NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 8

“Considering the lack of robots running around before the World  Sphere went missing?” The Other Luna pointed out, “It’s a logical assumption.”

“Yeah.” Speedster allowed, “Yeah it is.” She looked thoughtful but not too worried, “It’s not as big an issue as you’re making out though. Just because Buttnik’s Fused, doesn’t mean that he’s going to attack people or go after us. It really all depends on which version of Buttnik we got and how much the person he’s Fused with allows the Personality Contamination to take hold of them. I mean your brother’s Fused with your Fusion’s most dangerous adversary and yet bar that brief stint when you first Fused, you two have done little more than get into arguments. There’s been no serious attempts to take over the World, only a few Shadow Games and most of them aimed at other people and no, thankfully, attempts to brainwash other...what?”

“That last one?” Luna, the original one, looked apologetic as she took over, “I caught him at it a couple of months back, now I can’t work out if he’s doing it when I’m not looking or whether he’s stopped.”

“Great, so your brother might be building an army, got it.” Juliet groaned, “Okay, so maybe my point’s not quite as valid but I still have one, we’ve only got to worry about Buttnik if his Fusion lets the Personality Contamination make him into a tyrant. And let’s be fair about this, even if he does, in the current climate how would he possibly afford to do more than make a few robots out of junk?”

“Sell the bots, make a profit, build more.” Luna pointed out, “Or get a grant or a loan from somewhere.” She paused looking a combination of mischievous and actually concerned, “Rob a bank maybe?”

“Heh,” Speedster couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped her at that idea, “Okay, at least if he robs a bank we’ll know what he looks like because his face’ll be plastered all over the news.” She paused, “So why did you panic when you couldn’t find me?”

“Because I know what Shade’s like with me and you’re this guy’s number one enemy.” Luna pointed out.

“Yes but he doesn’t know that.” Juliet reminded her, “And hopefully by the time he does, he’ll have gotten himself settled. Perhaps be willing to be a bit more sane about this. I mean as long as he’s not trying to take over the world, I’m quite happy to let him play with his robots. Who knows they might be useful.”

“And if he tries?” Luna asked, worried.

“Then I guess I’ll have to decide what I’m doing.” Speedster sighed, “I mean right now I only really keep myself between the Villain Fusions and their plans because it seems like a good idea to keep our heads down and I don’t want anyone getting hurt, them included.” She started pacing the living room, dropping her backpack as she did so, “If he tries, and I mean really tries, I guess I’ll have to do the same for him too. But it won’t be because I’m who I am, it’ll be because I can’t let him hurt anyone. Him being Fused is my fault, so I should be the one to deal with the fallout.”

“You won’t be alone.” Luna promised.

“Of course not, I have you guys.” Speedster grinned at Luna, even as she thought of ways to keep her friend out of the fighting. Living, breathing minions, Luna was an ace in the hole for. Robots who had no mind to play with and no way of feeling fear or being tricked by illusions... she couldn’t let Luna get involved and she WOULD ask Shade’s help if it came to it.

Even Michael’s evil self would find a way to protect Luna from the bots, if it meant that he could still fulfil any plans he had. She would just have to appeal to his pride and his greed. It wouldn’t be that hard.

“Anyway, this could all be moot.” Speedster pointed out, “Just because there’s robots around, doesn’t mean it’s Buttnik. It could be some random grunt from G.U.N. From their robotics department perhaps, or someone on the robotics and engineering course might have lost a project or two. I’ll worry about it when we have a bit more evidence of trouble. No point worrying till then.”

“I suppose.” Luna allowed, visibly trying to brush away her worries. “I was just worried. You don’t normally vanish off the face of the Earth. What were you doing anyway?”

“Treehouse.” Speedster grinned as Luna’s eyes lit up in realisation, “It’s nearly rebuilt. I’ll have to show you tomorrow or Wednesday.”

“Why not today?” Luna asked, a little confused and excited to see what her friend had been up to.

“Paint’s drying, the place smells to high heaven right now. Trust me, it’s not something you want getting up your nose.” Juliet’s grin made Luna even more curious than she was already, “Besides, you need to catch me up on what’s been going on around here besides the ‘bots. Have the others calmed down at all yet, or should I spend another week or two down there?”

“Considering we break up for the end of term in less than a week, if you vanish again I’m going to hunt you down and sit on you.” Luna grumbled at her. “You’re supposed to be coming to stay at ours over Christmas, remember?”

Juliet paused for a moment and then grew sheepish. She had forgotten about the fact she was supposed to be staying with her friends this Christmas. She hadn’t even really been thinking about the holiday despite the fact that it was less than a fortnight away now. Luna had offered her a place to stay months ago when it had become obvious that her uncle’s new wife had no intention of letting her spend any time hanging around the house for the holidays. She was still going to drop by, her super speed meant that she could be anywhere in the country on Christmas day and still make time to visit, but she had needed somewhere else to stay and Luna had decided that she wasn’t allowed to be on her own on Christmas Day so her house was not a viable option.

Speedster hadn’t really looked forward to being on her own for the holidays, but she honestly had been both surprised and amused by the sheer amount of effort Luna had put into ensuring not only that Juliet could stay with her family over Christmas but that she would have her own space and somewhere to hang out away from the family members that would descend upon the Roberts household over the three day period.

 Michael had seemed to welcome the idea too, which made her feel a little less like she was intruding. Shade had sulked, but then she knew him well enough by now to know that Shade was happiest when everyone around him was miserable. It probably had appealed to him for her to be stuck in her home, alone, during the festive season.

“And the others?” Speedster hesitated to ask, unable to help but wonder if they still wanted to punch her lights out.

“Mostly calmed down.” Luna shrugged, “Most of them have pretty much decided that it’s our problem and they don’t care as long as they don’t have to deal with it.” She smiled slightly, “Mako did say that she would help if trouble came and she could find a big enough stick and Gold is looking forward to a brawl, but then Gold always enjoys a brawl so I’m not sure if that’s an indication of ‘I can help’ or ‘yeay, an excuse to get in a fight.’”

Speedster just chuckled at that. Gold had fused with a rather excitable ‘young’ demon who had a bottomless pit for a stomach. Unless he was eating, and as far as she could tell he was always eating at the moment, he was looking for a good fight to get into. She had gotten into a sparring match with him before and had swiftly worked out that while he didn’t look particularly strong, it was better for her if she didn’t let him land a blow. He was fast and he was strong enough to injure her even with her increased durability.

Mako on the other had was powerful and looked it. She was built like a bodybuilder and was much, much faster than she looked. Mako couldn’t keep up with her, no one could, but the girl was the one who came closest to managing it. Mako wasn’t as good with hand to hand as she was though. The other Fusion had had fencing lessons and preferred to use a weapon rather than fight with fists and feet.

Not that she couldn’t if she wanted to, it was just that the only ones who could spar with her were members of the Club and even then she had to pull her punches with anyone but Gold. If she landed a punch at full strength on Juliet it took her a day or more to heal properly and she was the one club member who could bounce back the fastest from any injury.

“Oh, by the way, Bookworm’s back in town.” Luna grinned at her, changing the subject abruptly and looking rather happy about it.

