NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 16

When she came around she had no idea where she was. The plain white walls were unfamiliar, the ceiling just as strange, the room was almost silent besides the radio playing quietly on her bedside table and she would have assumed she was in hospital if it hadn’t been for the lack of a window, the lock on her door and the handcuff chaining her right wrist to the metal bed frame.

“Hello?” She tried calling, pushing herself sitting and looking around. She felt stiff and sore still, suggesting that either it hadn’t been very long since she had passed out or she had hurt herself rather severely. Possibly both.

Still trembling from the electric shock she had received from the fencing and noticing that she was wearing a plain set of blue scrubs, she looked around the room for her stuff. She was grateful to find that the costume was hung up on the back of the door on a coat hanger, the mask with it.

Snap would have killed her if it had been missing or damaged. Not that she was sure if she was going to be seeing her friends for a long time.

She heard the door unlocking and twisted so she could see the door open. A man in a smart, black suit walked in, his hair immaculate, his entire body held so taunt and his body language so neutral that she couldn’t help but wonder if he was a robot.

“Ah, Miss Rhodes. Good to see you awake.” He commented, sitting in the chair by her bed and turning down the music to the point where it was barely audible.

“You know who I am?” Speedster paled, having hoped to keep her identity and by extension the identities of her friends secret.

“Juliet Rhodes,” The man nodded, “Age twenty three. Born in Sherwood, living in Leicester. Recent graduate of a Music Technology BSc at DeMontfort...”

“I’ll take that as a yes..." Juliet groaned, one arm covering her eyes as she slumped back onto the bed. “What are you planning to do to me?”

“We’re not...”

“Don’t. Just don’t.” Juliet cut the man off midsentence, still not looking at him, “You’ve obviously got no intention of letting me leave.” She lifted her right wrist as far as it would go, causing the handcuff it was attached to, to clink against the metal bed, “So you have some sort of plan for me...”

“Miss Rhodes, you’re being kept here for your own well being.” The man explained, sympathy tainting his tone as she lowered her arm, “The greater majority of those who saw your actions on TV are concerned for your wellbeing and wish you well. However, there are a few who think otherwise. And Sawyer did get away. We would be remiss in our duty to the public if we sent you to a normal hospital and he tried to attack you while you were recovering there.”

The man sat forward, the chair creaking slightly and causing Juliet to look at him. “Can I ask why you decided to reveal yourself now? And you decided to fight him?”

“I couldn’t let him use innocent people as a shield. I had to get involved.” Juliet replied, sitting up so she could get the questioning over with as soon as possible, “Besides its Christmas. There’s a rule about being a douchebag at Christmas.” She grumbled under her breath, “He broke it.”

“Ah, yes, that ‘Villain’s Handbook’ you were carrying.” The man looked amused, having heard her, “That didn’t help your case, you know.”

“That’s not...” Juliet shut up but the damage was already done.

“Yours?” The suited agent of some government agency or another smiled slightly as he asked, a sharp, shark like smile that suggested she had just taken his bait. “If it’s not yours, whose is it?”

Juliet just shook her head. Shade may not have been her friend, but Michael and Luna were. She wasn’t going to rat them out.

“Protecting them won’t help you, Miss Rhodes.” The agent pointed out, “And we’ll be looking into your friends and family anyway. It’s better to give us names now then have us rip your life apart looking for clues. Just tell us who owns copies of this Handbook. Because it’s quite obvious from reading this, that not only do they have powers like you, but they’re not as self sacrificing as yourself.”

“No.” Juliet’s reply was short and sweet.

“Let me make this clear before I leave, Miss Rhodes.” The agent said as he stood up, “You’re a guest of a secure government facility. If you ever want to leave here again, you will provide names, powers, locations, the full list. And we’re playing nice at the moment. Don’t make us play dirty.”

“The moment I’m free, I’m leaving.” Juliet stated calmly, her left hand covering her right wrist, anger warring with fear for the safety of the Club, “And I won’t be coming back. I can promise you that.”

“Even if you could break free and escape, where would you go?” The agent asked her, amusement obvious, “We can track you down, no matter where you go.”

“I hear Italy is nice this time of year.” Juliet considered, “Maybe China.”

The agent didn’t reply to that, just chuckled and exited the room, locking the door behind him. The moment he was gone, Juliet started fighting with the cuff around her wrist, trying to slip her hand out of the loop or break the chain between her wrist and the bed.

“Damn it,” She hissed as she found she wasn’t strong enough to break the chain and her hand refused point blank to fit through the wrist cuff and all she successfully managed to do while trying was tighten the metal bang further until it cut into her skin. “Superspeed is crap when you can’t move!” She slammed a hand onto the bed, glowering at the cuff as she did so.

Taking a deep breath, she paused and considered her options. She couldn’t move too far from the bed, getting up and standing on the right side was about the limits of her range. If she were Brawl, Chi, Mako or Gold, the cuffs wouldn’t be an issue, as all of them had gained super strength when they had shifted. But she wasn’t and she was rather glad they weren’t in this mess with her.

For a moment she considered trying the tornado stunt again and swinging the bed around in the wind created until the chain snapped or the cuff came off but she had a funny feeling that her arm would be pulled off long before the chain gave. Even if it wasn’t, she could do herself more harm than good. Especially if the bed, which would probably break horribly, ricocheted off a wall and crashed into her.

“Think, think, think.” Juliet muttered to herself, wishing she could pace the room. She thought better on her feet than she did lying down. “There has to be a way out of here.” She tugged fruitlessly on her chain again before slumping back onto the bed, “At least it’s soft.” She muttered, frustration seeping through her.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to play her options over in her mind. Handing over the names of her friends and fellow Club members wasn’t an option. She refused to go that route. So she needed another option. Another route. Something that didn’t involve her betraying her friends or being stuck in this room for the rest of her life.

She would go crazy if she was chained for too long, she just knew it. So that was the first thing she had to change.

An insane thought popped into her head. She couldn’t pull her hand out of the cuff, nor could she pull the cuffs free of the bed. But could she break the railing off of the bed and either slip the cuff off of the broken end or take it with her and worry about the rest of the railing once she had left the building?

She sat up and swivelled herself around, putting her feet against the railing. She took a deep breath, well aware that if this worked she had a very limited time before someone tried to stop her. “Three,” she whispered, “Two, one...” On one, she slammed her feet into the railing, over and over, faster and faster until she could feel the vibration through the bed and the metal around her wrist and the metal started bending.

Then there was a crack as something snapped and the bar along the middle, the one her wrist had been attached to and that had taken the worst beating, snapped. Juliet let out a pained yelp as her leg shot past the broken end of the metal bar, causing a long cut, but she didn’t let it stop her as she slipped the cuff off of the busted bar.

The door slammed open but she was already in motion, zipping to one side of the door and allowing the guys in suits to pass her before she shot down the corridor at as close to top speed as she could manage. Pain was a constant companion as she tried to push herself faster than her injured leg would let her go. She just needed to get out of the building and somewhere safe, then she could deal with the cut. She was just glad she hadn’t impaled herself on the damn bar at the same time.

To top her problems off, she had no real idea of where she was going. She couldn’t exactly stop and ask for directions. Instead she shot down the corridors she hoped led to the outside, finding three dead ends before having to skid under a closing security shutter that was coming down from the ceiling only to find herself face to face with one that had already closed and several armed men with their guns pointing at her.

“Damn it!” Speedster complained at them, forcing herself to her feet and trying to ignore the way the torn blue scrubs were turning purple, “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“Get down on the ground.” One of the armed men shouted at her.

