happy no one had died-homes were still going up in smoke back there.

"But you are here being a bit unhelpful, and-actually, do I know you from somewhere?" She interrupted herself, going still for the first time since she had zipped down the alley. Behind her goggles, she blinked.

 

[Ephemeron9]

A twinge of guilt struck him as Alex watched the subtle, yet altogether undisguised change in her countenance, and, momentarily, he almost lamented for having rained of the sunny parade that is the young heroine's career. Nevertheless, her mention of the police reminded Alex the fundamental relationship between the two of them--criminal and agent of justice.

He watched as she zoomed about the alley, squinting a little now and again when she passed by him close enough for the wind to whip across his face. It appeared that she had, in addition to her exceptional movement speed, some sort of accelerated thought process as well, otherwise a person thinking at a normal rate would surely have crashed into the barred metal fence or the solid walls flanking the alleyway. As such, it would be unwise of him to attempt using his powers to escape in her presence, considering the likelihood of her seeing the process by which he would transform his body into an amorphous black fluid before slipping into tight spaces or taking the form of something else.

In fact, the exact mechanism of his superpower is one of the few things Alex takes serious effort to protect--he learned to do so when carelessly letting out his ability to mimic other people's appearance had almost got him killed by some criminals who turned on his back--the same power that he is using now to hide his identity from the young heroine before him...

With a start, he watched the neat features of the girl suddenly popping in front of him, bent forward to stare him right in the eye below the rim of his hat.

"actually, do I know you from somewhere?"

Oh no! He was suddenly taken back to the memory of a hotel room years before, where his supposed partner in crime casually remarked on the imperfection of his mimicry--that he couldn't manage to adopt distinct demeanor for each appearance--before pulling out a machine pistol and peppering him full of lead. Verily, he wore the exact expression of nervous excitement both when he locked eyes with the girl months ago and right at this moment!

Alex displayed a toothy grin. "Do you believe in destiny?" He asked facetiously, and before the rhetorical question could be answered, he offered his answer as spontaneously as is possible while his hand reached for the pocket where he was sure his smoke bombs are kept: "why else would a girl like you be dreaming about strangers in the street?"

 

[Ambrosia_64]

Even with the silver opaque goggles, her shocked surprise was evident-her eyebrows shooting up and her lips briefly parting before she bristled at his attempt to distract or flatter? her, poking him in the chest.

"YOU'RE the crook from the Hutchington Heist!" Another realization dawned. "AND the guy from that Jewelry Caper thing-" She had caught both those crooks, but they had gotten away somehow! Heck, she hadn't even realized the two were the same person until this exact moment. Who else had he been? WHERE else had he been?

She backed off a step, briefly unsure what to do with this sudden revelation-and he seized on it to try and escape. He yanked something out of his pocket and threw it downwards-she probably could have caught it, if she hadn't been distracted. Whoops.

Slots opened on it and it began to hiss a thick black smoke-but Jenna didn't stand slack jawed dumb for it. "Oh no you don't-" She chastised, backing off another step and windmilling an arm in front of her, her arm nothing more than a blur as the smoke was fanned away, washing over his lower half-it had never gotten the chance to rise above his head.

And then she vanished, a small silver gloved hand suddenly on his upper arm and the smoke bomb lobbed onto the fire escape several floors above. This kid should have gone into the Major Leagues with an arm like that-course, meta human powers would be cheating.

"You're not going anywhere this time!" She asserted confidently, tugging him along with her and marching him at normal speed down the alley. Velocity wasn't the largest, and certainly not the tallest of women-but she sure had panache.

"I had you wrapped up in an extension cord and you STILL escaped!" She exclaimed, actually pausing and looking both ways before crossing the street. There was no doubt now-Velocity recognized him based on mannerisms alone. "I sure hope you haven't moved on to arson, goodness-" Ah. Innocent until proven guilty, it seemed.

The fire was dying down, the fire fighters earning their paychecks and more. Anyone who had inhaled too much smoke was long gone and on the way to the hospital, police milling about putting up tape on the accompanying allys on either side of the brownstone.

 

[Ephemeron9]

Alex was surprised and embarrassed that the first thing coming over his mind as he felt the girl's delicate fingers tighten around his forearm were the contemplation of whether her power had defied the laws of physics--given that had she moved at supersonic speed, he'd surely been knocked clear out of his senses by the shock wave, and when he finally abandoned the useless train of thought, he was already being dragged across the street like a reluctant parent pulled towards a candy stand.

"Well, at least that ridiculous hat had flown off." He thought, and found himself smiling as he trailed the petite vigilante on staggering steps. From an outside point of view, he appeared to be a theatrics graduate stuck in cheap stage costume used in re-enactments of the first world war, and his appearance would mesh well with the stereotypical impression of what it would have been like to be a "gay young man" before the word "gay" took on the connotation of homosexuality--short blonde hair mixed with specks of brown, clear jawline and smooth chin--a slightly embellished alteration of his real appearance, or at least what he think is his real appearance, if he had awoken in that deserted valley in his original form with no memory of his past.

"I had you wrapped up in an extension cord and you STILL escaped!" The girl's accusation pulled him back to the present. Oh, right- His late partner was right, Alex was not exactly creative with his disguises, they had mostly been variations of his real appearance--a sign of Narcissism perhaps, maybe that was the real reason why his pal had pulled a gun on him. Luckily enough, neither what the traitor used nor whatever the police are likely equipped with would cause him serious harm, given that so long as he's conscious, he could always convert his body into goo then re-coalesce into a healthy form, assuming small bullet diameter. Think so, he had little worry in mind as he tried his best to contrive an expression of genuine guilt and fear as he watched the police across the road turning towards him, hands on their lapel-mounted firearms.

"Careful you don't break the speed limit-" Alex managed to sneak off one last remark as the two wound through the halted traffic and getting within earshot of the police officers.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

"Oh ha-ha mister Houdini." She returned a wave to one of the motorists before the police broke from their deep conversing and noticed her approach, eyeing her reluctant companion warily. It didn't occur to Jenna to question why he was allowing himself to be walked over here-he was bigger than she was, after all, and she had found him out for his previous two crimes and half suspected him of arson. Sometimes the heroine projected a little too much-she would have turned herself in, so she assumed he felt guilty enough to go along with things. Or perhaps he just knew there was no sense running.

"Miss Velocity...?"

"This is the perp who got away in the Hutchington Heist!" She burst without preamble, pulling him forward and looking up at him a final time before releasing his arm and taking a step back. "AND that Jewelry store two months back-and who knows what else!"