Speedster blinked at her, confusion obvious for a moment before grinning back, “That’s great. So she’s all better, right?” She asked. She had been worried about Bookworm, who had had to go home after contracting swine flu a month or so ago. To hear that the smartest member of the Club was not only better but back on campus was a relief.

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 7

The first of the two treehouses, the one that the rope ladder had been attached to, had a sturdy catch but no lock on the door and Luna hesitantly let herself into the building to find that a table and chairs along with a small, unequipped food preparation area.

She explored for a while longer, discovering that the treehouse also had a second room with bookcases and a desk. The shelves were empty, but the renovations were quite obviously still ongoing, suggesting that perhaps they would be filled later.

A rather loud boom let Luna know that Speedster had returned and she poked her head out the door to find her friend looking around for her while holding a bag of something that looked kind of like food cartons.

“Speeds, up here.” She waved. Speedster grinned when she spotted her and clambered up carefully, making sure not to drop the floor. “So, want to explain?” Luna asked, gesturing around.

“Sure,” Juliet nodded, handing Luna a carton, which she opened to find a sweet and sour chow mein, and a pair of chopsticks. “These treehouses used to be mine as a kid. My uncle helped me build them when my parents were away. They were military you see, so they were never around.” Speedster explained, “So I lived with my uncle. He has a house not that far from here.”

“And you just decided to start renovating now?” Luna asked, still not entirely sure what the point of her being brought her was.

“Yes and no.” Speedster shrugged, “My uncle phoned me the other day to say that his misses was pregnant. You know the one.”

Luna grimaced slightly. She did. She had met Juliet’s uncle and his new wife at Christmas. She hadn’t much liked the new wife then and she knew Speedster got on with her about as well as cats and dogs. That was why she had stuck around the city when she had graduated. She’d had nowhere else to go.

“It got me nostalgic.” Speedster continued, pausing momentarily to attack her mushroom chicken and rice, “So I zoomed down here the morning after I had that big fight with Spike, you remember?”

“The one where he tried to set you on fire because you wouldn’t let him go and do the same to the guy who had t-boned his car?” Luna asked.

“That’s the one.” Juliet nodded, smiling slightly at the memory of Spike’s frustration. He had wanted to set her on fire, but he hadn’t been able to catch her to do so. “When I saw it was falling apart I decided to rebuild it. It’s taking me a while. I’m not too good with D.I.Y. It normally stands for ‘Destroy It Yourself’ in my house.”

Luna started giggling at that, causing Speedster to grin. The pair finished their food in companionable silence and as Luna got on with her coursework on her laptop, Speedster did a little work on the house across the rickety bridge.

“Shouldn’t you fix the bridge before you fix the house?” Luna questioned as one of the planks from it fell when Speedster shot across it with supplies to fix the roof of the second building.

“Maybe?” Speedster guessed, glancing at the bridge, “I probably shouldn’t speed across it like that either.”

“Going a little slower probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Luna agreed, able to envisage Speedster going to dart across, only for the whole thing to go tumbling to the ground.

They worked on their projects until Luna’s battery started running out on her laptop, then Juliet ran them home, making a comment about needing to get a power generator or something out there so she could use power tools and Luna could hang around more often.

“Does your Uncle know you’re rebuilding it?” Luna asked as Juliet dropped her on her doorstep.

“Yeah, he caught me at it a couple of weeks back.” Speedster nodded, wincing slightly as she remembered nearly careening into him at full pelt and going crashing into a tree instead.

That tree was at a wonky angle now.

“And he doesn’t mind?” Luna looked curious as she hesitated to re-enter her household when she just knew her brother would be inside, waiting to tease her.

“Nope,” Speedster shook her head, “Said that it didn’t matter what his wife said, I was always welcome on his land and in his home and I was welcome to do whatever I wanted with my treehouses.” She grinned slightly, “I did ask if that meant I could turn them into a fully functional house, plumbing and electrics included.”

“Oh?” Luna asked curiously.

“He said that if I ever managed that, he wanted to know how so he could sell the secret.” Juliet chucked. “Now you need to work, so I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.”

“Speeds...” Before Luna could say anything else, Speedster had shot off, embarrassed.

She didn’t even know what she had been thinking when she had decided that she was going to run her friend down to her childhood hideaway. She had just decided that she didn’t want to go home to the house, she wanted to work on the treehouse.

There had been a Chinese takeaway place in the next village over that she knew she could get Luna’s meal from and while she hadn’t been able to provide anywhere to charge Luna’s laptop, she had at least been able to provide some peace and quiet, bar the noise of her fixing the buildings.

She supposed it was because she trusted Luna to keep her secrets. Though her friend had told others about the missing Sphere, Luna didn’t tend to gossip about things that didn’t directly affect the Club. Going down there had helped her calm down too.

She felt better able to face up to the Club at tomorrow’s meeting after spending time working on her secret hideaway. She felt a lot more optimistic about her chances of convincing the Club not to freak out and to let her deal with the fallout when it came.

It was that optimism that nearly caused her to miss the swing Brawl took at her as she stepped through the door. It was only her speed that saved her from becoming a smear on the wall. “Brawl!” She glowered at the dark skinned, bald headed, muscle bound brick outhouse of a guy. “The hell!? We have a rule!”

“She’s right mate,” Chi agreed, glowering briefly at Speedster before ushering Brawl away, “We’re not supposed to fight at Club meetings. Wait until the meeting’s over.”

“You know,” Speedster opened up the meeting by speaking, “If you all are here just to punch my lights out, I’m leaving now. Just saying.”

Despite a vote being called on whether they should get to punch her lights out (a close result with the motion failing sixteen to fourteen), the meeting ran pretty smoothly. It was generally agreed that Speedster was a moron and that any fallout from it was purely Luna and Speedster’s problems since they had caused the problem in the first place.

After the meeting, however, Speedster had to escape rapidly as the ones who wanted to get into a fight with her over this tried to jump her on their way out. Instead of heading for her home, she instead sped for the treehouse.

She spent a few days there instead of hanging around the city, recognising that she wasn’t welcome in her usual haunts while the Club was still furious at her and wanting to get some real work done on the treehouses before any more snow fell. She kept up with her job, but other than that, she spend almost two full weeks down there, heading back into town on the fourteenth day to find Luna waiting for her at her door.

“Speeds, hey. You been at the treehouses?” Luna fussed at her, brushing off the dirt and tutting at the paint on her jacket.

“Yeah, you could have rang you know.” Speedster pointed out as she headed inside, letting Luna go first as she headed in. “My phone still works out there.”

“It’s been flat for days.” Luna pointed out, causing her friend to look sheepish as she checked the device in question only to find Luna was quite correct.

“Oh.” Juliet looked sheepish. “Anything happened?” She asked as she plugged the phone in, looking over at Luna who was shuffling back and forth, looking uneasy. “Luna?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Luna apologised, seeming to lean into something Speedster couldn’t see. “I just...There’s been signs of your World Sphere and we couldn’t get a hold of you and I feared...” When Luna trailed off, Juliet frowned.