She wasn’t doing this. She had no patience for this crap. In the space of far too short a period of time, she had been shot at, choked, electrocuted, knocked off of a building, taken prisoner, had her friends and life threatened, and now they wanted her to just give up? It wasn’t happening.

Still they were human. Normal humans. She couldn’t attack them. At any sort of speed she could seriously injure them and she was in no fit state to fight them without that speed giving her an advantage.

Options. She needed options.

She hesitated for just a moment, but that moment was all that was needed as something fired behind her and her leg buckled, sending her tumbling and the tranquiliser dart soaring over her head. As she rolled to her feet, she used the movement to aid her acceleration. Though much slower than usual with her leg giving out again, what speed she had was enough to get her around the armed guards and smack the button to raise the security shutter.

“Bye guys.” She called as she rolled under the shutter and into the grounds. “Oh for...” She mumbled as she beheld the sight of more armed men, several dogs, who were pulling on their leads to get to her and a barbed wire, electrified fence around the complex.

“Miss Rhodes,” Speedster flinched at the sound of the man from earlier, “You really shouldn’t be running around on that leg. Come back to your room and...”

She didn’t give him a chance to finish. Having spotted dumpsters that she could use to get the height to allow her to leap the fence. She shot over, the lack of gunshots confusing her as she bounced off the lid of the dumpster and went soaring over the fence, landing just well enough to prevent her leg going again, and darted away.

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 15

Speedster had come to the same realisation as she shot down the motorway, glad for the almost empty roads as she sped across the country at top speed, leaving a trail of scorched asphalt in her wake.

She heard the first sounds of gunfire as she shot down the nearest alleyway to the standoff, the constant hum of a machine gun being drowned out by the sounds of the sound of an artillery cannon. She didn’t stop as she emerged onto the street, instead building enough speed that she managed to create a twister of snow between the two groups that made both sides stop firing.

With nothing to fuel it, it stopped when she did, sending snow flying everywhere as she stopped in front of the man who looked like he was in charge of the military forces. “Hi.”

“Who the hell are you?” He demanded, anger obvious, “And get the hell out of our way.”

“They call me Speedster.” She replied, “And I think I can save them.” She gestured to the army of robosuits before her.

“You want to save the robots?” The man’s eyes gave away movement behind her and she shot up a lamp post, smirking slightly at the look on the face of the guy who had tried to grab her.

“No,” She corrected as if talking to small child, “I want to save the people inside them. Unless you want to be known as the Major who ordered the Christmas Massacre?”

“They opened fire first.” The Major pointed out.

“They had no choice.” Speedster retorted, “And you sound like you’re three. ‘He started it!’ Honestly.” She rolled her eyes, “Grow up and think.”

“Like we should listen to you, you think you’re a superhero.” The Major spat. “Go home. We don’t have time to humour your dressup games.”

“Give me half an hour.” Speedster tried to bargain, “Half an hour to get in, break the control console and ruin Sawyer’s plans. If I succeed, you won’t have to kill anyone. If I fail, you won’t have lost any men trying to get in.”

“You expect me to order my men to do nothing but sit on their thumbs and accept being under fire for half an hour?” The major looked disgusted.

“No.” Speedster admitted, “But if you actually look, you can see the difference between the robosuits and the normal robots, hell, on my way in I can tag a few in the front so you know which ones are fine to destroy without killing anyone inside. Just let me try and save them.”

“I can’t order my men to just get shot at for half an hour.” The major pointed out. “We have to fight back.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m going in anyway.” Speedster snapped at him, “Just remember if the robosuits suddenly stop firing at you, stop firing at them. They’re not responsible for their actions and I’m damn well going to make sure Sawyer can’t control them anymore.”

With that she shot into the crowd of robots, doing as she had said she would and tagging the robots without people inside by using them to bounce amongst the crowd and into the warehouse complex.

She landed in front of the doors to the warehouse, mentally wincing as the sounds of gunfire restarted, only to shift to the side as the doors opened and a group of robots stomped out, led by a robosuit. She slipped in behind them before the doors could slam shut.

The corridor was dark, all the lights unlit except for the blinking red lights of security cameras and it took her eyes a moment to adjust, giving the robots in the corridor a chance to whine to life and open fire. Speedster moved on instinct, narrowly avoiding becoming swiss cheese as her Fusion’s reaction times saved her life.

She smashed her way through the robots, leaving a trail of metal and wreckage behind her. She would have worked her way through the rooms systematically but that same instinct that had saved her life drew her onwards, into the central hub of the building which was surprisingly empty considering the horde outside.

She glanced around, taking in the machines used to equip people with the robosuits, the teaching area for retraining people in how to walk once they had been treated and two small groups of robots and noting the lack of robosuits, suggesting that they were all outside, protecting the warehouse by being human shields and walking, unwilling, weapons.

“Who are you?” She jumped slightly and wheeled around to face the speaker, who was on the gantry above her. She glowered up at the huge, fat, egg shaped man with the ridiculous moustache as he continued, “And how the hell did you manage to wreck my robots without any weapons?”

“How do you think?” Speedster smirked at him before glancing around again, looking for a control panel and figuring it was probably in the office behind him, “Who do you think had the World Sphere before you? You’re not the only one who can got a power up you know.”

“World Sphere?” Sawyer asked, “Is that what it’s called?”

“Look,” Speedster interrupted, “We could do this all day. I could explain things, you could then ask more questions and we’d be back and forth till the cows come home, but I don’t got time for that. So how about we skip the chatting and you tell me how to switch off your control thingy and I prevent a massacre? Because seriously, your human shields aren’t going to be there much longer if you don’t turn off that damn machine.”

“Well I can tell who you’re not Fused with.” Sawyer smirked, “You don’t banter anywhere near enough to be Fused with a certain pest.”

“I figure I’m the upgrade.” She snorted, “Version 2.0, now with more kicking your ass and less pointless posturing.”

That made him chuckle, not that she got to see it as something nearly blindsided her and she only just avoided the metal arm swinging at her out of nowhere. She skidded across the floor, finding breaking difficult on the smooth surface, and got drawn into a brawl with the nearest group of robots, leaving a pile of wreckage strewn across the floor.

Then the robosuit that had attacked her from the shadows was on her again, forcing her to dodge repeatedly as she refused point blank to injure the poor person inside.

“Bloody hell, Doc.” She complained as she narrowly avoided a third and fourth swing, “This thing’s almost as fast as me.” She ran circles around it, recognising it as she did so as the robosuit containing Dr. J. Styler, and shot up the stairs behind it, bringing herself face to face with the wanna be tyrant. “Not. Now, control panel. Where is it?”

Sawyer took a swing at her himself, one which she dodged so easily that it was almost a joke.

“Okay,” She shrugged, “Don’t tell me. I bet it’s in here.” She darted around the fat man and into the office he had been stood in front of, wincing at the computer screens in front of her as she stopped to look around.

With no clue of how the computer she was working on actually functioned, she couldn’t help but wish she had brought Luna or Mako with her as she tried to work out how to shut down the control signal. She tried everything obvious she could think of and was just moving to try the much less subtle variant of stopping the computer when she was seized by the back of the catsuit and chucked across the room.

She slammed into the wall hard and before she could recover, she was pinned against it by a metal coated hand to her throat. She struggled against the robosuited Doctor’s grip, gasping in what little breath she could take past the metal digits, as Sawyer entered the room, looking pleased with himself.