The police exchanged looks. One seemed sold, but the two older men less so. "We've got footage of the Jewelry thief, and witness statements-"

"If nothing else, guess it warrants a few questions, slinking around after a fire." The other veteran grumbled, scratching his forehead. He was fond of the heroine. They all were, on the force. It was hard not to be, she worked so hard to be helpful.

 

[Ephemeron9]

Alex almost chuckled as he heard the recount of his previous achievements in criminality, but maintained a look of guilty defeat--head-slouched, back-hunched and avoiding looking at the officers. Soon enough, a intimidating looking policeman walked up to the roguish villain, chest-propped and hands on his belt. "You have the right to remain-"

Before he could finish delivering the Miranda warning, Alex had collapsed on his knees in an almost unbelievable act of terrorized submission. "Yes! I confess! I confess it all!" He cried in a quivering voice, surprising even himself in his over-the-top performance. Simultaneously, he used his power to form a small hook under the suddenly ragged-looking trench coat, and torn open the zip-lock bag in his pocket. Pills and tablets of myriad colors spilled to the ground, forming a sickly facsimile of rainbow, or oil slick. "I'm so sorry! I know I shouldn't sell drugs! I swear I'm not doing it on purpose!" Hands clasped in phony contrition, he shouted in hoarse hysteria.

Surprised even after all the years they have spent on their line of work, the police officers exchanged another couple of looks among themselves. One nods and another stepped forward, opening a pair of handcuffs with a crisp clink, but not before giving the heroine by their side a last inquiring look.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

For the second time today, Jenna was rendered speechless. Her eyes widened behind her goggles as the man all but sobbed on his knees, confessing to everything. Well. That was easy.

She...she actually felt a little bad for him. "H-hey, it'll be alright, no one was hurt-" She started to say with no small amount of concern. He was really upset! Maybe the judge would take that into account and he could be rehabilitated...

And then drugs spilled out from beneath his coat. Wait-what? Drugs-she hadn't dragged him over thinking he was a drug dealer TOO!

"Er, um..." She tore her eyes from the kneeling, pleading man and cast an uncertain glance at the officer looking to her in askance. This suddenly didn't feel right. The guy was tricky, could change his appearance somehow, seemed to be a master escapist, able to get out of ropes and the like. He was too cocky to fall to pieces...wasn't he?

She had felt bad, very bad for him, but now she felt an inkling of wrong and suspicion.

All three officers were looking at her now. "W-well, you boys know how to do...do your job..." She said meekly before shaking herself out of it.

"But please be careful with this guy-he's, he's tricky." They didn't seem to believe her. The guy was practically blubbering and guilt stricken-hardly what they would have called a criminal mastermind. They hadn't seen him at the other locations or just now in the alleyway.

Jenna felt uneasy. "I'm going to help clean up." She finally said with a final, uncertain glance to the shapeshifter as he was handcuffed. Would he escape jail somehow? Was this an act? It suddenly seemed like it might be an act.

Her lips pursed and she felt a little less unsure and more frustrated and confused. She couldn't figure his game. With a parting nod to the officers and a thank you, she was gone again, set to the unpleasant task of rescuing sopping wet and singed items for the families affected by the fire.

 

[Ephemeron9]

Sitting the reinforced back seats of the police vehicle, Alex found himself looking around at the air-tight confinement he had been put in, and discovered a genuine thread of fear as he realized his desire to escape, now that he is at the hands of legitimate enforcers of the law.

Nevertheless, he continued the pretense of an addict with snapped-out nerves, grovelling on one inarticulate apology after another, to the point where one of the officers had to explicitly tell him to shut up.

It was lucky the girl made no accusation about his likely propriety of superhuman powers, and that the laws concerning meta-human were still being finalized in this particular jurisdiction. If the officers operated with Occam's razor as a principle, he should be quickly dealt with as if merely another drug peddler. Once again, he inwardly chuckled at the young vigilante's innocence. Perhaps she doesn't believe that there existed anyone who could possibly be so irresponsible for his supernatural power, and at this thought, he lamented for knowing the grim reality--a world infested with people much worse than himself--that he wished the girl would never know.

To his pleasant surprise, his confinement was as predicted by his criminal knowledge, and through out the interrogations, he managed to continue his performance of pitiful repent, he even remembered to pretend in withdrawal from time to time--mouth foaming, hands crawling at his own throat, pupils dilating (which was easy to do, given his transforming power). Indeed, he acted so realistically that he was occasionally given withdrawal medication.

Curiously enough, whenever he felt unmotivated to continue the act, out of boredom in being stuck in a place he could easily escape or out of sincere disgust of the petty scums that shared that place with him, he would imagine the speedy little heroine watching over his shoulder, in that deceitless expression of pity.
He would act for her.

"I wonder if you check the updates on the scums you throw behind bars." Alex spoke to the air, two weeks in and he felt ready to never enter a prison again--the prolonged confinement had made him feel ill, mentally and physically, but mostly mentally. "Well, if you do, the show is going to get a lot more drama soon."

On the next morning, the patrolling jailer passing by Alex's cell found its occupant covered in blood, coughing up thick blackish blood on hands and knees. He was rushed to the medical station, but by the time the doctors saw him, he was already growing cold. A brief examination of the bloody cavern that was his mouth revealed that he had torn off his tongue and swallowed it--a scene so grisly that even the hardened surgeon wanted to be finished with him as soon as is possible. After being determined to have died from self-mutilation due to withdrawal, he was pushed into the morgue with a cloth over his face.

"What do they say?" He chuckled a little nervously as he imagined the cold bodies lying all around him, "If you are going through hell, keep going."

As soon as the lid of the cremation chamber was closed, Alex Whipple instantly transformed his whole body into a thick, gaseous sludge, and as his shapeless body rushed out from the ash-laden chimney with a gust of hellish hot air, he felt a thrill of terror that overshadowed any fear he had ever felt. Alas, his efforts were finally rewarded by a cool, rainy freedom under the night sky.

Coagulating into human form once again, he felt that no less than a quarter of his bodily essence had been lost during the hectic escape. "I do this for you little girl," looking over the distant city lights from the elevated terrain upon which the prison had been built, he grinned in a mixture of bitterness and shaken sanity, "I do this for you."

 

[Ambrosia_64]

It hadn't been a trick. Apparently, the man who could change his appearance and Houdini himself out of ropes really DID have a drug problem.

Jenna was conflicted about the rest of it. She hadn't pressed the issue about him having been the perpetrator in the other two incidents too much-they had questioned him about it, but according to her friend Officer Lewinski, he didn't seem entirely aware enough to know. A withdrawing drug addict...and she didn't have any proof, not really. He was behind bars and getting the help he needed, and that was good enough, maybe. He must have been stealing to fuel his habit. Didn't make it right, but the problem was being taken care of.