“What?” She asked, “Luna, what’s happened in the last couple of weeks? What signs?” Speedster’s eyes widened as Luna’s eyes actually changed colour, shifting from a soft amethyst to a sharp ruby red. She had never seen Luna’s eyes do that before, even when she had the Other Her in control and it worried her, “Lune?” She asked, worried.

“During the last week or so, there have been robots running around the campus.” The Other Luna informed her. “Not particularly smart ones and they don’t have much of a bite to them, but they tend to follow anyone around who’s a little different. No one knows where they’re coming from or who made them, only that they look like they’re made out of junk and seem to have some sort of A.I.”

“Robots?” Juliet was confused. “How is that a sign of my World Sphere?”

“Speedster,” Luna’s tone took on that of one speaking to a particularly slow child, “How far away from junk robots with learning A.I. do you think we are?”

“I know that people have already made learning A.I.s.” Speedster shrugged, “So not very?”

“Okay, but what does your Fusion fight regularly?” Luna tried coming at it from a different angle.

“Other hedgehogs.” Speedster’s offhand comment made the Other Luna glower at her, “I get it, I do.” She put her hands up defensively. “You think Buttnik’s Fused to someone.”

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 6

“Spike,” Luna grumbled as she let go of the door handle and started knocking on the door, “Snap would have been carrying too much stuff to bother pulling a prank like this.”

“Sorry.” Juliet sighed, slumping down onto one of the tables, trying not to feel like the walls were closing in. She hated being inside for any length of time as it was, yet alone being trapped indoors. Then she spotted the partly open window just above head height, “I didn’t think they’d take it out on you too.”

“Mikey, open the door!” Luna bellowed, shaking the door on its hinges before turning to the dejected looking girl, “I’m the one who dragged you shopping, and I’d rather they were aiming our way than picking on the others again.” Speedster just nodded as she moved round the room and pulled a table under the window. Luna wandered over, curiosity obvious on her features as Speedster climbed up onto it and poked her head out the open window. “Speeds?”

“I could get down from here.” Juliet replied, “Its only one floor up.”

“You might, I’m not so sure I would without breaking something.” Luna sounded thoughtful as she joined her friend in looking out the window, “At least if I jump, there’s a ledge, look.” She indicated the ledge in question, “If I edge around that and climb in that window,” She pointed, “I’m pretty sure that leads onto the main corridor.”

“And if you fall, I’ll catch you.” Juliet agreed, liking this plan better than just sitting around or shouting their heads off until someone came and unlocked the door. At least this way they weren’t waiting on someone who might not come to the rescue till morning. “Toss our bags down?”

“My laptop...” Luna hesitated.

“It’s either that or try and carry it around the ledge.” She reminded the other girl who honestly looked like she was considering it. “Fine, okay, toss my bag down. It’s not got anything breakable in it.”

When Luna nodded, Speedster carefully climbed out of the window and jumped from the ledge to the ground, rolling as she hit the floor and coming out of it standing up. Her bag came next, ruining her triumphant grin by smacking her in the head and causing her to back up a little as Luna clambered out of the window, backpack on her back.

“You alright up there?” Speedster couldn’t help but ask as Luna considered the route for a moment or two.

“Yeah,” Luna nodded, thinking about something for a little longer before turning around, letting herself down using the ledge and dropping the last couple of feet to the ground safely. “Just that seemed easier.” She grinned at her friend.

“Just be glad security didn’t see us pull that stunt.” Speedster chuckled back, “Or they would have pitched a fit.”

“So where’re we now?” Luna asked, looking around at the disposal bins and piles of cardboard and rubbish.

“Behind the Student Union building I think.” Speedster considered, starting to climb the wire fence. “There’s a road on the other side of the fence.”

“Sounds good to me.” Luna nodded, wincing in sympathy as Juliet reached the top, which had barbed wire wrapped around certain parts, and got her hand spiked for her troubles.

Luna didn’t fare much better as she joined her friend on the other side of the fence and by the time she had reached the ground she had torn her tights and cut her hand open. “You do realise Shade is probably going to find this hilarious.” She warned Speedster who just let out a frustraited huff.

“If this wasn’t his idea I’d be surprised.” She admitted, “Trap the two claustrophobic Club members in a room and leave them? Seems right up his alley.”

“Actually it seems kind of tame for him.” Luna huffed, “I mean I love my brother, but he can be incredibly vindictive when he wants to be. He’s not shy about it either.”

“So...since we don’t appear to be flavour of the week at the moment,” Speedster sighed, “How about you come over mine. I have that film you wanted to watch. The Avengers?”

“Sweet!” Luna grinned at her, before pausing, confusion spreading across her features, “Wait, why do you buy DVDs? I thought you couldn’t watch them anymore.”

“I can’t, not without the flickering between frames driving me nuts or giving me a headache.” Speedster shrugged, “But I can still listen to them and I get a good idea of what’s going on from the sounds. Besides, if I have the newest DVDs I have an excuse to invite people round.” She poked her tongue out at Luna who chuckled back.

“Fine, fine.” Luna giggled, “And I can work on my essay at the same time.” She tilted her head at Speedster. “Should we pick up snacks? Or...”

“No, I’ll cook. I’ve got stuff in for lasagne, sweet and sour, tikka or chilli dogs.” Luna grimaced at the last, causing Speedster to grin, “Okay, okay, not chilli dogs.”

“Chilli is fine, chilli dogs yuk.” Luna grouched, “Sweet and sour sounds good, what with?”

“Pasta, rice, stir fry?” Speedster offered, thinking about what she had in the house as they walked, “Would have to pick up some stir fry veg, but I have the noodles and the pork in.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Luna nodded, “We’ll stop by the corner shop on the way to yours and...” By the time she got to ‘and’ Speedster had vanished in a blur of blues and greens. “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen,” She started counting down, continuing to walk towards Juliet’s house, partially amused at her friend and her inability to wait for anything, “Six, five, four, three, two...”

Before she could hit one, Speedster had returned carrying a grocery bag, inside of which was a pack of stir fry veg. “Sorry, would have been faster, but the self scan till was so slow.”

“Everything is slow compared to you, Speeds.” Luna waved it off, wondering once again how her friend put up with moving at her pace, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Got bigger things to worry about than a slow till.” Speedster nodded, causing Luna to wince slightly as Juliet’s constantly flickering moods headed back towards frustration and worry. “I’d be happier if I just knew where the damn thing had ended up.”

“Look, I know it’s a problem, I’m not saying it isn’t, but constantly worrying about it isn’t going to help. You can’t do anything about the missing World Sphere until we get a lead and that’s not going to happen until someone does something really stupid.” Luna informed her friend, “So there’s nothing you can do for now.”

“But...”

“I know it’s an unusual concept.” Luna teased, “You waiting for anything, but you don’t have a choice this time I’m afraid.”

“Waiting is a bad plan.” Speedster grouched, “I’d rather do something about it now, before we run the risk of being revealed to the whole world.”

“Speeds, I have a question.” Luna sighed, “When you shoot off and do things like buy your shopping at the sort of speed you do, or do your rounds at top speed, do you really think that no one pays attention?”

“No one’s ever said something.” Speedster frowned, confused about what she was getting at.