“You honestly think that I’d have placed my control signal hub somewhere this obvious?” He asked the struggling girl, who could barely hear him over the roaring in her ears. “You disappoint me.”

“Screw. You.” She gasped out, trying a moment longer to pull the hand away from her throat before her eyes rolled back in her head, closed and she went limp in his grasp.

The moment she did so, the robosuit released its grip and she collapsed forward for a moment, before opening her eyes and ducking underneath the bot’s attempts to grab her, practically dancing out of his range. “Nice...try...” She smirked at him as she caught her breath.

“There’s still some faults.” Sawyer admitted, eyeing up the robosuit as he did so. “But nothing that won’t be worked out with time.”

“I don’t...plan on giving you any.” Speedster informed him before practically vanishing on the spot and attacking him, sending him tumbling into his computer system. The electronics started sparking dangerously as he pulled himself out of the smoking console.

“You little...” He trailed off as she smacked him back into it.

“Where’s the control hub?” She demanded, glowering at him, narrowly dodging the robosuit as she did so.

“Why would I tell you?” Sawyer asked, looking pleased with himself for some odd reason as he glanced at the damaged computer screen and reached for a switch.

“Because I’m going to keep kicking your butt if you don’t?” She asked, “And why are you so happy?”

“It’s on the roof, if you have to know.” He answered her, still smirking, “Not that it matters.”

“Why?” She asked warily.

“Because goodbye, that’s why.” He replied as he flipped the switch.

“Wha...ack!” Speedster yelped as the floor vanished underneath her and she tumbled to the floor below. She landed safely but the trapdoor closed behind her, leaving her stuck in a fenced off area of the ground floor that was made up of floor to ceiling metal fencing. Expecting to be able to crash through it easily, she went from zero to sixty in point two seconds, only to get a powerful electric shock that sent her crashing to the ground the moment the fencing fell.

Trembling with the side effects of the jolt, she pulled herself to her feet and looked up at the control room just in time to see something escaping through a newly opened hole in the roof.

“S...Shit.” She stammered, shooting up the stairs and bouncing off of the railing and the wall to get through the hole in time to find that the robosuit containing Dr. Styler was trying to move the control signal hub. “D...Don’t even think about i...it.” She managed, glowering at the pair.

“You? Again?”  Sawyer grumbled, examining her like she was a puzzle. “You’re human, that should have kept you long enough...”

“N...none of us are completely human anymore, S...Sawyer.” Speedster pointed out, pushing her tired and aching body into a strike on the robosuit, causing it to lose its grip on the control hub which went flying off of the roof and crashed to the floor, breaking into multiple pieces and causing the signal to cut off. “H...HA...argh!”

 Speedster’s triumphant crow as the robosuits stopped firing and starting panicking or freaking out or just standing still and the robots collapsed, was cut off as Sawyer drove his floating vehicle into her and she went crashing off of the roof herself, hitting the asphalt car park floor hard.

The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Sawyer getting away in his hovercar, despite Doctor Styler’s best attempts to stop him.

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 14

Luna’s mother had provided her with a stocking to open before breakfast, only a little thing with five presents in but it was nice to feel included even if it meant she got woken up at six. After the stocking presents had been opened, she helped cook the full English breakfast that the family shared before those who wanted to go to Church went to do so while Juliet and Michael stayed behind and played with the board game that had been slipped into Michael’s stocking.

Once everyone was back and the roast turkey had been put into the oven to cook, they all settled in the living room to open the presents under the tree. They were halfway through doing so when Michael’s phone went off.

“Sorry.” Michael apologised as he pulled it out of his pocket, “What the...?” He murmured as he flipped it open, “Spike? It’s Christmas Day, mate. You know I’m busy until... what?” There was silence from Michael for a minute or so, then he scrambled across the room, face white and eyes wide, turning on the TV despite the objections of Luna and his parents.

“Mikey?” Luna asked, worried as he seized the remote and flipped over to the news channel where a harried looking reporter was reporting from the top of a building.

“What you see below me,” She was saying as the camera panned across a horde of robots and robosuited individuals, all of whom were stood between the military and the warehouse Speedster had scoped out a week ago. “Is a standstill that has been reached by the military and the robot army belonging to Sawyer. The military are hesitant to attack the people trapped inside the now fully controlled suits of metal armour, while Sawyer seems content to ensure that no one can enter the complex while his forces raid banks and shops.”

“It’s Christmas Day!” Luna protested, forgetting about her parents for the moment as they watched a cannon unfold from the arm of one of the robosuits and open fire on the armed forces opposite. “There’s a rule!”

“Our rules, not his.” Shade pointed out, irritation obvious and having shoved Michael aside easily to watch this for himself. “It’s a clever plan.” He continued, wishing he had thought of it himself, “Using innocent bystanders as shields for his robots. They can’t open fire without being accused of massacring thousands of disabled people.”

“Michael!” His mother sounded disturbed that her son seemed almost approving of what was going on.

As the military finally seemed to make up their mind, a burst of air sent everything that wasn’t nailed down flying. Luna palled and shot out the living room door, able to hear someone moving upstairs. Shade followed at a more sedate pace, easily able to hear the argument going on upstairs.

“Speeds, you can’t!” Luna was protesting, “Not alone!”

“There’s no one else, Luna.” Speedster snapped back, “None of the others are close enough and no one else can get close enough quickly enough. They’re firing on the cops, it won’t be long until they start firing back, innocent bystanders or not. I won’t let that happen. I can’t. This is my mess, I have to fix it.”

“And you’re changing into your costume from the film why?” Shade asked, poking his head around the door, watching as Speedster struggled with the zip on her catsuit, “You’re not a real superhero.”

“Because,” Speedster explained as Luna, who still looked torn about what was going on, batted her friend’s hands away from the zip and helped her do it up, “If I don’t wear anything that’s mine and at least try and hide my features the military may not trust me, but they shouldn’t be able to use facial recognition software either.” She finished as she slipped her mask down over her face, her eyes watching the pair carefully from the slits. “Now if you don’t mind...”

“Actually, I’m not here to stop you. You were told you had to clear up your messes.” Shade shrugged, “I just wanted to make sure you had this to give him. If he’s playing with the Club’s heroes, he needs to know the villain handbook.”

“You guys have a handbook?” Speedster looked amused despite the situation.

“Speeds, hang on one sec and I’ll come with you.” Luna promised, shooting into her room to get changed.

“Yes we do. Don’t read it, it’s for villain eyes only.” Shade nodded, watching his sister go, amused, “Also you’re not taking her, I need her.”

“No, I know I’m not.” Speedster reassured him, feeling weird in doing so, “I’ll make sure he gets this. You guys watch the TV, I’ll be on shortly.” With that she shot out of the building, waiting only until she had reached the road, at which point Shade heard one of Speedster’s signature sonic booms.

“Was that...?” Luna looked panicked as she slipped out of her room, half changed.

“Gone.” Shade nodded, amused at her reaction, “She had no intention of taking you. You’ll just slow her down.”

“But...” Luna looked hurt.

“Go get out of that mess.” Shade sniggered, “And do it fast. One of us will have to explain things to our parents and would you rather it was me?”

“No!” Luna yelped, shaking her head and darting for her room, “Very much no.” She continued as she shut the door behind her. Shade chuckled and headed downstairs, to where his parents were picking up everything that had been blown everywhere in Juliet’s first burst of speed.

On screen the military were setting up rather big guns and Shade couldn’t help but wonder with an amused detachment, whether Speedster would make it in time. Despite her speed, it was going to come close.