The actual arsonist of the apartment building had been caught, too. A corrupt landlord looking for insurance money. People could have died due to his greed, and Jenna was glad to see him put behind bars by good investigators.

The man booked for drug charges had just been incredibly unlucky-wrong place wrong time. Maybe not so unlucky, if it meant he could get off of drugs, now.

///////////////////////////////////////////////

Jenna Paige was late. She was always late, no matter how organized she was, how many alarms she set, how many sticky notes-she was always late. It was maddening. She was a 4.0 student, for God's sake, couldn't she get to class on time?

The five foot two, slim college student had an arm full of books and a canvas bag loaded with even more on her shoulder, struggling to stay balanced and not spill everything at once. She was wearing a short denim jacket with her lucky pin on the lapel-a small enamel fox-and a pastel blue dress beneath that with a flared, slightly flouncy skirt. She had a weakness for shoes-today they were sparkly silver flats. Tomorrow, probably boots.

Dark, very dark almond shaped eyes glanced to the large clock on the library tower, widening a fraction to see JUST how late she was. Her professor was going to kill her.

She hurried up the stairs, resisting the urge to really run-it could be almost torture, having to move at normal speed, sometimes. How had she ever managed it before?

/////////////////////////////////////////////

"What do you mean? What happened?" The heroine was troubled and instantly shaken by the news of her perp's death. To the point Diane regretted the throwaway comment she had made about it.

"Uh, you don't want to know kid. Trust me." She said grimly as she slammed the door to her cruiser shut, accepting the coffee Velocity had brought to her, their Wednesday ritual.

"Did he have any family?"

"Pft, if he did, he probably alienated them long ago, using drugs."

The kid frowned, and Diane cursed herself again. "I mean, I don't think so. No one to pick up the body or uh, anything. The city cremated him, he'll have an urn and everything. You did what you could. Putting him in jail probably just kept him from OD'ing in an alleyway somewhere."

"It's still awful." Velocity's usual cheerful demeanor was gone, the girl looking a little deflated. "If I had been able to catch and keep him there previously, maybe he would have had help in time...?"

"Don't plague yourself with what if's, okay? Do yourself a favor and just...forget about it, alright? People do what they do. You can't live for them. Take the night off why don't you-everything's quiet tonight. I'll give you a call if anything comes up."

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

A week or two later she was still sad about it-and maybe still a bit confused at his sudden, rapid decline. You just never knew, she guessed, how much trouble a person could be in when it came to drugs. He had seemed with it, previously.

She felt even worse for suspecting he was just being tricky, at first. Ugh.

Sitting in the sterile white room she used as a secret base-or rather, had inherited to use as a secret base-Jenna yawned, only half out of costume at the end of a long day. Missing her gloves, mask, goggles and one boot-she had been in the middle of changing back into street clothes when she had been distracted by a last minute thought, needed to look something up on the modest, regular computer Laura had worked on. Not the fanciest of 'crime fighting' computers, but good enough.

The room rumbled as a subway went by on the other side of the wall-the base was located in a partially built, unused section of the subway system, half a tunnel that led nowhere. She could access the actual circuit through a heavily fortified door-but it led into a dark, kind of creepy tunnel and she didn't like to use it. The secret entrance up top in the abandoned building still owned by Laura's shell company was good enough for her, and involved zero spiders. A good deal if there ever was any.

There was the desk, a work table with a few electronic pieces on it, a military looking single bed-and an odd treadmill like device that, in all honesty-Jenna still had no idea what it was for, hooked up to that weird ball thing. It wasn't much bigger than her bedroom back home, but it was hers. Made her feel almost legitimate, in the beginning.

Okay. Time to go-she had a paper to write tomorrow, Saturday or not.

Jenna turned off the computer and removed her other boot sleepily. Maybe she would just crash here for tonight. Taking the bus was very unappealing, right now.

Rising to stand, she wandered over to the bed and flopped down on it, mostly asleep before she ever hit the pillow.

 

[Ephemeron9]

With approximately half of his remaining body mass transformed into jacket and trousers, Alex began to question his insistence on appearing human. "Why didn't I just turn into a cat?" Too late now; he had worked hard keeping his power a secret, and he was not about to squander it all to hidden surveillance cameras.

The night was cold and wet, and from time to time, sudden scrawls would sweep across the desolate street, swaying his half-empty torso to and fro. Like so many other nights--weak, alone yet with no immediate threats breathing down his neck--Alex Whipple recounted what little he remembered of his life, or more specifically, of that past life that may as well belong to someone else:

He had always known his name, all the way from the earliest memories of looking up the legs of kindly adults with blurry faces. Of his adolescence, he remembered nothing, but at the end of it there was a terrible scene--everything was black and white, and something with glinting orange eyes that might easily have numbered in the dozens was chasing him through tall, thin and otherworldly spiraling things that appeared to be a violated palimpsest of a forest. When he next woke up, he lied face down in unrecognizable rags by the edge of a forested valley.

He was remembering more and more--sometimes images would suddenly float to the surface of his consciousness like petroleum from ocean trenches, but he had never written any of it down, or documented it in any way. Having his only supposed ally turn on him not long ago furthered consolidated his belief in the undependability of the world.

"Sure, part of it was my on fault." He thought, forcing a smile and feeling surprisingly good about it, "I shouldn't have been meddling with petty crimes and superficially charismatic criminals, but what did you expect from a hot-headed brat like me?" Alex cut out his mental soliloquy, feeling crept out by both the schizophrenic suggestion of his reference to a non-existent psychic listener as well as the embarrassment in knowing that part of him still considered himself to be just a kid--a feral human being with too much power and not enough social support. Nevertheless, he had to admit to himself that if he had chosen to, he needn't be the roguish social parasite that he is today.

"Can I help you?" Said a cigarette-charred voice in a dulcet tone, and for a moment, Alex was convinced that the angel of virtue had descended to offer him salvation, but it didn't take him long to identified the cheaply flamboyant woman greeting him from the street corner was just a prostitute.

"Take this." Alex extended a fifty dollar bill. "Just because you are nice."

Having done so, he walked along, leaving the astounded woman pocketing the money in disbelief. Of course, the bill had only been a fabricated manifestation of his shape-shifting body, in truth it might not have even been of the right size, not to mention how such a small split-off piece of his body would evaporate in no more than a couple hours, but it was enough to get the wench out of his way and to purchase a light chuckle for the shape-shifting rogue.