“No one would, unless they get really curious.” Luna sighed, “But every time you do something like that, or one of the others uses their powers around normal people we run the risk of discovery.”

“So what? We’re just getting away with it?” Speedster asked, confused. “I mean surely if we’ve been noticed there would have been consequences by now. I mean it’s been almost a year.”

“People ignore the weird if it makes their life easier.” Luna chuckled at her, “As long as we’re not doing anything to impact on their lives negatively they really won’t care what we get up to. Hell the people whose houses are on your route are probably just happy to get their mail before midday.”

“People are weird.” Speedster looked confused at that. She had honestly expected a bigger reaction from the normal people of the city. Knowing that the Club had been ‘outed’ for probably as long as they had had powers and yet not a single member of the public had said anything to them disturbed her slightly. She had expected shouting, riots, lynch mobs. Not ‘oh well, as long as it stays away from us who cares?’

“That hasn’t changed since long before we Fused.” Luna grinned at her, “People have been weird for a lot longer than that. We’re just so weird we actually notice now.”

“Heh. I suppose.” Speedster chuckled slightly, before a wicked smirk crossed her features, “Fine, you know what?” She scooped Luna up bridal style, “Hang on. I want to show you something.”

With that she shot off, careful to keep her speed down enough to not be too fast for Luna to cope, but fast enough that she was one with the wind, dodging around cars, vans and pedestrians as she shot across the country.

“Speeds?” Luna asked, confusion obvious as Juliet slowed down, breaking slowly instead of her usual complete stop and slide, going gently for Luna’s sake.

“Wait right here.” Speeds grinned at her before shooting off.

Luna looked around, confusion coursing through her as she realised that Speedster had brought her to a small clearing in a forest in the middle of nowhere. In the trees above her there was a small wooden building which was joined to another one by a walkway that looked like it was almost rotten through.

A rope ladder, relatively fresh in comparison to the rest of the building work, hung down from the builidng’s balcony. Unable to resist the pull of her curiosity, Luna clambered up the rope ladder to find that the tree houses looked like someone had been working on them recently.

“So this is what she’s been up to when we haven’t been able to find her.” Luna realised as she brushed her hand against the recently replaced railing. 

Author Note: Ennead: Season Zero up

Here

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 5

Juliet spent rest of the day was spent ordering a new driver’s license and cancelling store cards, leaving Luna to head home alone. By the time she was done she was tried, pissed off and ready to kick someone’s butt. She resolved the issue by going for a long run that took her around the coast of the country, before having a nice hot bath, turning off her phone, turning off the majority of the lights and settling down with a good book.

She paid for it the next day when her phone turned back on when her alarm went off to reveal she had sixty missed calls and forty nine messages on her answer machine. Most of them were from the Club, demanding details and wondering if the rumours were true about her World Sphere going walk abouts. There was one, however, from the police station, who had found her purse, devoid of bank cards, her driver’s licence and cash but with her store cards still in place, and an empty jewellery box and were holding them at front desk for her.

She did her rounds in record time, determined to not let the events of the previous day allow her to have a lazy day. She may have been the fastest thing alive, but she wanted to be faster. Since she had no one to race against anymore, she could only ever improve by pushing herself when she went for a run or doing her rounds.

Picking up her stuff was a chore. Without any way to prove the purse was hers, the police officer at the desk had her go away and come back with her passport in order to prove she was who she said she was. It wasn’t that it took her a long time, but just the inconvenience of running around in circles meant that when she joined Luna and Michael at lunch time, she was in the frustrated huff.

“No luck?” Her friend asked as Speedster fielded yet another call from a Club member and promised to fill them in at the weekly meeting tomorrow.

“Yes and no. I’m still out a hundred and fifty quid, my driver’s licence, my bank cards and a World Sphere, but I have my purse back.” Juilet waved the purse, a Nightmare Before Christmas one that Luna had bought for her the previous year, at her. She let out a frustrated huff. “I’m just annoyed it happened at all.”

“As you should be.” Michael scolded, irritation obvious on his features. “It was ridiculously careless of you to leave your handbag lying around where anyone could get at it, especially if you had your Sphere in it.”

“I didn’t.” Speedster protested, then paused and winced, “Or I thought I didn’t. It had to be at the coffee shop, because even when we were trying on clothes our bags were with us in the changing rooms.”

“The brats perhaps.” Luna suggested, thinking about it carefully, “I mean we did have to shoo them out from under the table two or three times, they might have grabbed things then.”

“Or someone took my things while I was distracted by shooing the brats.” The speed freak agreed.

“You shouldn’t have had the Sphere with you.” Michael grouched at her, “Do you have any idea of what...”

“Don’t Mike, just don’t.” Juliet groaned, “I know alright. I know I screwed up and that the others are going to tear me a new one. I also know that this could bring an end to the secrecy we’ve been insisting on for our safety. But there’s nothing I can do about that now. All I can do is deal with the fallout when it happens.”

“Your mess, you’re cleaning it up.” Michael grouched before getting up, chucking his rubbish in the trash and stalking out of the student union’s dining hall.

The pair of girls watched him go, one frustrated, one resigned, before Luna turned to Speedster with a slight smile, “If you need my help...” She offered reassuringly.

“Thanks Luna.” It was a help, knowing that Luna had her back. Juliet was pretty sure that even the other ‘HeroFused,’ ones like herself and Luna who had merged with heroes from other worlds, were going to be furious with her over this. It would be justified too, she couldn’t help but think.

As she searched the city centre high and low, she was kind of hoping that by tomorrow she would be able to say ‘Yes, the World Sphere was stolen but I was able to get it back, see?’ and show it off to the rest of the class. Unfortunately for her, she had no luck on that front. The enchanted Sphere was well and truly lost, despite her constant searching.

She got a real hint of the anger she might be facing from the others when she rejoined the group in order to finish recording the scene from the day before, when Hex blasted her into a wall hard enough that she felt something give in the wall, heard something crack and collapsed at its base, pain coursing through her.

“Cut!” Snap sounded both concerned and impressed at the same time after Hex gave her scripted spiel about the heroes never defeating her and made her dramatic exit, “I’ve got everything I need now.”

“Oh I’m sorry.” Hex smirked down at Speedster, who wasn’t entirely certain which Hex was apologising to her. “Did I miss the padding?” She asked, hints of sarcasm obvious as the illusion fell and revealed that not only had Hex missed the padding, she had dented the wall that she had blasted the hero into. “Maybe next time I’ll be a little more careful of what I’m doing when it’s something important.”

Juliet didn’t respond, not entirely trusting herself to speak when the world was spinning like mad, making her feel nauseous. She got the less than subtle jab though and, as Luna helped her to her feet, she couldn’t help but notice the evil looks she was getting from Spike.

“Sorry.” Luna whispered as she helped her behind the screens so they could get changed, “I swear I only told Mikey. I didn’t expect everyone else to find out this fast.”

“It’s...it’s okay.” Speedster stumbled over her words, leaning against a table to remain upright as Luna undid the zip on her catsuit. “They would have had to found out at some point, I wasn’t going to be able to hide it forever.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting Hex to hit you so hard because of it.” Luna looked embarrassed, like what had happened was all her fault.