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 13

Speedster let out a pained groan as she tried to sit up, only to end up slumped back into the groove she had left in the grass.

Luna had been right, Robotnik wasn’t evil, he had suppressed that part of himself in order to help people. She had no right to chase him around and cause him trouble, because he had changed when he had Fused. She just had to accept that he could change, there was nothing else to do.

She just had to ignore the way the personality contamination from her Fusion was trying to force her to keep watching. Ignore the way part of her mind was yelling that there had to be something more going on.

As she managed to get herself sitting and examined her surroundings, she realised there was one bright side to realising she had been acting like an idiot and allowing the personality contamination to control her thoughts and actions.

If she wasn’t worrying all the time about what Robotnik was up to, she could actually relax and enjoy the build up to Christmas. She hadn’t last year because it hadn’t been long after they had all Fused and they had still been settling the ground rules for the post-Fusion Club. The three days over Christmas itself had been fine, since it had been agreed that there was to be no insane activity over the Christmas period in order to allow people to enjoy time with their families. But the build up had been stressful and she hadn’t enjoyed it in the slightest.

This year she could spend it having fun. There was only a week and a half left to go after all.

She staggered to her feet, wincing as she did so and trying to work out where she was. She had been lucky when she had crashed in that there had been no one between her and the wall in the middle of nowhere that had acted a break. However since it was out in the middle of nowhere, there was no signs telling her where she was or what was the closest city.

It didn’t help she hadn’t been paying attention to the markers she had past as she had sped by. As she headed down the road, convinced that she had to hit a town or village soon, she pulled her phone out, grinning slightly when she realised that it had signal.

“Hi Luna?” She asked as her friend picked up the phone, wincing as her right foot hit the floor and jarred her sore leg, “Yeah, I’m fine. Honest.” She chuckled slightly when Luna started fussing at her, just as aware as Juliet that she only ever used her phone when she absolutely needed to, “I just wondered if you guys have access to the internet right now? Because I need you to google maps something for me.” She explained as she reached a sign with the road name on it. “Yeah, I got lost again.” She admitted, laughing at Luna’s frustrated huff, “I have a road name this time if that helps. I’m on...”

She gave her friend the road name and winced as Luna explained that she was about a five hour drive from her house. Normally that wouldn’t be too bad, but with her leg aching from the crash she wasn’t looking forward to using it to get home. Still, run home she did, collapsing on the sofa with a bag of ice at the first opportunity she had.

“Ouch.” She grumbled as she took in the sight of bruising up her right leg and down her side. “At least it should be gone in a week.” She commented out loud, the almost empty house echoing the words back at her.

It didn’t stay almost empty for long as within minutes of her texting Luna to tell her she was home, her best friend had shot around to her house. Luna fussed at her for the rest of the evening, babbling excitedly about the breakthroughs she and the others had had on Dr. Styler and the project. Juliet wasn’t sure she had the heart to tell her that she had gone and staked out the building, stalked them home and then realised that she was being ridiculous. At least not right now. Especially after she realised that Luna was deliberately keeping the location of the lab a secret from her so she couldn’t shoot off and do exactly what she had spent the afternoon doing.

The following day, she had no choice but to admit what she had done. The others had expected her to react badly when it was announced that some billionaire with far too much money and who had sympathy for the plight of the people who needed the treatment Dr Styler and his assistant were providing but couldn’t afford it, was dropping a couple of million into a pot in order to pay for a large chunk of people to have the experimental robosuit system equipped so they could have a better quality of life.

When, instead, she had seemed resigned but hadn’t actually gone out of her way to do anything about it, the others had questioned her. Luna had been disappointed and Mako had gotten cross, but both had admitted that they were relieved she had already gone and done the recon without getting caught. They had expected her to shoot off at any time to try and with her leg playing up, Luna had half expected to be bailing her out of jail.

In the week and a half leading up to Christmas, Juliet had to ignore the news of thousands of people with physical disabilities streaming to the lab in order to get the treatment. It wasn’t easy, but she managed it by distracting herself with cleaning, followed up with decorating her house for the first time in a couple of years and even making cookies between trips down to the tree house.

When Luna’s parents came to pick them up for Christmas, she was glad to be out of the city. The robosuited population was increasing steadily around the labs as people in post treatment got used to their new forms, not that she had sped by to check on the lines and make sure there wasn’t any trouble there at all, and quite a few more ‘normal’ robots had come into the city itself, causing her a few problems when she went out to do her rounds, only for a bot or three to get in her way.

Ignoring what was going on wasn’t easy and she kept having to remind herself that as long as he wasn’t doing anything wrong, she had to stay away from the lab. Getting out of the city and into a whole different environment helped.

Chew Magna was peaceful and quiet in comparison to the busy city and Juliet found herself unwinding as she hung out at the lakes. It was cold, but not as icy and white, allowing her to zoom around and around the lakes when she wasn’t shooting back up the country in order to do her job, enjoying the local countryside, visiting Chedder Gorge, where they made the best cheesy chips ever, or going with Luna to the local orchard to feed the pigs that were allowed to live there.

It was Christmas Eve before she found a real disadvantage to it and that was when Luna’s horde of a family descended upon the small residence. Speedster found she couldn’t really cope with the sheer amount of people in the tiny house very well and as such took the opportunity to shoot over to her uncle’s place and drop off the presents for the following day.

Her uncle’s new wife was cross to see her, but her uncle was delighted that she had made the time to rush over. While he knew her secret, he hadn’t expected her to run over just to see him, not when it was so cold out. He dragged her into the warm house, plying her with hot cocoa and mulled wine, while accepting her gift of cookies and cake.

Her father had left her a present with her Uncle, which she took back with her when she headed back to Luna’s place where she arrived just in time for the family to decide that she was coming with them to Midnight Mass. Despite both her insistence that she couldn’t sing and Luna’s insistence that she didn’t normally get on in Churches very well, Luna’s family insisted that it was a tradition and she had no choice but to go.

It wasn’t too bad a service and she enjoyed the hot chicken and mushroom soup afterwards, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that she could open one present straight after it.

She kept the one from her father, along with all her other particularly important gifts, for later and opened the one from the Club for her. She was rather amused to find that it was a cyan glass paperweight that was cut like a gem stone and weighed a surprising amount. It reminded her of something she had seen in the memories she had gained in the Fusion and she chuckled as she put it safely in her backpack, glad that the cyan gem and the gems from her memories weren’t the same thing. Her hand brushed fabric as she placed it in the main pocket and she pulled out the item, becoming startled when she found that she still had her costume from the film in there too.

“Note to self, don’t forget to take this home.” Speedster commented to herself as she hung up the costume and fished out the mask that went with it. Snap had asked them all to take their costumes home after recording, since she had nowhere to store it at her parents’ house over Christmas and didn’t want to leave the complicated and slightly expensive outfits in her halls, just in case something happened.

She couldn’t help but wonder what Luna and Michael had done with theirs as she hitched the mask to the top of the coat hanger, but didn’t get a chance to ask as Christmas morning dawned bright and early and she got sucked into the excitement and traditions. 

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 12

“I’d love say say ‘sod it it’s Christmas,’” Speedster grumbled, “But we should at least check out the labs they’re being made in.”

“In that case, let’s go.” Mako pounded her right palm with her fist.

“When we know where, we’ll go.” Speedster nodded.

“In the mean time,” Luna sighed, “All we can do is practise and keep our skills sharp.”