"Home, stinky temporary home!" Alex exclaimed into the echoing emptiness as he squeezed into a cement hollow underneath the city's largest suspension bridge. This had likely been planned for emergency generator room for the electromagnetic railways above, but for whatever reason the plan had been scrapped and the entrance to the hollow had been sealed off, save for a few winding crannies and a gash on a wall through which one could hear the gently sloshing sea. Sometimes, Alex fantasize the place to have been the architects' secret hideout when they drew the blue print for the bridge, after all, haven't they conveniently left a skyward opening just enough for satellite signal? What about the easily accessible power-lines that could easily be diverted for use with a few cheap electric-transformers? Apparently the power company never noticed that approximately one laptop computer had been charging directly from the city's main power-line after a momentary outage months ago.

Settling down in an aged couch that doubles as a bed, Alex booted up the anticlimactically stylish laptop and allowed its artificial blue light to illuminate the vast empty room; drops of rain water falling through shimmered in their descent, and made Alex think of vertically falling comets. "Alright~" He signed comfortably, throwing the last block of military ration he kept from his last employment in his mouth, and scoured the internet for everything there is pertaining to the speedy heroine who put him behind bars.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

Velocity was the name of both a newbie hero and an old veteran. The latter of which was, unfortunately, no longer living. Five, nearly six years ago she had been found murdered in another, harder town-probably on Hero Defense business. The superhero team was rather prestigious-the original Velocity had been one of only seven members. The city had been in mourning for a long time. But that wasn't the woman he was looking into.

This new Velocity, Velocity II-she was growing to be just as well loved by the populace as her predecessor had been. She had shown up six months ago, bursting onto the hero scene by stopping an armed robbery just off the local university's campus. Grainy security footage of the speedster had been all over the news the next day, along with the news that the culprit was none other than four time robbery suspect Martin Lynnstock.

It was a few weeks of activity here and there before the public realized she was a different person altogether. Side by side comparisons of the two women sporting the same costume were available on google images, the one he had met having added those jaunty silver goggles to the outfit. The hero community had mixed reactions. Some thought it disrespectful for an upstart to take on Velocity's mantle, while others felt she must have had some connection to the murdered heroine and just hadn't been ready to step out until now.

It didn't entirely help that Velocity II wasn't much of a fighter, particularly at the beginning. Clever take downs were more her speed. She preferred to use the environment to trip up her opponents-would be assailants had been foiled by metal trashcans being dumped on their heads, their shoelaces being tied together, sleeves pulled back and tied into bows. He had experienced that personally, with the extension cord she'd wrapped him up in, head to toe. She was seen as a little soft, and working in a soft city to begin with. Her namesake had had a wider net and larger presence.

Three months previously she had assisted in the take down of a Godzilla like sea monster tearing up a coastal city clear across the country. It wasn't clear what the hero team had done to it exactly-but there was news footage of an apparently winded Velocity II zipping up to a startled group of heroes deep in discussion. After more discussion, Captain Tron and Miss Lance were seen handing her a device the size of a toaster and pointing towards the beast. Then the girl was a shimmering blue blur racing down the street and circling the monster, running up it's back. When she had planted the device at the top of the head and raced back down-the beast popped out of existence, perhaps sent to one of the pocket worlds Captain Tron was famous for. With that experience she seemed to finally be recognized by the hero community and thus legitimized. No one had anything more negative to say about her taking up the mantle of Velocity.

She returned to the city and went back to looking out for the little guy. Muggings, car thefts, assaults and fire rescue-she was all over the city helping where she could. Her popularity only continued to rise. Fan pages on Facebook, discussions of her abilities in forums and television segments, shaky cell phone footage uploaded to Youtube of the girl in action-she was a hot topic for the city's inhabitants, and beginning to gain some notice nationally.

Yet there wasn't much preening for the press. She hadn't given any interviews, seemed to shy away from much of the attention. All in all, things were going great for the heroine, these days. She had no major rivals and since the sea monster incident, hadn't received any bad press. She was known to be out patrolling weekday nights and weekend afternoons to nights, leading to speculation that she had a day job and a life outside of vigilantism. No one knew where she was based or who she was, just that she was substantially younger than the previous Velocity-who had been a heroine for twelve years in her own right, and another four as a sidekick to Knight Risk, a cyborg from the future.

Were he to follow a few links about her known abilities, he would learn her top speed was yet to be properly measured, but she had been known to run straight up the side of buildings. She was able to throw objects quite a distance, and could spirit people away and to safety despite her petite statue. It was believed she could tap into the Speed Force mentally as well as physically. There also seemed to be some sort of accelerated healing-something Velocity the first had not had.

Other abilities were as yet unknown. The former Velocity had been able to run across bodies of water and phase through solid objects, and had been a highly capable martial artist well versed in several styles. She had had the benefit of Knight Risk for a mentor, however-this new girl didn't seem to have a teacher, other than whatever she had picked up in those few days away.

She was on her own out here. Good thing it was such a relatively safe city.

 

[Ephemeron9]

Alex found himself smiling like an idiot as he read up on the little heroine, "I'm afraid your schedule is a little too telling...", he said, practicing his supervillain voice as he read off others' speculation on Velocity's other identity. He thought carefully of the girl, trying to run through every aspect of her appearance, age and personality. What could such a person possibly do as a job? He thought of the usual things for a young woman like her.

"Certainly not a waitress, I'd like to see you resisting the temptation to zoom across a diner at the speed of sound" He grinned, thinking of how restlessly she had paced about him on the day when she handed him to the cops. "I just can't see you being a personal assistance or anything that servile either, really, I'd scratch the idea of you doing anything with a regular schedule, since people in my profession certainly don't keep to those."

Thinking so, Alex suddenly rolled off his back and crawled back on his keyboard, an idea had just struck him--if he were able to manufacture an incidence that only a speedy heroine like that girl could handle, he'd have some idea on where and when Miss Everyday Girl would transform into the city's beloved Velocity.

"Time to call up on an old friend, I guess." He said to himself, bracing for the necessity to uphold the tedious facade of well-to-do villain over the secret network of communication he wished he never needed.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

The alarm was obnoxious and made her regret staying up that hour or so later than usual.

She fumbled around for her phone, tapping the screen to clear it. "S'new day..." She mumbled to no one, curling back up and snuggling into the pillow. She pretended like she might actually sleep in for once-and then sighed and uncurled, hopping off the bed and rubbing the back of her neck as she yawned.

"A new day!" She repeated, this time brighter and with feeling. A new day...to write a paper. Dang it. Monday through Thursday she had class for most of the day-the last one ended at three thirty, and she took another two hours after to get busy on homework. Writing papers, studying, all the things she couldn't afford to save for the weekend, if she could avoid it.

The weekends were show time for her 'volunteer' work-where she spent proper time patrolling the city, rather than the 'quick passes' she did during the week. It was a tight schedule-she lost sleep here and there, despite her best efforts. Sometimes her night job just needed a bit more attention than she had planned for. It could be like that.