“Hex just wanted an excuse to smack me around.” Speedster reminded her friend with a shrug, “Besides, I think she gets one free hit considering how much trouble we might be in.”

“You can’t let everyone in the club get one hit in.” Luna disagreed, “You could get really hurt if they all hit you as hard as Hex did.”

“I screwed up.” Speedster pointed out, “I really really screwed up. And now the rest of the Club might have to deal with the consequences, I’d be pretty damn pissed in their places too.”

“So what’s your plan?” Luna asked, wincing as Juliet slid her catsuit off of one shoulder and she saw the bruise that was already coming up, “Just let everyone hit you and then deal with the fallout once you’ve recovered from the brusing?”

“I don’t bruise anymore, my durability sees to... ow!” Juilet protested as Luna poked the blue and black spot on her left shoulder blade.

“This says otherwise.” Luna tutted at her. “Still think it’s a god idea?”

“No, but unless you have a magical time machine that can take us back to the exact moment the theft occurred and we can stop it from happening, I really don’t have a choice but to take the blows.” The speed freak grinned, “Besides it’s kind of ironic, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?” The comment confused Luna.

“Well I’m the one who was the biggest advocate of keeping our powers a secret and not letting anyone find out about how we got our powers and yet I’m the one who lost my orb.” Juliet pointed out.

“It could be worse.” Luna sighed, starting to pull her own costume off, “At least, if the Sphere can still Fuse people, they won’t know there’s a club of us out here who’re like them, so if they cause trouble they won’t drag us into it.”

“No, but if they get into trouble because of something they haven’t done, they won’t have us around to bail them out either.” Juliet reminded her, a grimace on her features, “And I know all of this, I just... I’m just worried. I’m allowed to be.”

“Well you are the boss.” Luna teased.

“Oh don’t you start too. It’s bad enough Snap thinks that I have some sort of right to tell the others what to do. I’d like to point out that while I might be Fused to a main protagonist, the one I’m Fused to isn’t the one who’s good at planning ahead and thinking things through. No, my Fusion is better at thinking on his feet and letting the wind take him. I’m the wrong sort of person to ask if you want long term planning and ways to herd the pack of cats that belong to this club.”

“I don’t think you are as bad as you say you are.” Luna sighed at her, “I just think you need to stop thinking about what your Fusion provides you with and concentrate on those skills you had before the Spheres. You’re letting it...” Luna trailed off as the lights in the room went off and they heard the door to the outside lock.

“Stay here.” Speedster frowned, edging out from behind the screen and carefully making her way over to the door. It was, much to her disgust, locked, but at least once she was there she could find the light switches. “So, Spike or Snap?” She asked Luna, who came over and tugged on the door handle, frustration obvious.

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secrets: Part 4

They had not really finished the scene to Snap’s satisfaction when the time on the room booking ran out and someone knocked on the door. As Speedster went crashing into one of the mats that had been hidden by the scenery, the props that had been summoned vanished from the room. Luna let out a relieved sigh as the trap that had been holding her vanished into the ether. She rubbed her sour wrists, having struggled against the trap, trying to pull herself free, and then moved over to Speedster’s side.

“Heya,” Luna chuckled as she offered the downed speed freak a hand to her feet, “So that was productive.”

“Productive but painful.” Speedster grouched, wincing as Luna pulled her to her feet. “And I’m sure Hex enjoyed that far too much.” She grouched as she glowered over to where Hex, Spike and Michael were talking rapidly and with great big grins on their faces.

“I think I have almost everything I need.” Snap spoke up as the door opened from the outside and another student poked their head in to check if they could use the room yet. “I just need to film the end of that scene and edit it together with the footage I’ve got, how’s tomorrow evening for everyone? About eightish?”

Everyone got changed as quickly as possible, confirming that eight o’clock the following evening was fine with them and the group split up. Luna and Speedster both headed for town, the two girls wanting to get some shopping in before Speedster dragged Luna to her martial arts class. The latter of the two girls wasn’t keen on fighting, but her Other Self had been interested in learning how to defend herself after a pair of goons had tried to jump her and she had had to resort to Challenging the pair to escape unharmed.

Speedster didn’t mind. It would be nice to have one of her friends from the Club go with her. She had started learning a long time before she had gained her powers and she could no longer go full speed against others from her martial arts classes, but the sensei was teaching her new things all the time and it was an interesting experiment to learn all of his teachings at a ‘normal’ pace and then experiment with them at her full speed. It meant she was getting physically stronger and the momentum she could put behind her blows when she was speeding, meant that there was a lot more force behind them than just her muscles.

Not that she could test it against Luna of all people for two reasons. ‘A,’ because Luna was a white belt, untrained except in the very basics and ‘B,’ because without using her powers to set up magic and traps against her, it wouldn’t have been a fair fight.  But still, just having another Club member to hang around with during the breaks and walk to and from the training sessions with.

“So, who have you got left to buy for?” Speedster asked as she followed Luna down the stairs and out the exit, trying to ignore the fact that going at a normal, human, pace was driving her a bit nuts. Everything seemed so painfully slow in comparison to her usual pace. Still Luna wasn’t anywhere near as fast as her, in fact she was rather out of condition even in comparison to some of the other martial arts students, so she was keeping to her friend’s pace.

“Mikey, Snap, Mako and you.” Luna explained, ticking it off on her fingers as she did so, “Mikey’s really easy, there’s a new structure deck out that’s just down his alley. Snap wanted a new camera case and I know where to get a really nice one. Mako’s already shown me something she’s thinking about getting after Christmas that’s well within my budget. It’s just you.” She glanced at her friend, who looked thoughtful, “You still haven’t given any indication of what you want.”

“I...don’t know.” Speedster admitted, wishing she was as up to date with her Christmas shopping as her friend was. “I don’t think I’ve really paid enough attention to... what?” She asked as Luna started giggling at her.

“You’re hopeless.” Luna continued to giggle at her, “You haven’t really given any thought to this at all have you?”

“I thought about everyone else’s presents.” Speedster protested, “I just...” She sighed, “I don’t really stop long enough to watch films unless I’m tired enough to collapse. I can’t play video games any more, the screen flickering drives me nuts. I only read books last thing at night and music’s about the only thing bar clothes I really buy now.”

“Screen flickering?” Luna questioned.

“Yeah, you know, between frames? While it’s rendering?” Speedster complained, “It’s really annoying.”

“I’ve never seen the...” Luna trailed off and looked thoughtful, “So books or music. Got a favourite type?”

“Rock or heavy metal.” Speedster grinned at her, “I pay both on my guitar and all the other music I used to listen too is so slowly paced it drives me a little crazy. And I favour fantasy or action books.”

“Right.” Luna made a mental note, “Of course you’re going to have to shoo while I buy yours but...” Speedster just shrugged, “You can buy mine at the same time. Have you brought the Club joint gift yet?”

“No.” Juliet shook her head, looking sheepish. “I keep meaning to but things keep coming up. It’s not like I really know what to get them anymore. Last year...well you remember last year.” Luna nodded, a small frown creasing her features. Last year she had let someone else by the joint present since her final major project meant she hadn’t had the time to go and explore the shops and find something suitable. The person she had sent in her stead had been the one who had found the two sets of World Spheres and distributed them to the club.