“Which sucks.” Speedster complained, starting to pace again, “I hate waiting for anything.”

“Go for a run or something.” Luna shook her head in amusement, “If you take your phone, I’ll call you the moment we know anything.”

“Deal.” With that Speedster shot off, bored already by the meeting and unable to just stand still and wait. Instead she shot over to Bookworm’s flat, where the doctorate student was in fact delightedly pouring over every piece of information she could on the new ‘robosuits.’

It didn’t take her long to get the information she needed from the physiology enthusiast and she hesitated for just a moment, before shooting off to the lab in question. She hadn’t said how long she would wait when she had told Luna that she would and she didn’t plan on storming the building. She just wanted to go and have a look at it. As well as ensure she knew where it was and that the person she was looking for actually worked there.

When she actually planned on invading the labs, she would alert Luna and Mako to her plans, but for just scouting it was better she headed off alone.

The lab was a surprisingly ordinary looking building considering what was being built inside. Built on the outskirts of town, the plain, two storey concrete warehouse looking building didn’t look like the menacing headquarters of some evil villain, just a plain old storage place.

The only real outward signs that the building wasn’t just a storage facility were the official looking cars and military looking guards patrolling the parameter.

Zooming around the perimeter, which was surrounded by wire fencing with barbed wire around the top, she got a feel for the place’s defences. They didn’t look like much, a few guard dogs on chains led around by the guards, a few unconcealed weapons, plenty of security cameras and a few shed like buildings that she just knew probably housed a robot or two.

She wasn’t surprised. They weren’t expecting trouble. Not from anyone who could pass by the defences in the blink of an eye. Speedster would have thought that he would have insisted on stronger measures. She supposed that if he wasn’t in charge yet, he wouldn’t get much say in what security measures had been put in place and even if he was he wouldn’t expect his arch-nemesis to have been Fused with someone from this world too.

Still, she was wary as she slipped over the fence and examined the cameras at a much closer range, darting between their coverage at high speed and working out where she could take out the wiring if she needed to. Part of her wondered how she knew what to look for, the rest, the part that had firmly accepted the Fusion and melded with the memories and the skills that she had gained, just accepted it as something that had been necessary in their old world.

When the guards came around the corner, Speedster took that as a sign to bolt, zipping across the grounds and hopping the fence, landing on the other side easily before shooting off. She had no intention of alerting them to the fact she was watching if she could help it. The element of surprise had always been a key factor in the success of their plans and giving away her presence now would ruin it.

She shot further away from the fence, up onto the roof of a nearby building and enjoyed the sunshine until the scientists left the building for the day. There were quite a few in the building, most of whom looked pretty normal and were chatting with each other, though she couldn’t hear about what from her vantage point.

The last few to leave the building were a group of three. One military looking, armed man in a smart suit with medals pinned to it and symbols on his shoulder. One robosuited individual, whose metal plating was red, gold and black and whose body language looked completely relaxed despite the suit that they were wearing. And finally the individual she had been looking for.

He was unmistakeable. A huge, rotund, almost egg shaped man with a ridiculous moustache and a set of sunglasses that covered his eyes.

“Robotnik.” Speedster hissed, anger rising despite the fact that the man before her had done nothing to her or to her world.

The egomaniac had no idea she was watching as he walked across the carpark, talking to the two men though he took furtive glances around. He didn’t look too pleased to be pulled away from his work. Speedster on the other hand was all too pleased for any delay to his plans. Not that she knew what he was up to, but there was very little he had gotten up to in the original world that could be considered ‘good’ so she didn’t doubt that he was up to something here too.

The Robotnik fusion and the robosuited man entered one vehicle while the military man entered another. Once both cars had pulled out of the heavily guarded gates she followed the one with the Doctor and the robosuited man, wanting to know where he was going and what he was up to.

Frustration had seeped in by the time the car had stopped, as she had stuck to the roofs and tried to keep to its speed rather than risk losing it in the traffic. As she watched the pair exit the car, she paced the nearby rooftop, keeping a close eye on them as the Doctor pulled some keys out of his back pocket and let them into a house.

“That’s enough.” Juliet told herself with a huff as the car pulled away and she waited to see if anything else would happen, glancing at her watch as she did so, “It’s been an hour. Time to...”

She trailed off as the door opened again and the robotic man exited the building again, watching as he shut the door behind him and headed down the road. She followed, smiling as he popped into a shop and slipped down into an alleyway before emerging onto the street and entering the shop behind him.

As she picked out a bunch of snacks, having not eaten for a while, she listened to the conversation between the cashier and the robotic man.

“So you went through with it then?” The cashier asked a little nervously, “That thing we saw on the T.V.”

“It was worth it.” The man replied, his voice modulated slightly so it sounded less human and more robotic, “I’m finally out of that wheelchair. And it’s all thanks to Paul.”

“You two worked together on this.” The cashier reminded him with a slight smile, “Don’t put yourself down, Doc.”

“I might have been working with him on this project, but he had a break through a couple of weeks back that not only made it viable in our lifetime, but meant it could be put into effect immediately.” The Doctor replied, “It’s just a shame it’s my name that has to be used. He might have been my assistant, but he had no doctorate, so they insist it has to be my name that’s used to promote it.”

“It’s a shame, but I wouldn’t complain if I were you.” The cashier chuckled, taking the payment for his items, “Just share the profits with him.”

“Maybe one day we’ll be able to afford not to charge for the process.” Dr. Styler replied, sounding wistful, “Have a good shift, Kayley.”

“Have a good evening yourself, Doc.” Kayley waved him off before turning to Speedster who had been next in line, “Hiya, can I help?”

Once she had paid for her goods, Speedster got the hell out of there as fast as possible, so much on her mind that she wasn’t sure where to start on working through it all.

She let her feet take her where they willed as she tried to think everything through. It was Robotnik. She knew he was bad. She knew it like she knew the Earth was round and chocolate was tasty.

But ‘Paul’ had built the robosuits to help his friend and co-worker. He really had been trying to help for a change instead of creating them for evil.

She was the one in the wrong. Not him.

It was that realisation that caused her to come to a sudden stop as she lost her footing and went tumbling, crashing into a wall and coming to a sliding stop on the other side of the rubble left behind. 

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 11

The last caused Speedster to shudder. Luna could appreciate why. She had been claustrophobic before her Fusion and while having a second personality’s strength to draw on had helped, she still struggled with small, enclosed spaces. Speedster’s claustrophobia had kicked in post Fusion and while it wasn’t serious enough to have her avoiding small rooms and locked doors, it was bad enough that she spent the greater majority of her time outdoors if she could help it. The idea of being locked in a small, padded room for months at a time was terrifying to the super fast, super stubborn young woman.

“Exactly.” Luna nodded her agreement, “So you’ll wait?”

“I’ll wait, for now.” Juliet agreed, “But I’m reserving ‘I told you so’ rights if I don’t get to talk to him before he starts trying to take over the world.”

“Deal.” Luna agreed as they turned the corner, “Now how are you going to apologise to Snap?”

“I dunno.” Speedster admitted. “I didn’t think it would matter when I dropped off the map. She did say she had so much footage to edit that she would still be doing it in January.”

“She missed a scene.” Luna explained, “And we tried it with just me and Chi but she said something was missing and it didn’t play out right. Didn’t help the script was written with you in it too and we had to improvise.”

