However Hex was pretty good at keeping her word when it was beneficial to her, so at least if she was going to hit something, it would, in theory, be the padding she knew Snap had put out for just that reason.
“Of course, Speedster, with your healing factor and durability,” Hex continued nonchalantly, her smirk growing slightly as she spoke, “I can throw you around a lot more than I can Luna. She’s a bit fragile compared to us.”
Speedster couldn’t help the wince that came with that. Hex was right. Luna’s powers were in her magic, magic that involved her life energy and soul. She had none received none of the physical benefits that Juliet had during the Fusion. She knew why. The people she and Luna had Fused with had been from completely different dimensions, been different species and had different enemies. The only link between the two had been the World Spheres. Hex was from a different world again. One with magic and mayhem but not the same sort of magic that Luna and Michael used. It was part of what made events so problematic. None of them, except Luna and Shade, had Fused with someone from the same dimension as another of the Club so none of them could really understand the problems that the others were going through.
They could try, they all did, but they couldn’t fully understand the problems because none of them had the same ones. They all had to adjust to bodies that had been shifted to fit the roles they now played and powers that sometimes acted up when they weren’t supposed to because emotions got in the way of common sense. Even the people who had Fused with humans had changed slightly, be it just hair and eye colour changes, growing or shrinking a few inches, gaining or losing muscle weight or worse, like in Hex’s case, suddenly seemed to gain a stone or so in weight.
If anything Speedster was just happy that when her body had shifted, she had only gained green eyes, blue hair and some sort of personal shield that prevented her clothes and shoes from catching fire from the heat of moving at the speeds she went at. That, along with her healing factor, increased durability and gaining the ability to process the world around her at much higher speeds, something that was necessary unless she planned on crashing into everything. She knew who her Fusion was and he wasn’t human so it could have been much worse. She could always dye her hair back to its original colour and she could have had giant quills of spiky death coming out of her back. Things that she did not consider necessary since there were no robots to fight in her world.
“It’s okay, Speeds.” Luna smiled softly at her before slipping her mask into place, “I’ll protect you.”
“Thanks.” Juliet replied, an honest smile on her face even as she knew she would have to fight her instincts to prevent her from stepping between Luna and any incoming attacks. It was just for the film, they weren’t really fighting Hex and she had read the script, both of them had to go down during this scene. Back when they had first read the script, Hex had promised to pull her punches so Juliet knew that neither of them would get properly hurt. That didn’t mean she liked it.
When Hex stepped out of the cover provided by the screen, Luna turned to Juliet with a small, rueful smile. “It took me almost an hour to get my Other Self to step back and promise not to react when I get blasted for this.” She admitted as Speedster struggled with the zip on her catsuit.
“I’m not surprised.” Speedster sighed as she felt Luna’s hands bat at hers and she tugged her ponytail out of the way so Luna could get to the zip, “She’s rather protective of you.”
“I know. It’s weird, considering she’s part of me, but I know.” Luna sounded like she was grimacing as Speedster felt something tugging upwards at the zip, before her friend let out a huff and pulled the zip down slightly, “Ah ha, got the fabric caught in the zip.” Speedster felt the zip go all the way up and turned to grin at her friend even as she pulled her own mask on.
“Is it me or does this feel a bit like cheating?” Juliet could not help but ask as she emerged from the screen to find that Michael had already been at work, summoning an illusion of the environment that Snap wanted for the scene or a close approximation, using his powers over the shadows. Where others in Snap’s class had to build props from scratch and make do with what scenery they could build or buy, Snap had her friends who could do things like this and were willing to work for nothing.
She had confirmed her project with her tutors before her friends had even started helping her, though the teachers had had no idea that her ‘overly ambitious’ project was actually viable, and as long as she put her friend’s names in the credits along with what they had done, there was no problem in them helping her out.
Speedster kind of wished she had been a fly on the wall when Snap had showed her teachers the trailer they had created in order to prove the project’s viability. The reactions apparently, had been hilarious. There had been accusations of plagerism flying around for a while until the most sceptical of her tutors had come and sat in on one of the recording sessions. That had actually been one of the more difficult sessions as they had had to hide their powers but it had prevented the tutors from accusing her of taking footage from another flim, even if they had had to reshoot it on a different day with powers in full swing in order to get the effects exactly the same as the rest of the footage.
“A little.” Luna agreed, looking around at the effects her brother had put into place. She recognised the scenery from a couple of the cards in his Duel Monsters deck. He had always preferred the creepier, darker zombie and fiend cards along with torture based spells and traps. All in all it made them rather fitting to be used as the basis for the summoned surroundings they were in.
It also made her wary of getting too close to the walls. She knew what each of things her brother had based the scenery on could do. She didn’t really want to see their effects up close and personal. Still she had to trust that he knew what he was doing. He had been providing the scenery for the villain’s lair up until this point after all. And he was her brother, she had faith in him. If he thought he could control the cards he had summoned enough for them to act just as scenery, she had to trust that.
Still she was a little nervous as she and Speedster stepped into the room, which had been transformed from a typical university studio to a dark, dank, dungeon. A chair had been transformed into a throne and the slam of the door to the corridor beyond seemed much more ominous than it really should.
“Ready?” Snap asked, picking up the video camera closest to her as Spike and Michael moved into position behind the other two set up across the room.
“I’m always ready.” Hex smirked at her as she moved across the room, her imposing presence seeming to fit perfectly in the room in comparison to the two heroes, which was kind of the point.
“Luna? Speeds?” Snap asked, looking the pair over.
“We’re ready to go whenever you are.” Speedster nodded, before glancing at Luna, “Right?”
“Yup.” Luna nodded, not really looking forward to this in the slightest.
“Then let’s get rolling.”
No comments:
Post a Comment