A little bit of laziness on her part had changed everyone’s lives. She didn’t want to make a similar mistake this year too.

“You do realise the odds of anything like that happening again are slim to none, right?” Luna asked, amused despite herself.

“You do realise that with the trouble magnets we have Fused into our group, the odds of something insane happening multiply by so much that something happening is practically a guarantee at this point?” Speedster shot back, “With our luck the person I sent would find the Items or the Emeralds.”

Luna had to admit that Juliet had a point. The problem with the heroes that some of the group had fused with was that if anything weird could happen, there were good odds of it happening to them. Since there was a large concentration of them in the Club it would have been a sucker bet that something would go wrong.

“I was thinking about just getting gift vouchers or something.” Speedster admitted, “For Amazon or the like that way people can get what they want. Either that or something pretty and shiny for people’s Christmas trees.”

“All the Christmas stuff on the shelves around here are pretty tacky.” Luna warned with a grimace, “I’ve had a look myself ‘cause I need to replace some of my baubles. You’d be better off going somewhere with a year round Christmas shop. I know Bath has a good one.”

“And it wouldn’t take me long to get down there.” Juliet considered, “That could work. So it’s just my personal presents to get today. So you, Snap, Mako, Mum, Dad and Cordi.”

“Cordi?” Luna couldn’t help her surprise, “You’re talking to Cordelia again?”

“She may be an immature brat and a pain in my rear, but she is my little sister.” Juliet shrugged, “So yeah, I have to talk to her at Christmas, we’ll both be back at our parents’ house after all.”

Luna nodded in understanding even as she thought about what she needed to get and what planned out the best route to get around town. Considering the city centre was packed with holiday shoppers, they had to shop smart if they expected to get anywhere. As it was, even with Luna’s planning it took them hours to get everything they needed and as they settled in a cafe to have a hot drink and get out of the snow, Speedster was seriously considering just getting the hell out of town. Perhaps running down to Bath to pick up the Club gifts but nothing else.

Luna, however, had other ideas. “We need to go to one last place.” She informed a groaning Speedster was wanted nothing more than for the shopping trip to be over. “And I know neither of us are going to enjoy it, but I don’t think either of us have anything to wear to the Club Christmas party.”

That was an unfortunate truth. The last time Speedster had worn her ‘nice’ dress, it had been to the last Christmas party and she had lost weight over the course of the year. All the clothes that had fitted her this time last year were now two sizes too big.

“Do we have to do this today?” Speedster groaned. The queues were too slow, the shops too packed and town in general too crowded.

“Party’s Sunday.” Luna reminded her, “I have class till seven tomorrow and Snap has us booked in the rest of the week for recording.”  

“Damn it.” Was a tamer version of what Speedster wanted to say, but considering the small children sat at the next table over, she had to tone it down to avoid getting the evil eye from the kids’ mothers. Both of whom were ignoring the antics of their little ‘angels’ and talking about some soap or another that was popular on TV recently.

It took them a while to find the right dresses, ones that looked good but didn’t restrict movement too much or were too short or the like, and it wasn’t until Speedster went into her handbag to get her purse out that she realised that there were things missing. Her purse for one was gone, forcing her to put the dress back on the shelf for the time being as she and Luna backtracked through the changing rooms, around the shop and back to the coffee shop, along with the envelope with the money for the Club Christmas presents in and worse, the jewellery box containing her World Sphere was missing too.

It was the last that had Speedster in the biggest tizzy. Though she knew logically that it had probably been taken from her bag because it looked like it should be jewellery and hence worth a decent chunk of money, she couldn’t help but panic over what could happen. No one had dared hand a World Sphere to anyone outside the Club so no one knew if their power to Fuse people with others from another world still existed.

If her World Sphere still had that power, it was possible that it could Fuse the thief, or whoever else handled it. And then there would be a Fusion out there with no support network, no idea that there was anyone else out there to help them and no way for them to get in contact with the Club if they needed help.

That there would be no way to keep tabs on them either was just the icing on the cake.

It didn’t matter how carefully the pair of them searched, there was no sign of any of the missing items and Speedster had no choice but to go to the bank to block her debit card before going to the police to report the theft.

It grated on her nerves. If she had known who had taken her stuff and when she could have gone and gotten her stuff back herself and she wouldn’t be worrying about the World Sphere’s whereabouts or how she was going to afford the Club presents this year. With her abilities it would have been easy. Instead she was left kicking at the ground and praying that nothing bad happened because of a few moments where she hadn’t been paying attention.

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 3

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.” 

NaNo 2013: Speedster's Secrets: Part 2

“Oh...” Juliet paused, realising she had been had. She did not get to say anything else about it though as they were joined by another member of the Club. The huge, broad shouldered Nate, stepped through the door and glanced around, a scowl settling on his face for a moment when he saw that it was only Juliet and Nicola around.

“Hi Spike.” Nicola waved, earning herself a smile from the young man. She was fully aware his problem was not with her, but with Speedster, who had kicked his butt a few times over the last year despite his ability to breathe fire and the hard, almost iron strong shell that had formed along his back.

“Hi Snap,” His return wave was friendly, though the glower he gave Juliet as he turned to her was much less so, “Speedster.” He nodded unhappily.

“Spike.” Juiliet nodded back, unsurprised. She knew she was less than popular amongst those in their group who had Fused with villains from the worlds linked to their Spheres. It was the price she paid for being one of the voices of reason that had spoken against revealing their powers to the world officially and stepping in to prevent anyone who tried to use their powers against someone who wasn’t super powered. As she packed her World Sphere away, Nate moved over to the equipment to double check it before they started filming. Since it was Nicola’s project but Nate’s equipment, she chose not to object when he fiddled with one or two things, though she did start arguing with him over the placement of one of the cameras when he started moving the one in the back corner to get at the screen.

Speedster wisely backed away from the conversation that was slowly turning into a row and moved over to the costume box, picking out the items from the pile that belonged to her costume. Since this was a super hero project, Snap, who had been good at sewing even before she had Fused with a costume designer from another dimension who created new costumes for her friend on an almost daily basis, had created a costume for each of the heroes and the villains.

Juliet’s costume was mostly blues and whites, with hints of silver as highlighting. Unlike some of the others there was no cape and not only because it would slow her down.  While some of the others who were taking part in the project thought capes looked awesome, she had decided they were a hazard years ago. They could get caught in too much and they could be grabbed by the bad guy and either ripped off or used as a choking hazard.

While she did not have to wear the superhero get up when she was not acting as a superhero onscreen, she did kind of like the way it had been tailored to her exact measurements and her colour preferences. The costume had no stupid little skirt like some anime heroine costumes did and instead consisted of a pair of an almost skin tight, short sleeved lycra catsuit that was just loose enough she could hide a sports bra underneath it and a pair of deep treaded tough boots with the same sort of support as her running trainers, making them one of her favourite pairs of shoes. If they hadn’t been for the costume only she would have asked Snap if she could wear them everywhere.