She reached for the zipper at the back of her neck, tugged it down the high collar and between her shoulder blades, down to the base of her spine-and shimmied out of it, hanging it, her boots, and her mask in the special cylindrical case where it would be cleaned and fixed up, not that there was any damage to it this morning.

Her goggles she tossed into the bottom of her back pack as she pulled her street clothes back on-brown ankle boots, jeggings, and an oversized sweater that fell to about mid thigh on her smaller frame, but looked intentional and fashionable. It was a teal color with darker blue threads throughout. Her hair was a mussed mess-but with a quick bit of finger brushing, the short silky strands fell into place again, a quick swipe of her longish bangs to keep them off to the side.

The filipina in the mirror grinned impishly back at her as she gave her reflection the final nod of approval. Jenna Paige again, hardworking student going into law. Certainly not anybody sneaking out of her dorm at night to go crime fighting. Nope. Not her. Mostly because her parents would kill her. They were nervous enough with her being so far from home, but the scholarship had been too good to pass up.

She had transferred a little over a year ago to finish her undergrad, and intended to go on to law school here on the same free ride. Her parents had been proud but reluctant to see her move so far north.

Given what had almost happened seven months ago, she couldn't blame them.

Jenna shook the thought away. She didn't like to think about it.

Turning on her heel and heading out the door, she left the lights on and locked the door behind her with one of the two keys on her stretchy coiled bracelet. The other one went to her dorm.

Walking down the empty tunnel with light clicks of her boot heels bouncing off the walls, Jenna hummed a little tune to herself as a subway train rattled by on the other side of the concrete wall-heading for the metal ladder on the wall, bounding up it and out of the heavy trap door at the top. She dropped it closed and turned the crank the four thousand times it took to properly seal it-an easy task given the bit of a boost she gave her arm.

Laura had been very clever, rigging it up like this.

And then out the second, heavy door on well oiled hinges, this one concealed on the other side by brickwork. Once she let it close, one couldn't even tell there WAS a door there at all. She swept up her foot prints in the dirt floor of the basement as she headed backwards towards the stairs, climbing them two at a time before she paused in the dilapidated building's first floor. It was so messy, and hard for her to leave it like that-but it was also the point-no one would want to spend any time in here, that was for sure. It was a bad part of town and the graffiti and torn up furniture certainly wasn't very welcoming. Checking her watch, Jenna shook her head and quickly climbed through the boarded up window at the back of the building-she had a bus to catch!

 

[Ephemeron9]

"Twice? You really think that necessary?" Said an oily voice man on the other side of the DarkNet's voice chat system.

"Just do it." Alex insisted, trying to imitate the stereotypical gang leader he had only seen on TV, or otherwise enacted by pretentious egomaniacs who were really petty thieves. "Remember that diamond I swiped 2 months ago? I can't really find a buyer so you can have it when this is done, okay?"

"...sure, just to confirm, Tuesday, 10 AM, right when fucking everybody is up and walking about. You sure you are not trying to be terrorist?" Asked the other man. Alex had known him as a follower of the cartel leader known as "White King", who had vanished not long ago, leaving his minions scrambling for domination, eventually dissolving the whole ring. "Pawn_55"--the man he just spoke to, was one of the members who decided to settle down in this city when the organization blew up from within, and it seemed that being a peddler and pickpocket couldn't satiate his greed enough to keep him off more... noticeable jobs.

The appointed time had arrived, and with a piercing screech, a fully loaded bus skidded off the road and went drifting down the steepest hill the city had built over, knocking cars and pedestrians off their course left and right as its uncontrollable wheels carried it off on a fast descent towards the sea shore below.

Inside, adults screamed and children cried, several had bloodied foreheads as the vehicles tumbled down the inclined road, and in a moment, several windows were shattered by a collision with a lamppost, threatening to throw the occupants out in this demonic approximation of a roller-coaster ride.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

"The People of Minnesota VS Broly is one such case where-"

Jenna was taking notes and listening intently to the professor's-admittedly droning-lecture, her pen flying across her notebook-maybe a tick past normal speed, but no more than that. She felt her watch vibrate and initially ignored it-she wasn't 'on the clock' right now. But when it buzzed a second and then a third time-well, she got a little worried. That was a lot of keywords setting off alarms...

She pressed the side button in on the sleek digital watch, glad smart watches were becoming such a thing-hers didn't particularly stand out. Dull blue colored words, seemingly floating beneath the glass against the inky background, flew across the screen faster than most could have possibly read. Jenna took them in easily-and they were nothing good.

'Multiple Collisions' 'Veering...oncoming traffic' 'Out of control bus' Oh no... Where, why? The map flickered onto the screen as words continued to scroll across the bottom. Westbound on Center Street This was happening this very second!

"Miss Paige?"

Jenna snapped her head up. Half of the small lecture hall had turned to face her, many with quizzical expressions.

"What year did the case conclude?"

What? What ca-oh, Broly, right- "1997, but the verdict was overturned in 2002." She blurted. "I uh, I have to go, excuse me-" She gathered her things up in a messy armful and skittered out into the aisle, whispers at her back.

"You'll lose attendance points!" The professor called sternly after her-but her mind was in other places.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

People were frightened and confused as they landed in various soft patches of grass and, for one unfortunate couple-a dirty mattress that had been propped up against a building. They stared as their cars crashed into each other, walls, and streetlights, glass and metal everywhere.

They had been mysteriously removed from their cars. Others had been pedestrians moved several feet off the sidewalk, their muscles still tensed in their preparation to jump out of the way of the bus and cars aimed for them.

If they looked, they'd see not a shimmering blue blur-but a brown and black one with silver at the top and bottom.

/////////////////////////////////////

Was there even a driver in there? Had he had a heart attack or dozed off at the wheel or something? Why wasn't he stopping? Were there no breaks?

She caught up to the bus in record time, driving her elbow through the glass folding door. Everything was frozen. Well, not quite. But almost.

Jenna sucked in a hissing breath as glass tore through the thin sleeve of her longsleeved black shirt, slicing into her flesh. She was hopped up on adrenaline and more than a bit of fear for the folks inside-but it still hurt. A lot. The world was so quiet, so still when her head got like this. She wished she knew how to trigger it herself. It came and went, here and there-an amplified version of what her brain did naturally when she ran. The innate ability to access the speed force...but how could she learn to be this quick thinking all of the time? Or would her own impatience drive her crazy in so 'slow' a world?

Ow, ow, ow-

Jenna grit her teeth and tapped pieces of glass out of the way, gripped the inside edge of the folding door and forced it open, hopping up the steps in what felt like normal speed. It wouldn't last for long. It never did. Things were speeding back up to what was 'normal' perception while running-normally a slow crawl-but when she stopped moving, everything snapped back to normal in a heart beat.

