While You Were Out

[wannabeflashlantern]

A loud screeching noise can be heard coming from the landing bay. That could only mean one thing. He had finally got the Baby Box to work again, and Gold Sentinel was in the hangar of the Watchtower.

"Sir! We've arrived! Finally"
"Scooter, I'm surprised it got enough energy for this jump. We finally got half those riots under control. Thank God for the Titans, JSA, the GG and Big Science Action."
"Riot control is hard, sir. I'm just happy Shazam and Green Lantern were available to help manage the eastern seabord."

Alas, the skies turning green can cause panic. And while the YJLA was dealing with the problem, the other teams and their two teammates, Gold Sentinel and Scooter, were stranded on Earth trying to keep people calm. GS had settled for setting his Centrifuge Beam to "super dizzy" and making people be too concerned they were going to ralph to keep stealing televisions, canned food and water.

Why were they stealing televisions? Did they expect MTV and The Office to outlive the Earth? These questions and others baffled Gold Sentinel, but not all was lost. Or at least, he hoped.

"Hey! YJLA! Anybody home?"

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[wannabeflashlantern]

As they turned the corner, he grabbed the door for her again and paid the nice blonde woman at the counter. "Thanks, Mrs. Cho," he said when they were done. "Here we are, the best Chinese food within walking distance for the velocity impaired." He hands her a plate, with the simple warning of "hot" and goes to browse.

Mr. Cho was going to be angry with him, but he did still have that flat screen to fix for him... so maybe they'd call it even.

[crazy_fast]

The smell was what she noticed first, it was like walking headlong into a wall of pure delicious. How had she never heard of this little hole int he wall before?

"Yeah, you're hot too." She snickered knowing full well he'd meant the plate, but hey, she knew she was cute. She was also a horrible flirt, blame her mother.

Genna kept it only slightly faster than normal human speed, but her plate was piled full shortly. A huge pile of assorted food that would terrify most women let alone figure conscious teen girls. But Genna had no problem eating all she wanted, in fact not eating tended to be the issue for her. She had to have fuel in the tank to keep her going after all. Swift as her name implied she found herself a seat in a booth and waited for him to join her before she started eating. Except for a snap pea, but that wasn't really eating right? Just munching.

[wannabeflashlantern]

He grinned at her comment. Scott, old boy, you still got it.

He's just slightly slower, and eating about as much. A side effect of a speedy genius brain is it likes to absorb calories.

He brought her a frosty beverage along with his own, and grinned at her.

"Yeah. That's a speedster's plate."

[crazy_fast]

Genna gladly accepted the drink and sipped it. She was ravenous but there were social conventions to observe, Mother had made her very much aware of that. It was why she tended to eat at home so much, she could do so at her own speed. In public things were different, she had to keep the speed, if not the portions, fairly normal.

"Occupational hazard, what's your excuse?" She gestured with the blunt end of her fork to his plate. It was actually kind of impressive to her though.

[wannabeflashlantern]

"Dad had a theory about that. When you're the only member of the family that is forced to obey the sound barrier, much less the light barrier, you have to think faster to make up for it. So while I'm not a speedster, my brain is." He smiles at her. "Plus I tend to do calisthenics and aerobics when I am working on a new experiment during the calibration for the nanites."

He takes a few bigger bites then goes back to talking after he swallows.

"So in an average day, despite my size, I can burn about 2500 without even moving around. It's a nice side effect... when I don't forget to eat."

[crazy_fast]

"So 'think fast' is a literal thing for you." She liked that, that meant he could understand what it was like in her head half the time. He went on but her mind was still buzzing and she leaned in between bites to ask him a question quietly.

"Does the rest of the world seem to creep by for you? Like you have to wait an eternity for it to catch up with what you already know?"

[wannabeflashlantern]

"Not just the world. My own body when I'm out of my suit. It's... infuriating sometimes."

"The whole world can't figure it out. We're on problem 99 by the time they get to 2, and that's with showing our work." He grins at her.

And somebody else finally gets it.

[crazy_fast]

"I know! I hate it, I feel," And she blushed, because she often felt guilty for even thinking this way. "It's like I'm the only normal person in a room full of mentally challenged people and I con only finish when they do. I mean I know some bright people but they take forever to figure things out."

She leaned back, never having talked with anyone but her dad about this before. "It's like this story my Dad had me read, it was called...I think Harrison Bergeron or something. Anyway it was about this one guy who was exceptional, but the world wanted everyone to be equal so they made him wear a mask and wear these weights to slow him down so he was as slow as everyone else to be 'fair.'"

She stabbed a piece of chicken and looked up at him, a little guiltily. "Somedays I really don't want to be fair. I want to just run out the door and not stop, and go as fast as I can until I can't run anymore."

[wannabeflashlantern]

"I was the only one in my family who couldn't." He sighed. "But yeah. Screw being fair." He puts his hand on Genna's and smiles. He comes in close to her and whispers "Fair's for the people who can't repair a Mother Box from scraps or run past the horizon. We're unfair by nature. Why fight it?"

He leans back. "Hell. Why do I tinker in my basement? Because I was the most 'fair' of my family. And I want to be even more 'unfair' than they were."

[crazy_fast]

All and all fair wasn't a bad way to be most of the time, but she really thrilled to the idea he suggested and that bit of Chaos began twisting and turning inside her looking to break free again. Oh he could be such fun, and such bad news for her.

"So, what do you say after we eat, we impress each other with just how unfair we can be?" She could run him into the dust, but he had his own tricks up those shiny sleeves of his.

[wannabeflashlantern]

He gives her a grin like no girl as seen on his face in a long while. "I could go for that." He though to himself about the whole thing. She was probably faster and stronger than his armor could match (well, in it's current state) but he doubted she could do half the stuff he could.

Though he'd be sure to take the old Silver Sentinel suit with him as well. If this went well, he had a fun idea how to top it all off.

[crazy_fast]

"Oh you're on, future boy."

That grin, that should be illegal. She packed away her meal now that she had a real reason to get it out of the way. Still not at top speed but anyone watching her would have noticed things were not entirely normal. At one point she seemed to flicker, it was just an instant but he'd notice his glass was refilled as was her's and she'd hit the dessert table.