“Well we’ll get this sorted, then I’ll speak to Mako and Bookworm and I’ll get the robot issue sorted too.” Juliet still sounded a little irritated but Luna was just pleased that she seemed to have calmed down. Speedster was normally quite a level headed person, she had a few ego issues, normally controlled by a quick ‘ego check,’ but none of them had seen her as mad as she had been when she had seen the news.

That hadn’t just been Speedster talking then, though. Luna was fully aware of that fact. She just wondered what her friend would be like if she ever let go of her temper properly and flew into a real rage.

They were the first to arrive besides Snap. The film student and director jumped on them the moment they arrived, launching a scathing tirade at Speedster for just disappearing on them. Juliet took it in her stride. Considering how mad the Club had been at her, she had not expected it to matter if she vanished for a few days. Though admittedly she hadn’t originally planned on heading off for a couple of weeks.

She appeased Snap, and the others of the Club who were mad at her for vanishing, a little by providing the gifts she had bought out of the paypacket that had come in just the day before. They weren’t as fancy as the ones she had originally planned to get, but Luna’s suggestion about shooting down to Bath had been fruitful and she had managed to pick up thirty or so pretty Christmas baubles for less than a hundred pounds.

“Bribery?” Michael asked, having been one of the last to arrive for the recording session, though there were plenty of others yet to get their gifts from Juliet. The rest would be given out at the last club meeting of the year.

“No, Christmas presents.” Juliet scolded him. “Just like every year.” She sighed, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you guys, but these aren’t ‘please forgive me’ gifts. I didn’t think you’d be too worried.”

“You’re an idiot.” Spike commented as he helped set up the last camera, his present, a golden star which she had drawn a smiley face on, reminiscent of the Power Stars in Mario. “Just because we’re cross at you, doesn’t mean we aren’t going to worry when you drop off of the face of the planet. What if it had been something serious?”

“Yeah,” Chi, the young man who was the last member of the ‘hero’ party in the film and who had pulled Brawl away from her at the Club meeting, chimed in, “I mean you can’t hog all the good fights.”

“Awww, was someone jealous?” Speedster teased, quite willing and happy to change the tone of the meeting to something a little lighter hearted and playful. “Tell you what, the next time I shoot off to save the world, I’ll invite you along. If you can keep up that...”

“Ego check.” Three voices chorused, causing Juliet to start laughing as Luna, Snap and Spike all blinked at each other in bemusement before they started chuckling too.

“I’m never going to get to boast again, am I?” Juliet jokingly complained to Chi when she calmed down.

“Not as long as we’re here.” Chi shook his head, smiling as he did so.

“Damn.” Juliet pretended to sulk as she snatched up a copy of the script, “Am I changing for this scene or not?”

“Not,” Snap shook her head as Juliet swiftly read through the lines, committing them to memory as she read them through a fourth and fifth time, “This is a meeting of the heroes during their day to day lives. What you’re... okay, why are you covered in paint?”

“Because I’ve been doing D.I.Y. and didn’t have time to change out of these clothes before Luna dragged me out of my front door.” Speedster responded, “Do you need me to change?”

Snap considered her for a moment, before shaking her head, “You know what? No, no, I can use this. D.I.Y. got it.” She made a note on the pad of paper she had taken to carrying with her everywhere. She paused, “What have you been building? Because you haven’t been at home. We checked. Lots.”

“Personal project.” Speedster shrugged, not really wanting to talk about it. “Back home.”

Luna watched her for a moment, a questioning look crossing her features as she caught Juliet’s eyes. When the speed freak shook her head slightly, Luna decided that if the others asked her, which they tended to do if Speedster was keeping to herself, she wouldn’t say a word about the treehouse. If Speedster wanted it kept a secret, she wouldn’t say a word.

“Fine, fine, don’t share.” Snap grouched, “But at least put photos up. Otherwise none of us will believe you can build anything. After all, we remember what happened to that shed you tried to help put up.” When Speedster went bright red in embarrassment, Snap considered herself victorious and chuckled as she went to double check the cameras. Not that she didn’t trust Spike to know what he was doing but it was her project and she was going to keep on top of everything.

Speedster glanced down at her clothes, brushing off the worst of the dirt as she noticed just how grubby her clothes were. Embarrassment settled in a little as she did so. She didn’t tend to think about what she was wearing very often, there wasn’t much point when it ended up windswept and rumpled after not too long. Snap’s tone had been one of ‘you’re wearing that?’ though and it had made her a little self conscious.

“Note to self,” Juliet murmured as they took their places and she read through the script one last time before they started, “Either start living in running clothes or get changed before I go anywhere Snap from now on.”

Luna, who had already memorised her script while she waited for Speedster to actually return home from her travels, chuckled quietly at that. “I’m not sure it would help.” She pointed out, “She would still comment on it if it looked like that.”

“True...oh, here we go.” The conversation stopped as Snap counted down from ten, counting them into the recording.

Speedster’s unfamiliarity with her lines caused a little bit of difficulty, but after only a little addlibbing they got the scene recorded and it was a much happier Snap that shot off with the data disks from the cameras, leaving Luna, Speedster, Spike, Mako and Michael to talk about what had been in the news.

“So, robosuits,” Mako commented as they settled on the railings outside the building, watching the snow falling on the campus, “What do we think?”

“I’m not happy about it.” Speedster admitted, “But Luna says I need to stop and step back and actually think before I go and rush to see the Doc in charge of the project.”

“Might be a plan.” Mako nodded, “Though when you do go, if you want backup...”

“Thanks.” Juliet grinned at her, relieved to have a little bit of backup even if she didn’t think she would need to call anyone in to help her.

“Well you can leave me out.” Spike snorted, “You caused the mess and I’ll step in if something happens here but this is my turf, I ain’t going looking for trouble outside of it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Is that a ‘I’ll help if trouble comes here’?” Mako asked, amused at the stubborn and lazy shell skinned young man.

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved it off, not particularly happy about the whole situation but refusing to let his territory get invaded by some idiot looking for trouble. There were enough of those as there was, without another joining the club.

“What about you?” Luna looked at her brother.

“I’m staying well out of it.” Michael snorted at her, “Knowing Shade he would take the opportunity presented by a distraction to cause the biggest possible mess imaginable.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him.” Luna sighed, just glad that she had managed to work out a way to work with the Other Self that the Fusion had given her. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have another personality in her head that she couldn’t work with and had to watch out for at every opportunity.

It was why she gave her brother so much leeway when his Other Self was on a rampage and why she insisted that her Other Self tried to help Shade change, rather than remove that part of her brother entirely.

“So what? We doing this between now and Christmas? Or are we saying hahaha, sod this for a game of marbles, it’s too cold and too close to Christmas?”

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 10

“I’ll print it out.” Zara sounded apologetic as her printer whirred to life, “How do you manage with your phone?”

“I barely ever use it, that’s how.” Speedster grumbled as she scooped up the sheets and considered them carefully, “Huh, you seriously think I can hit these sorts of times?”

“You’re the one who said that you wanted to keep improving.” Zara pointed out, “I’m just trying to help.”

“Hey I never said I wouldn’t try this out.” Juliet grinned at her, “I was just surprised. You were the one who never thought I’d reach mach speeds after all.”

“I’m still mostly convinced you won’t break the sound barrier.” Bookworm admitted, “But then I was also convinced you would never be as fast as you are now and I was wrong so...”

Juliet smirked, “Just because I don’t have another Speedster to race against, doesn’t mean I’m not going to try my damnedest to reach my full potential.”

“Another Speedster, isn’t that a terrifying thought?” Zara deadpanned, causing Juliet to grin.