People were screaming, the driver was nowhere to be found, and were it not for her gripping tightly to the steering wheel, she would have been thrown right back off the bus. She swiped the seat clear of broken glass-there was no longer a windshield, holy crap-and threw herself into the driver's seat. She felt a little ridiculous for doing so-it was meant for a much larger person than her. She snapped her seat belt in place and drew it tight, bouncing as the bus sped down the hill, trying to keep to the center of the road to avoid-and help the other drivers avoid-crashing.

"Everybody hold onto something!" She shouted backwards into the chaos. Oh God this was probably a terrible idea. Blood spiraled down her left arm as she reached for-and yanked back on-the parking brake, stomping on the air lock breaks at the same time.

///////////////////////////////////////////

The screech was terrible, accompanied by the squeal of tires being half painted onto the road. That same black and brown blur was suddenly in front of the still sliding bus-but luckily only one person went flying out of it, easily caught before they could hit pavement. Unluckily, the man was six feet tall and outweighed her by a hundred or so pounds.

"G-good?" They had taken a tumble together, the taller man having collided into the petite woman who was wearing not her shimmering blue, recognizable costume-but a slimming black long sleeved turtle neck. A dark brown tweed skirt flared off her hips, black opaque tights outlining toned, nice legs. She was dressed like a nice little lady, not a heroine. Completely clashing with her conservative but flattering outfit were those silver boots-and the oversized goggles concealing her eyes. She was wearing mauve colored lipstick that complimented her russet skin tone and had cream colored pearl earrings on, a matching bracelet on her right wrist and a smart watch on her left. Clearly, she had not been prepared to be vigilante-ing it up.

The bus was still running, had shuddered to a stop mere feet away from them. The mystery woman-wait, wasn't this just Velocity? Where was her costume?-helped the man up after shakily getting to her own feet, a frowning rub to the back of her head. Then she zipped back to the bus door and helped unload the passengers. People were banged up, but no one was too terribly hurt-a few minor injuries, including her sliced arm...which was already slowing in its bleeding. Her shirt was ruined, though.

A small crowd had gathered, cars were stopped in the middle of the street, and the distant sound of rapidly approaching sirens.

 

[Ephemeron9]

"Is this what you want?" Sitting in a nearby cafe was a man about late 30s, clad in dark brown sunglasses and a loose-fitting flannel shirt that showed his developing beer belly. He whispered into his camcorder with gritted teeth, "I hope you know what you are doing!" His anxiety, however, had been for the qualm of endangering what might had easily been half a hundred people, but rather the fear for his own safety. "-and I'd better get that fucking diamond, damn it!"

"Dude, chill out," on the other side of streaming service, Alex couldn't help commenting on his henchman's nervousness with a tone of nigh-juvenile lightheartedness while he watched the momentarily discernible figure of the familiar little girl zipping to and fro, trying to help as much as she could before too large a crowd could gather.

"Yeah, that's good" He remarked, sounding serious and commanding again, "you'll find your diamond in the bottom of the second trashcan on Blair Street. I'm done with you." Shutting off the connection before the henchman could whine about the filthy, but rather fitting location of the payment, Alex rolled off his couch and slapped on a sleek tuxedo he had...obtained...mere hours ago, walking over to a mirror, he took a good look at himself, and altered his appearance until he had become a walking effigy of Agent Smith from the Matrix series.

"Mr. Anderson..." He imitated, but broke into a chuckle as he watched the ridiculous pantomime in the mirror, perhaps it's better if he just kept his mouth shut for what he'll do next.

One week after the mysterious bus accident, where the driver had inexplicably vanished after one of the tires were punctured by a small explosive charge, police still struggled to understand the motive behind this apparently professional act of sabotage. A few individuals had come forth proclaiming to be the perpetrators of the act, but were all found to be ideologically militant, or otherwise delusional extremists attempting to take credit for what could be considered an act of terrorism that they knew nothing about, and while the covert nature of the attack was uncharacteristic of real terrorists, the city constabulary still decided to issue extra security around likely targets of attack.

Alex looked over to the large clock face on the quaintly superior skyscraper before him, it was 9:58, almost the exact time on the exact day when his hired help had initiated the attack from last week. He stepped inside.

Through her years, the receptionist had seen enough men in suits to know that the immaculately dressed, sunglasses-wearing man that walked towards her wasn't a veteran of the business world, but desperately tried to appear so. Nevertheless, she put on her retail-smile and greeted. "How can I help you, sir?"

Alex slid a neatly folded slip of paper over the polished marble counter, and turned to walk away. Seeing the sudden change in the receptionist's expression and how she almost collapsed on the floor upon reading the content of the note, several men turned their heads towards the steadily departing visitor. "Hey! You there!" One stood up and strode towards him. "What's going on?" Yet before the heroic civilian could make contact with his target, he was interrupted by a quivering shriek.

"Get out! Run! Everybody, get out of this building!" The receptionist cried out, slamming a button that sent the whole 60-story building's fire alarms going. The note on her desk read: "THIS BUILDING WILL EXPLODE IN ONE MINUTE"

There is no way those corpulent capitalists could get out of so high a skyscraper in so short a time, not without...certain outside help... Alex thought triumphantly as he walked out of the tall antique-looking gates, picking up his pace as more people ran out in panic and confusion. The note he passed had been a blatant lie--indeed, that was the first time he ever set foot in that building, but considering the events on the previous Tuesday, he was convinced that the city's people would take the threat seriously.

"Stop that man!" Someone shouted, pointing the gathering security personnel's attention towards him. Alex ran, seeing from his peripheral the tough-looking guards pull out their batons and speakers, the nearest of them catching up and suddenly lunged forward for a tackle.

Splosh!

Too late, Alex had plunged head-first into the sea, fully fifty meters down the fenced sea-side sidewalk, and transformed his body into a thick plume of black sludge. Underwater, he sank his "borrowed" suit with a couple of rocks as make-shift ballast weights, and transformed into several large fish, swimming away.

Back to his hideout, Alex, in fish form, leaped out of the water and into his lair through the cracked wall, and as he gathered the separate body masses back into human form, he saw that a real fish flopped on the ground--seems like blindly following the crowds haven't worked out well for this little animal. "Looks like I'll have sushi for lunch today." He said, smiling and plopping down on the couch while his computer tuned itself to receive the TV signal for live news.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

Knight Risk had designed the software that powered Jenna's watch. It was not only attached to the city's fire fighter dispatch center, but it scanned police scanner transmissions and active news reports for key words and phrases, then reported them directly to his internal systems and the computer in his former protege's secret base, which then transmitted the keywords and key locations to the high tech watch his protege's successor now wore. A small map could be pulled up, a blinking blip for where ever the incident was taking place in the city.