She had no hood or full face mask, instead her catsuit came with a domino mask that was in blue with silver markings that made her eyes stand out. As masks went it wasn’t particularly effective at hiding her true identity but it was only meant to be symbolic for the movie anyway. She wasn’t too worried about someone working out who she was and what her powers were from student project that would never be seen past Snap, the Club and her tutors anyway.

As Snap and Spike continued to argue about camera placement and equipment, Juliet was joined by one of the twins. Mira looked tired as she slumped down at Juliet’s side and her flinch as her brother walked through the door was enough to let Speedster know that there had been another ‘debate.’ The twins had Fused with two people from the same universe, but unfortunately for them Mira had Fused with the hero while her brother had Fused with one of the villains and both had developed the split personality disorders that went with those people along with the powers.

“You okay, Luna?” Speedster worried at her friend. She felt particularly protective of Luna, since she had been the girl’s first friend at the university and had seen people try and take advantage of the girl who was surprisingly innocent considering her age and life experience.

“Yes, no. I don’t know.” Mira admitted as she glanced over at her brother. “We finally came to an agreement with him.”

The emphasis she put on ‘him’ told Juliet exactly who she was talking about. Unlike Luna, her brother didn’t consider his ‘other self’ part of him. Instead he tried to ignore his psychotic personality and contain the mayhem it caused. The way Luna did it, she could work with her other personality, even hold conversations and figure things out together, much the way the hero she had Fused with did. The way Michael did it meant that when the psychotic personality escaped the saner one’s chains, something bad normally happened.

And somehow Luna had managed to come to an agreement with it.

“How?” Speedster asked, shocked. She had only narrowly escaped having to deal with the lunatic and that had only been because Luna had thrown herself in the way first.

“Well when I first realised it was Shade I was dealing with, not Michael, I stepped back to let my other self deal with it since she’s better with our magic than I am.” Luna explained, reminding Juliet that Michael refused to use his Club name where the psycho variant of him used it rather than his real name. “But he didn’t want to fight.”

“Is he sick?”

“I did wonder that. I mean Mikey gets the worst colds around this time of year and if he doesn’t catch the flu at some point it’ll be a miracle.” Luna shrugged, “But no. It turns out he’s figured that we’re not a threat to his taking over the world and as his sister I should be working with him, not against him.”

“But you are, and you shouldn’t.” Speedster frowned, confused.

“Oh I know we are...I am.” Mira grimaced slightly as she realised she was talking about herself as two people again. Technically with her split personalities she was right, but that didn’t mean she liked admitting it out loud even around Juliet who knew the truth. “No one else in the Club can use the magic we can, it was part of our Fusion even though we should need the focuses in order to wield them.”

“So did you tell him you weren’t helping him take over the world?” Juliet asked, still confused by this turn of events.

“I did.” Luna nodded, amused by something, “He said that I’ll change my mind and that it’s apparently far too much effort to try and take my powers when I’m so genre savvy, so he’ll try a different route.”

“And that should worry me more than it does.” Speedster scowled, glancing over at Michael who had gone straight over to Spike and pulled him away from the row, the pair now discussing something that she wasn’t sure if she should be worried about or not.

“Oh and apparently he’s not too worried about you either, since he’s the only Villain Fusion in the entire club who doesn’t have to worry about catching you first.” Mira warned her. Juliet scowled as she realised that was true. The type of magic that Mira and Michael could wield meant that once the magic was in motion it wouldn’t matter how fast she was, she would have to stop and play their game because there would be no other escape.

“If you didn’t get into a fight with him, why are you so tired?” Speedster couldn’t help but ask.

“All nighter on coursework.” Mira chuckled, “I haven’t actually slept since yesterday.”

“Are you going to be alright to...you know?” She gestured to the crate of costumes and then around at the cameras and the props set up.

“I should be.” Mira shrugged as she pulled her own costume out of the box. Unlike Speedster’s costume, Luna’s had the itty bitty skirt, but an imperial purple one over tiny black lycra shorts, along with a tight imperial purple tank top, all of which had gold markings made from golden thread. Luna had a cape, one that was black on the outside and purple on the inside, and her black boots were knee high and had slight heels. Her domino mask was black with gold markings around the edge. It made her look more like a villain than a hero, but considering Luna’s insane hair colours, it suited her. “I have access to coffee and sugar. I’ll be set until I crash tonight and hey, I don’t have to worry about Shade stabbing me in the back anymore.”

“Which is always a good thing.” Speedster agreed, standing up and heading for the screens set up at the back of the room. There were two groups of screens there, both with pieces of paper attached to them. One had a blue ‘M’ on while the other had a pink ‘F.’ The two girls headed behind the latter of the two and got into their superhero costumes. By the time they were done the others who were to be involved in today’s recording had arrived and they had been joined behind the screen by villainess of the short film.

“G’afternoon Hex.” Speedster nodded to her, earning herself a grunt and the evil eye back. The other girl, who had Fused with a powerful but particularly smart witch, wasn’t one for conversation at the best of times and considering the books Juliet could see poking out of her bag, she assumed that there was a lot of coursework Hex was skipping out of doing in order to be here.

“We are taking this outside aren’t we?” Luna asked nervously as she poked her head around the screens and considered the size of the room, “I mean we’ve never tried using our powers in such a confined space before and...”

“If you bothered to remember the script, that’s kind of the point.” Hex reminded her, a small smirk on her face, “I, the bad guy, am going to get to kick your butts because you’re too inexperienced with your powers, Speedster can’t move at full speed in such close quarters when you lot are around and Chi isn’t here.” She paused and poked her own head around the screen, thinking for a moment before saying, “If it helps, I’ll try and make sure you hit the padding.”

“You are looking forward to this way too much.” Speedster grouched, knowing that she was about to get her butt kicked and not looking forward to having to let it happen. She wasn’t at as much of a disadvantage indoors as the others seemed to think so she could defend herself if she was allowed but it wasn’t in the script so she was going to have to let Hex send her flying. It wasn’t going to be pleasant but it was the price they paid for using their powers to make up for special effects.

Author Note: NaNoWriMo 2013: Speedster's Secrets

Right, first off sorry for not updating for a couple of days before NaNo. I had some insane shifts at work that meant writing was impossible.

Second of all, Speedster's Secrets is being written for November's National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. It's an original piece of fiction that focuses on people fused with heroes from various video games, animated films or anime and manga. I'm trying to avoid naming them where I can to see if anyone can guess where they're from, though I don't actually know if anyone will comment on the story.

As it's November, my update schedule will change. Instead of a midday update, there will be a 11:50pm GMT update time. This is because it gives me a chance to write the day's words before I try and post them up. As part of NaNo I am trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days or sooner. This means 1667 words a day.

We shall see how it goes.

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secrets: Part 1

“Right then,” Juliet commented to herself as she looked up and down the last road of her delivery route, “It took twenty minutes yesterday, I bet I can do it in nineteen today.”

As she reset her stopwatch, she tried to ignore the fact that it was probably a bad idea to be even trying to break her record today with all of the ice and snow that had started to become a regular feature on her route the closer she got to Christmas. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if there had not been a fresh snow fall overnight, hiding the most treacherous patches of ice underneath a layer of freshly fallen, still quite powdery snow.

But then she relished a challenge. She would not be pushing herself to improve if she did not. Not with the skills she had acquired.