“Awww, what’s the matter, Bookworm?” Speedster chuckled at her, “Too much awesome for you to handle?”

“Ego check.” Zara responded automatically, watching, amused as Juliet paused, sighed and then laughed, hanging her head sheepishly.

“Sorry.” Juliet chuckled.

“I’d quite like another runner like you to compare results against.” Zara waved it off, “Just not two of you. I’m not sure I could fit your egos in the room. I’d have to host our meetings on campus.”

“It’s not that bad.” Speedster protested.

“Juliet, I hate to tell you this, but I’m surprised that your ego fits through a door, yet alone in my room.” Zara sniggered at her causing her to let out a huff but just let the insult slide. “Now, take those tests and I’ll give you a call when I need you for my project.”

“Sure.” Speedster nodded, still examining the sheets. She knew the course that was on the paperwork, it was one of the first that they had worked out between them, back when she had been more willing to stare at a computer and take the headache that came with it. Nowadays she just pretended to be computer illiterate. It confused people at work, who couldn’t understand how someone from her generation could possibly not know how to use a computer, but it worked ninety-seven percent of the time.

“I know it’s a slightly longer course than the one you’ve been training on recently,” Zara frowned slightly, “But if I’m going to  start regulating the results for my thesis I need to start using a more regulated course and the one you’re running at the moment has too many obstacles for you to get through.”

“It was good practise at dodging at high speed, but I see your point.” Speedster allowed, “I don’t mind anyway, I know you normally go over a route thoroughly before you suggest it to me.”

“As well as I can considering that I’m normally stuck using Google maps.” Bookworm frowned slightly, “If it deviates too much, tell me and I’ll rework it.” Speedster nodded, “Now shoo.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Speedster chuckled, letting herself out of the building and heading back towards her place. She made one brief detour to pick up dinner things since she wasn’t sure what she had in the house. She got back to find Luna on her sofa watching the film she had promised she could watch weeks ago and after offering her some grub she opened the fridge door, only to shut it again swiftly with a grimace at the smell that emanated from it.

“Hey Luna?” She asked as she started preparing the food she had bought and made a mental note to clean out the fridge after dinner, “I’m instating a new rule. If I forget, remind me?”

“If you tell me what it is, I will.” Luna chuckled, leaning back on the arm of the sofa in order to see into the kitchen.

“If I’m going to be away for more than two days, I have to leave you the keys so you can raid my fridge.” Speedster replied, prepping veg and meat for fajitas as she did so.

“Does it have its own ecosystem?” Luna asked, giggling as she turned back towards her film, still half paying attention to her friend’s antics in the kitchen.

“Ecosystem, economy and parliament.” Juliet’s reply caused a bark of laughter to emanate from the living room. The film was just ending by the time the food was cooked and as Juliet passed Luna a plate of food and slumped back onto the second sofa, her own food stacked high on her plate, Luna flicked over to the news.

“In groundbreaking news, scientists have recently discovered there might be a way for those crippled by age or disabilities to regain full use of their limbs.” The newscaster was saying as Luna alternated between munching and trying to pick the next dvd, “The robosuit system, invented by Dr. J. Styler, allows those whose skeletal systems have degraded to walk, run and take part in activities that they haven’t been able to do in years.”

“Luna.” Speedster’s tone was flat as she called her friend. Startled, Luna turned to look at Juliet, who was, for the first time since her Fusion completely still, staring at the screen with a look that was equal parts disgust and anger, “Tell me you’re not seeing what I’m seeing.”

Luna turned towards the screen and let out a startled gasp at the sight she beheld. “There’s no way...”

“Looks like there is.” Speedster let out a low growl, ignoring the headache beginning to form behind her eyes as she beheld the ‘robosuit’ which was little more than a full body metal suit, attached to a human form and controlled by computers via directions from the person inside. “I think I’ve found Buttnik.”

“What was his name again?” Luna asked, scrabbling to remember as the news report ended.

“Dr. J. Styler.” Speedster answered easily, getting to her feet. “And I think I had better pay him a visit.”

“Speeds, you can’t just walk into his office and demand to speak to him, not after an announcement like this.” Luna pointed out, “You’re going to need to contact his office and try and arrange a date, say it’s for part of your journalism course or something.”

“But I’m not on a...”

“I know you’re not,” Luna interrupted, “But you might be able to blag it. Hell, talk to Zara, she’s doing a physiology doctorate. This is totally related to her studies. She might be able to get you in.”

“Zara’s already chosen her thesis subject but it’s worth a shot.” Speedster allowed, thinking as she paced up and down the living room. “I need to speak to him, make sure he knows he’s not getting away with it again...”

“Oh...oh!” Luna’s eyes widened as she beheld her friend, “Juliet! Stop.” Furious emerald green eyes flashed in her direction as Juliet stopped mid step to wheel around and stare at her.

“Yes?” Speedster demanded.

“Jules, you’re not thinking like you right now.” Luna pointed out carefully, watching the girl whose body language was all wrong. She recognised the posture and posing now as the same as when Juliet had first Fused, back before the personality contamination from her Fusion had settled down properly. It probably didn’t help that when they had Fused, they had gotten a small dose of the memories of the person they were Fused with and this would have triggered those memories. However she had to pull her friend back. “Stop for a moment and think about this carefully. You’re not the hero of a world right now, you’re a postwoman who might be about to interfere in something that doesn’t concern you.”

“But...”

“I know what those looked like.” Luna held up her hands, her tone placating, “But what if this Doctor isn’t evil? What if he’s actually trying to use the memories and knowledge he gained to help people? Do you really want to put a stop to that.”

“No, but...” Speedster huffed, “You don’t get it, Luna.”

“Then explain it to me, because dashing off to confront someone you don’t know, in some unknown location seems like a pretty bad plan to me. You should at least get some intel first, maybe ask Bookworm or one of the others for...” Luna trailed off as her phone rang, “help, one sec.”

Speedster resumed pacing as Luna answered the phone, which was ringing to the tune of some Egyptian piece of music. “Luna speaking. Hi Mako, yeah I saw, so did Speeds.” When Juliet waved at her, Luna grinned slightly, “She says hi. Sure, sure. Okay. Wait now? But... Speeds isn’t going to want to...okay, we’ll be there shortly. Bye.”

“Now what?” Speedster asked as Luna put the phone down.

“Snap needs footage, tonight, for her project hand in on Friday. Apparently she needed it a week and a half ago, but someone,” Luna gave her a sharp look, “Wasn’t around and wasn’t contactable. Anyway Mako says she’ll talk with us about what was on the news while we’re there, so maybe we can come up with a saner plan than yours.”

“My plan is fine.” Juliet grouched.

“No, no it wasn’t. Give us a chance to come up with a better one. If we haven’t thought of one by the end of recording, you can go be crazy.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy to want to nip this in the bud now.” Speedster grouched as she grabbed a few things and shoved them in her backpack, before following Luna out the door.

“No, it’s completely reasonable.” Luna allowed as she guided her friend to where Mako had said for them to meet, “But you have to have a plan. You actually need to know where he is, where he works and have an appointment. If you go storming in, talking about something someone did in another world, you’ll get kicked out. And possibly thrown in the loony bin.”

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 9

“Yup, apparently she would have been back last week but her parents wouldn’t stop fussing at her.” Luna was just as pleased. She had been amongst the group who had helped Bookworm’s parents help her grab all of her uni work she needed and get to the car. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience and she had been worried for ages.

“So what does she think about the current situation?” Juliet couldn’t help but ask.