So when that first 911 call was completed and the dispatcher radioed a code 10-89 and the words 'bomb threat' were picked up-an alert was sent, per usual. It came right on the heels of the fire department's alert. But the day could have any number of happenings, happenings that, in so safe a city, Jenna was usually safe to ignore during the day time. Velocity couldn't be everywhere at once, not even for as quick as she was. The boys in blue would take care of things. Jenna Paige had things to do too-no mask, no hero, right?

She pressed in the button on the side mostly out of curiosity rather than worry-and felt her stomach drop. A bomb?! The map flashed and she recognized the area as downtown somewhere, the business district. The skyscrapers and buildings there were much more modern than the brown stone she had helped to empty during that fire-and full of God only knew how many people.

Who was planting bombs here?

The college student was half out of her seat before she had quite realized what she was doing, drawing a stern glance from her professor-but he continued the lecture, choosing to ignore what she was sure he thought an irresponsible, rude student. This was the SECOND time she had up and left!

But she had to get to this building and pronto-embarrassed but determined, Jenna scurried out of the room, shoving her books into her bag and hurrying down to the library-and its basement. It took her a minute and a half to get down there and out of sight-and once she had yanked on her boots and snapped the goggles in place. gave the map on her wrist a final look-she was out the basement window and gone.

/////////////////////////////////////

Two minutes and thirty seconds since Alex had walked out of the building, Velocity was finally on the scene. She had beaten first responders and went to work evacuating floors immediately. Confused, frightened, and irritated men and women were rapidly filling the sidewalk. Many of them thought this was a drill, while others were concerned for a fire-it wasn't until the receptionist's shrieking warnings had circulated somewhat that people began to move across the street and become nervous.

And they had supposedly only had a minute...?

///////////////////////////////////

"Supposed to have already gone off by now-" A police officer was saying as the bomb squad jumped out of their van, people still flooding out of the building-along with the back and forth zipping of Velocity adding more and more to the mix. She had cleared several floors of people, but with a building ten stories tall-well, there was a lot more to go, and she could only do one person at a time, and at a lower speed than she'd like-the human body could withstand like, what, 5 G's before passing out? The Speed Force offered a nice buffer but she didn't want to risk it. It was scary enough to take travelers in the first place.

"Tell her to find the fucking bomb!"

"We can't get a fix on her sir-"

They were sweating, tense. The bomb squad wasn't even a specialized team-just a group of cops who had gotten some training. The only reason they had that was because of another threat three years ago. This sort of thing just didn't happen very often, here-certainly not terrorist attacks.

The last man out was an aging gentleman in his sixties. He was pale and, when he and the girl materialized on the sidewalk near the police-shook her off and grumbled about a lawsuit. She didn't pay any mind-already zipping the last few feet up to the police chief.

"He was the last one, sir!" Her face was a little red and she sounded slightly winded, a first since he'd known her. Then again, God only knew how many times she had been up and down flights and flights of stairs.

"Velocity? Where's your costume?" She had her goggles and those silver boots-the straps of one not fully finished, he noted-but the shimmering blue costume, the mask, the gloves-all of that was missing. She was wearing a ruffled, tiered maroon colored skirt with stars printed on it and black leggings that clashed terribly with the silver boots and goggles. A button up yellow cardigan was loose over a white blouse with a faint lace print.

"I uh, I was in a hurry-" He might be imagining it, but her face was a little redder. "Nevermind-we have to find that bomb-it was supposed to go off several minutes ago-" He grabbed a thick, heavy vest from one of the men and held it out to her after she peeled out of her sweater. She pulled it over her head and tightened the straps.

"It could be volatile, and dangerous to move, so leave it be. Race out of there and tell us the location-we'll handle it. Hopefully before the thing explodes."

"Just like hot potato, right?" She joked nervously, but he ignored the comment. "We'll look too, but you can search much faster than we can. Every nook and cranny. Every room. Be fast."

"S'what I do." She gave a nervous salute-then blurred away.

///////////////////////////

The bomb squad searched two floors in the time it took her to do all ten several times over, but they weren't finding anything. Was it a hoax? Some sort of joke?

Jenna pulled open drawers and searched anxiously for anything that even LOOKED suspicious-but they were finding nothing. Nothing at all.

What kind of jerk made an entire building full of people panic like that? There could have been a stampede!

 

[Ephemeron9]

Even with the railway train rumbling over his head, Alex could still hear the echo of his breathless laughter as he watched the police and their scratch-team bomb squad scurried about, while shaken and irritated looking business people exchanged annoyed looks. There even seemed to be a light drizzle falling over the crowd, kept away from the building only out of a modicum of respect for the authority of the police tapes, as well as the lingering belief that the threat wasn't a hoax after all.

Suddenly, his laughter halted and was replaced by a quick "ack-" He had accidentally swallowed a fish spine in his amusement. "I guess that's karma, or something." he said, transforming into sludge and letting the spine fall through his body. Even in his human form, his body had enhanced abilities, not much, just basic strength, reflex and perception enhancements that couldn't hold candle to other superhumans specializing in those attributes. He was quite resilient to hunger though, in fact, if his body enters a disturbed state too far from being healthy, his power would automatically activate to suspend his ordinary biological functions. A helpful feature of his power, even if he cannot sustain that state for long. A meal every now and again were still more than welcome.

"I should have gotten lemonade or soy sauce for this." He reflected, throwing the mostly eaten skeleton of the fish back into the ocean. "Let's get down to business."

Launching a drawing program, Alex loaded a map of the city, and marked the two locations he and his one-time minion had attacked. "Let's see... she got to the bus in something about 30 seconds, while the building today took her a good 2 and and half minutes." Meddling with the settings on his computer, he created two circles that overlapped the map, and when he expand one circle, the other increases in size proportionally. "Let's see, suppose she moves at 300 meter per seconds..." Apparently Alex uses the metric system for his villainous calculations. "No, that's no where near enough." He looked over the map, the circles set to fit a speed of 300m/s were too small to overlap. "If I adjust the size of these to the right value, they should overlap at two points on the map, which means, she has to have left wherever she was and went to the scene from one of two possible locations." He said to himself, trying to bolster his own confidence in the method. "The thing is though, how do I figure out how fast she was going?"

"Argg-" Alex slapped himself in the forehead "I should have taken more data points! If I had three, I'd know for sure." He rolled on his back and thought over this and that, with a central theme of regretting not planning ahead. However, an inspiration struck him as he turned over once again and crawled to the keyboard...