“Right.” She spoke to herself as she pulled the last pile of letters out of her bag and moved to press the button, “Three, two, one...”

She pressed the button and suddenly there was not a postwoman any more, but a blur of red and black that shot up the road, a figure appearing briefly at each door in order to post the letters through before vanishing back into the blur.

The blur was just reaching the final door when she slipped on one of the hidden patches of ice, went tumbling and crashed into one of the parked cars, sending the last few letters everywhere.

“Ow.” Juliet complained as she picked herself up, wincing slightly as she rotated the shoulder that had hit the car first and started picking the mail up. It was not the first time she had hit something at that speed, when she had first been adjusting to the powers the World Sphere had granted her, she had not been very good at breaking at all. She had improved in the last year but the rapid healing that she had gained had been incredibly useful this time last year.

She posted the last mail and then hit the button on the stopwatch, glowering at the clock for its time of fourteen minutes and seven seconds. She knew she had only dropped those two minutes because of the crash, but it still ticked her off.

At least, she thought as she dropped off her equipment home and got changed, she was done for the day. Super speed was cheating, but it meant that she finished her rounds much earlier than any other postman or woman and when she was done with her route, she was done for the day. This meant that today, as on most days, she had the entire afternoon all to herself.

Or she would have if she had not been called by one of her friends from the Club last night to double check that she was okay for filming today. She did not mind too much. Nicola, aka Snap, was in her final year and Juliet remembered what hers had been like. She was quite happy to do almost anything to make the stress of that year easier on her friend.

And since Snap was a film student, with a project to do that involved creating a short film, if this meant going in and acting for a while, she was good with that. Especially considering the genre involved played to the strengths of the Club.

She darted across town, weaving through the traffic and darting onto the university grounds. She had to slow down as she hit the padestrianized zone in order to walk at what should be a normal pace but was slow enough to Juliet’s mind that she was practically at a snail’s pace. It did not take long, however, for her to reach the building she needed and find the studios where her friend was waiting.

As she walked through the door she found that Nicola had her back to the door and had not even noticed her enter, causing her to grin as she said, “I hate ice.”

The offhand comment from nowhere made Nicola jump and wheel around. When she saw who had spoken she let out a heavy sigh and glowered at the speaker. “Juliet, seriously, a little warning when you arrive. Please?”

Juliet just continued to grin as she shucked her work boots, a pair of boots with heavy treads for her favoured trainers. Emerald green eyes dancing in their amusement, as she took a moment to let her chocolate brown hair down and brush it tidy before putting it back up.

“How was work?” Nicola grumbled as she turned back to her cameras, the small, black haired, brown eyed girl trying not to get ticked off at her friend.

“Eh, busier then yesterday, not as busy as tomorrow.” Juliet shrugged, moving over to see if she could help, “With Christmas coming up fast the post is just in heaps when I get there in the mornings. Deliveries are a breeze though.”

“With your skills, yeah.” Nicola couldn’t help but be amused at that as she finished setting up, “You’re early.”

“I’m always early.” Juliet boasted, “It’s hard not to be.”

“Speedster, your ego is showing again.” Nicola poked her in the chest, a wry smile on her face as Juliet paused for a moment before looking sheepish. “Honestly, I thought you had that under control.”

“I’m allowed to boast occasionally. You should hear some of the others after a couple of rounds.” Speedster responded, settling at her side for just long enough to pick out the props belonging to her before pacing the room, unable to stay still for more than a few moments at a time without something big to focus on.

“You lot have been drinking?! In public?” Nicola’s yelp caused Juliet to pause and chuckle.

“No, no. Don’t worry.” Juliet waved her concern off. “If we’re going to get so drunk we’re boasting, it’s done in the halls, well away from anyone else. After all, I’m the only graduate in our group.”

“And as such you’re supposed to be the responsible one.” Her friend grouched at her, “You know, trimming the excesses and stopping bad ideas like that?”

“Hey, in my defence I’m not anyone’s boss.” Speedster complained, “And if you remember, Snap, I never agreed to referee our little group. I’m not a teacher or their parents, so I don’t actually have the right to tell anyone what to do.”

“But you’re...” Snap trailed off at the sharp look Juliet was giving her. Nicola knew what was wrong. Speedster didn’t want to sit on anyone, because she remembered all too well what had happened when everything had first changed for the club and one of them had tried to suppress the changes and hadn’t been able to take the fact they were no longer ‘normal.’ Just trying to behave to another’s rules of normality had sent one member of their club crazy and another had ended it all after getting chased by police. “Oh...right.” Snap breathed, looking apologetic, “I’m sorry, Speeds.”

“It’s fine.” Emerald eyes shifted away from Nicola, towards the window where she could see snow beginning to fall, “I just wish...”

“You didn’t know they would do that, you couldn’t have.” Snap reminded her. Thinking of last December, almost a year to the day now, when everything had changed so drastically for about thirty or so lives. “Besides, it wasn’t you who found the first set.”

Juliet’s response was to pull something out of her bag, a smallish box, probably about five inches long by five wide and just as tall. She opened it and pulled out a small sphere that from Nicola’s perspective seemed to emit a bright glow. She knew what it was though.

“You brought your World Sphere?” Snap asked, moving over to get a proper look at it and see what images it was providing today.

“I don’t leave it anywhere unattended.” Speedster replied with a soft tone and slight scowl. “It’s not safe, not after...” She trailed off as the images inside the glass ball shifted from roaming green hills to a city not unlike venice, which had a great, decorated torch which they knew was lit only once a year, during an important festival.

“No, and with your house full of builders at the moment, I suppose it’s probably better than it doing to them what it did to you.” Snap agreed, reminded as the images passed some houses, that Speedster didn’t really have much peace and quiet. Between club gatherings and problems arising and work and builders, the oldest of their number often found herself with no way to unwind without going for a run. And nowadays that was getting harder and harder with the roads steadily being covered over in ice and snow.

The closer it was getting to Christmas the more enclosed they were all feeling though. For some of them it wasn’t too bad. The club members like Snap, who had not ‘Fused’ to super powered individuals, didn’t mind the cold weather curtailing expeditions outside to parks and long runs through the woods. For those like Speedster whose Fusions had resulted in gifts of power, the fact that they couldn’t let off steam once every so often was becoming a nightmare and it was even worse for the girl in front of her.

Speedster had been a runner before she had Fused with the fastest being amongst all the individuals from the world. A being who, in his own world, was never still for more than a few moments or when he was sleeping. She wanted to be able to run and it was often only her job which allowed her to blaze round town at full speed.

“Have you tried wellies?” Snap couldn’t help but offer, wondering if they would help against the cold, wet, frozen ground and allow her friend to speed along without worrying about breaking a leg or worse.

“Wellies?” Speedster blinked at her for a moment, conFusion obvious at the sudden subject change, “For what?”

“For running in the snow,” Snap chuckled, amused by the other girl’s conFusion. “Unless you want to crash again.”

“How did you know I crashed?” Juliet yelped, wondering if Snap had precognition and had not told them yet.

“I didn’t.” Nicola smirked at her, “I just guessed. You’re the one who confirmed it.”