“What do you think?” Luna sniggered, “She’s just looking forward to getting to work out what changes have been made during this new person’s Fusion.”

Speedster wasn’t surprised by that. Bookworm had slowly but steadily compiled a full list of their powers and abilities over the course of the last year via constant and persistent testing. ‘Any experiment worth doing was worth doing at least three times’ was a quote that had haunted most of the club members over their testing periods.

She couldn’t complain too much though. It had been Bookworm who had realised that yes, it was possible for her to get faster if she tried and had given her a training regimen to try. She was looking forward presenting the results to the scarily smart young woman at the first opportunity she had.

“She did insist that you went and visited as soon as possible though.” Luna added. “She was most put out to find out you weren’t hanging around the city at the moment.”

“It seemed safer.” Speedster shrugged, “Especially after there was nearly a brawl at the meeting.” Luna just sighed, unable to argue with her on that front. “She back in her halls or where?”

“Classes are over for the day, so she should be in her halls or in the lab, not sure which.”

“I’ll check in a minute.” Juliet decided, unpacking her tools from her backpack and grabbing a quick snack. “You coming with?” She asked Luna, who shook her head.

“Nah, I think I’ll crash here for a little bit.” She replied, “Mickey’s not home at the moment and I’m letting Shade get his ‘evil’ plan out of his system.”

“Should I be worried?” Juliet frowned.

“Considering someone saw him buying out every roll of cheap tin foil from the local shops, I think the only thing I have to be worried about is if he bought super glue to go with it.” Luna chuckled, “I swear that boy is just seeing how many small things he can get away with before my Other Self snaps and tries to sit on him.”

“Fair enough.” Speedster grinned back, “Alright, catch you later. If you’re still here when I’m done with Bookworm, we’ll order in?”

“Pizza?” The reply was plaintive causing Speedster to chuckle. Luna was almost as much of a gannet as she was, though neither of them could keep up with Goku. Though everyone’s appetites had increased after the Fusions, suggesting that they required more calories in order to fuel their new abilities, certain members of the Club had bigger appetites than others.

“Lots of pizza.” Juliet agreed, remembering that Luna alone could take down a twelve inch beast of a pizza without much effort and she could scoff down one and sides in record time. She started mentally making a list of what she wanted on her pizza as she left the house, closing the door properly before zooming off down the road and towards town and the halls where Bookworm normally lived during term time.

She was halfway there when she came across the first of the robots that Luna had told her about. Coming to a complete stop in front of it, almost skidding along the icy, slippery pavement into it and missing by inches, she examined the robot. Instinctual wariness, part of the personality contamination from her Fusion, kicked in as she stayed out of its reach, but circled it, trying to get a feel for the droid and what it could do.

There was no obvious weaponry on the robot. In fact as she scanned the droid, she felt relief bubbling up inside her. Luna’s worrying had gotten her a little bit nervous, but the tin can in front of her didn’t look like much of a threat. In fact she was pretty sure she could take down a small army of these with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back.

She paused when that thought crossed her mind and mentally kicked herself. ‘Ego check.’ She reminded herself as she darted around the robot and shot down the road towards her friend’s place.

Bookworm had obviously been warned that she was on her way as she was waiting for her outside the gates. She let the speeding blur in and watched as her friend skidded along the floor and stopped just short of sliding into the fence on the other side of the quad.

“You’re letting your breaking slip.” She commented as Speedster moved over to her side.

“No. Snow.” Juliet pointed to the white substance all over the floor, “Breaking is an absolute nightmare with the ground like this.”

“Get used to it.” Bookworm snorted, ushering Juliet inside and up to her flat which seemed rather empty considering the time of day. “So,” The smartest member of the Club said as she shut the door behind them, “I got an email from some of the others.” She watched Speedster flinch, “Is it true you’ve lost your World Sphere?”

“Yeah.” Juliet admitted with a wince, “It got knicked.”

“Well that sucks.” Bookworm shrugged, “Do you have your speed results for the last month?”

“No?” Juliet blinked, confused, having expected to get more of an earful from the Doctor to be. “I wasn’t sure if you would want it right now. I can get it from my digital dropbox if you want it?”

“Please and thank you.” Bookworm nodded, causing Juliet to flip open her phone and access her dropbox, attaching the file and sending it across to Bookworm’s email account. Bookworm practically pounced on the email, dragging her friend into her room so she could look at it on her big screen. “I can see where the snow hit.” She pointed at the results where Speedster had slowed down considerably for a week.

“I got used to it pretty quickly.” Juliet shrugged, unconcerned about the weeklong slow down when she considered the results for the following couple of weeks, “It’s just breaking that’s still a problem.”

“I can see that.” Bookworm allowed, before pausing and turning to look at her, “This wasn’t what I wanted you to come over for.” She admitted, sheepishness seeping onto her features. “I was hoping you could help me out with something.”

“Oh?” Speedster asked, curious, “What kind of help?”

“I...uhh.” Bookworm trailed off, “I have to start work on my thesis after Christmas and I was hoping I could get a hand.”

“Yes, but considering I graduated from a music degree and you’re taking a doctorate in physiological science, I’m not sure how I can...” Speedster trailed off, “You’re serious? You want to study me for your thesis?”

“The whole Club actually.” Bookworm admitted. “What the Shifts did to change us from normal people into what we are now.”

“You can’t honestly think that’s a good idea.” Speedster frowned, not entirely sure Bookworm had thought it through. “Thesis’s get published. Anyone could read it and find out about us!”

“Snap’s openly using the Club for her project.” Bookworm pointed out defiantly, “And she’s not planning on hiding her film. Last I heard she’s got plans on publishing it online and possibly seeing whether you guys would be willing to make more.”

“She hasn’t told us about that.” Juliet’s scowl deepened.

“No, she hasn’t told you.” Bookworm huffed, “Or Luna either since she can’t keep a secret for love nor money.”

“Great,” Juliet groaned, “Just great.” She sat back on Bookworm’s bed and considered her friend carefully, “So you seriously want to use us as our thesis project? Present us as a scientific fact?”

“Can you think of anyone else who ever had a thesis like it? This would be a completely new, ground breaking research. And I already have results both from before and after the transformation in your case because I have your marathon training times available.”

Juliet blinked at her, “You’re going to use the times that mapmyrun posted to my facebook wall as the baseline for ‘before?’”

“Yeap, and the speed results you’ve been giving me since you started my training program for ‘after.’” Bookworm nodded.

“I suppose it could work.” Speedster allowed, “What about the others, they don’t have results you can use for ‘before’ and ‘after’?”

“Spike’s pretty easy to work with, his ‘shell’ is obviously not normal. Shorty’s pretty normal but his alchemy isn’t, I can test the bounds of that. Without trying human transmutation of course.” Zara listed off, “Hex has photos of before she changed, I might even manage to help her shift some of that weight that suddenly appeared and I have ideas for the others too.”

“If you can do it without endangering the Club, I’ll play along.” Speedster nodded, “But you have to keep your results safe and secure and give us warning before you hand it in.”

“Deal.” Zara looked relieved, as if she had expected to get into more of an argument with her. “So, want the training plan for next month?” She asked, turning back to her computer.

“I thought I had one for next month?” Speedster looked curious as she glanced at the screen, only to wince and turn away from the backlit console.

“Sorry, still no luck with the contacts?” Bookworm frowned.

“It’s not the light.” Juliet explained, “So the contacts take the glare off, but they don’t help with the flickering. Nothing can.”