"I knew it!" Triumphantly, he copied down the estimations he found on the internet of fans and analysts' predictions about Velocity's velocity, or speed, rather, if he were to be terminologically correct. "Take this average and...here we go." Plugging in an estimated average speed of 680m/s, or mach 2, he resized the circles and checked the places on the map where they overlapped, and as he reviewed the two locations, a wide grin, almost of embarrassment, spread across his face: one of the intersections were the city's most prominent university campus, and the other was exactly his own location.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

There was no bomb. The chief had had her sweep a final time-it wasn't like she wasn't looking just because she could look fast!-and acted almost like she was somehow responsible for all the angry calls he was getting from the irritated lawyers and corporate top dogs.

Well, what she was supposed to do, leave everyone in there?

He was just stressed...she wouldn't think much more on it. Poor Chief.

She was trailing after the group of cops as they exited the building to give the all clear-caught on camera in her street clothes.

The media zeroed in on her lack of costume almost immediately. Jenna regretted coming out without it-she had probably just lost several hard won tiers of respect right there, showing up looking like...well, a kid.

Well, in for a penny....

"I just forgot to pick up my drycleaning, folks-guess I better do that now if I want to be ready for tonight!" And with a cheerful wave she was gone-the bomb vest floating in mid air on camera before falling to the sidewalk, the cameras tracking down to it.

No one noticed, but her sweater disappeared from the hood of the police cruiser too.

//////////////////////////////////

Velocity was on patrol. A shimmering blue blur through the city's park and brightly lit districts, she zipped through alleyways and back streets, parking garages and the harbor district at neck breaking speeds. It felt to be out and running, flying down the streets with just herself for company-but she was troubled by the fake bomb threat, and her missed classes. She had a responsibility, but she couldn't let her grades suffer, either. Had to keep things balanced. It was a tight schedule, but it was a doable schedule-there was no reason she should miss hours in either her day or her night life.

The bus had been a special circumstance. Hopefully a rare one. This fake bomb threat...

She had evacuated most of the building, and still felt tired. She might turn in a little earlier tonight, if everything stayed quiet.

 

[Ephemeron9]

Alex didn't feel like moving, and that's okay, he thought considering the fact that someone else in the exact city is probably overfilling her quota, not that the people's exercise were shared in some sort of collective community or anything.

It occurred to him that he doesn't feel bad for much of anything--people with lost purses, people scared out their wits, people with the occasional black eyes. However, watching the rerun of the live news today made him feel a little guilty for his speedy little rival, seeing how she had to put on an apologetic smile for the stern-faced crowd she just ran kilometers to save, and to no fault of her own, no less.

"Yeah, and I get that feeling more guilty for starting a hoax than almost getting a bus-load of people killed is a little messed up on its own right, but what could I do? I'm just a weirdo talking to himself under a bridge, right, God?" Ever since losing all his money and nearly his life in a casino ran by a gang leader and his superhuman bouncers (which was incidentally the reason he settled in this city, as evasion from gang that still hunted him for rampaging the gambling hall after his loss), Alex talks to himself more as a form of entertainment. Helps with the super villain voice too, he figured.

Thursday morning, a rather handsome looking young man strode into the campus of the city's university. His friends found his demeanor and overall behaviors a little odd--altered dress style, forgetting to attend the video-game contest he had signed up for and ignoring the text messages of his clingy girlfriend, not to mention walking so upright and with such a confident smile that he had scarcely wore before today. These, however, were not a surprise to Alex, for he knows that the real body of the Chinese international student was currently sleeping soundly in Alex's secret hideout--out of his senses mostly due to his excessive drinking last night, but the sleeping pills helped too, Alex supposed.

Alex had rerun every detail he could remember about the inconveniently dressed heroine from the last time she made the news, her stature, her style, and what little he could see of her skin. Sure, fishing a whole campus-full of young women--many of which imitated the style of the city's beloved mascot vigilante--might be a tricky task, but he was confident enough.

"Now do I feel like an illiterate bum..." Alex whispered to himself, turning the heads of several Chinese students who seemed surprised by the choice of language his disguise had made, an odd one, for talking with oneself. He looked over the course list, and tried to parse the meanings of the four-letter abbreviations. "What could a little heroine like her be studying...aerodynamics?"

It wasn't long before he figured out that law would be the most logical choice for a crime-fighting agent of justice, and proceeded to the most relevant class buildings, determined to wait by the entrance all day until a familiar face passed by.

 

[Ambrosia_64]

There were a few contenders-dark haired women abounded. This one was too tall. That one had a bob but no bangs. A girl with a turtleneck and skirt seemed to be a good fit-right size, right delicate bone structure-but her skin was a fair, fawn color, not right at all. A pretty Latina passed by-but she had long, lovely hair that was braided down her back. If nothing else, it made for good people watching-pretty women and handsome men in all shapes and sizes passed through at designated times, smiling, laughing and talking with one another or on their phones, texting and reading websites.

Another crowd of students exited, a smaller influx entering-and then after a good ten minutes of nothing, a lone girl exited, jostling way too many books and giving a huff to blow her longish bangs out of her eyes-bangs that looked to be cut into a sideswept style...

She had a russet brownish red skin tone and the right hair cut-tousled, chin length shiny locks of dark hair that looked a little windswept. Almond shaped and dark, very dark eyes with epicanthic folds spoke to Asian heritage. Could they be the reason for those silver goggles, assuming this was the girl in question?

She had full lips and a pert, cute nose with a slightly flatter bridge-Filipino, but perhaps mixed race. She was a strong contender. And much like the two outfits seen on television she was wearing cute but conservative, feminine attire-a cream colored dress with pastel purple and blue water color flowers printed on it, cinching in on her slim waist and flaring off her hips, a cropped denim jacket on over that, an enamel fox pinned to the lapel. Her crochet, small shoes were a matching cream color.

She had toned calves and delicate ankles-but no tights, today. And there was a faint scent of...apple blossoms and vanilla...?

But, perhaps most telling of all-was that bounce in her step, the feeling of exuberant energy and life. As if everything, always, was coming up roses.

///////////////////////////////////////////

Jenna shifted the pile of books in her arms as she left class, her mind turning over the the upcoming exam. Shouldn't be a big deal, but she intended to spend the afternoon and some of her night reviewing material anyway. Luckily, she had finished the paper due next week this morning. She got up at five am every day and kept a tight, organized schedule-despite being late for everything-not daring to get lax about school just because of her night volunteer job-her scholarship was hinging on continuing her good grades. Hard work and discipline were required here!

She would need that high G.P.A. to graduate with honors and, hopefully-get into a good law school on scholarship. She studied for the LSAT just about every night before bed, just as she had for years. Nights she didn't end up crashing in the Subway Tunnel, anyway.

Speaking of, she really needed to put a mini fridge in there or something-she had woken up the other night dying of thirst, practically.