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?"

Comments

[crazy_fast]

Genna couldn't remember being this excited for something since she was little. An all out, no holding back contest, this was gonna rock. She'd made a quick change back into her suit, it wasn't anything fancy but at the speeds she traveled she needed something that could keep up. And her yellow shades, a variant of her fathers goggles when he'd handed them down to her.

Tucked into the depths of her ear canals were tiny ear buds that worked with a little device that rested against her wrist. It sensed her heartbeat and played music from her library accordingly, more over it played it at speeds that her brain didn't have to slow down for. Inside her head was the echo chamber, she had a front row seat for one hell of a concert as she stepped onto the arid salt flats.

Swift cracked her knuckles, eyed the horizon and...was gone.

[wannabeflashlantern]

A small touch to his visor and the white nanites in Scott's system set his eyes into overtime so they could keep up with his brain. A blur. Better than what everyone else was seeing.

Where will you be, cutey... ah, that's it. She was not using patterns, which was difficult to track. So instead, he'd have to improvise. Gauntlets set to Cold, and the flats were suddenly slick with ice that was smooth, too smooth. Copied from Captain Cold's gun, the beam made the ice super slick, and then a large sheet of ice at the end of each one. A stun blast to crack the ice, and a centrifuge beam blast to make the cracked ice into snow.

Now to wait for her to start slipping for a soft landing, as he shoots up into the air, thirty meters up, and his old Magnafield up just in case.

And a small hope she'd slow down enough he could catch a glimpse of her that wasn't too out of focus, though he had to admit, her speed was pretty cool.

[crazy_fast]

she was running along well, not top speed. Not by a long shot, but no normal eyes could follow her. Yep she was doing great..until everything got suddenly very slippery. She lost all friction and with it all control of her momentum. Genna windmilled her arms as her feet slid across the ice. "CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!"

She tumbled to a knee and kept rolling forward into the newly piled snow. Ohhh was that how he wanted to play? Faster than he could watch, possibly faster than he could dodge, a barrage of snowballs launched at him from all directions.

[wannabeflashlantern]

Magnetic shields do NOTHING against snowballs. He's bucking back and forth, unable to fly out fast enough, when he grins at this and kills his flight system to drop out, the reactivates it once he's near the ground. The Mach 3 system turns on for a swoop, and then he thinks.

Fast snowballs. No fire arsenal. What to do?

Both arms shot out a golden centrifuge beam. The minute it hit her, she'd start spinning in place until the effects wore off. Catch him... probably thirteen point seven four three nine four one two seconds of her spinning in place. Enough time to get a few snowballs on her... and maybe something else.

If he hit her, that was.

[crazy_fast]

Oh, spinning, not good. Not on a fully stomach anyway. it left her vulnerable for a good seven seconds, but he underestimated her. Genna turned into the spin, using it's momentum to power her own and channeling that outward to create a vortex, her arms widened to disperse that out as a cyclone headed right for him.

Sure he hit her, but she was giving that turn about as fair play.

[wannabeflashlantern]

Tornado, hell.

He swallowed. This was not going to be fun. He turned the centrifuge beam in on himself and set it to make him spin until the other tornado was counteracted.

He overshot it and a dust devil ran off for a few seconds.

And now he was disoriented. Horribly.

He fell down straight on his butt and hoped to God nothing bad happened while he was down.

[crazy_fast]

Hope all you want bright boy, it doesn't help. Scott would find himself in motion, a hand gripping the back of his suit and dragging him fast enough that he seemed to hover, faster still until he was rising like a human kite. Still faster and then they were both up, not true flight, not like some supers had, but a light sort of graceful glide that held them aloft with just the swiftly passing ground beneath them to indicate the speed at which they were really moving.

[wannabeflashlantern]

"... So where are you taking me?" He asked, trying to keep up, knowing sound would file backward behind them. It wasn't worth anything to try.

But he was in awe. He hadn't gone this fast in years. Not since he was seven and his dad decided to take him running as a try.

And even then, maybe this was a little faster. Despite the disorientation, his smile got wider as they went faster.

[crazy_fast]

She chanced a glance at, so he liked speed huh? She slowed them down enough that they landed with a couple gentle hops. Still moving too fast to just stop and not risk deceleration trauma to his innards though. "You like it fast? How good is that suit? How well does it protect you I mean."

Genna had an idea.

[wannabeflashlantern]

"It can protect me from debris of up to roughly three thousand seven hundred kilometers per hour in a vacuum and from most blunt force traumas of about 20 Palmer units. That's roughly having a Volkswagon Beetle tossed at you." He's starting to wonder what's going to happen.

"I can make a fifty foot stop from Mach 1 in it. It can magnetically deflect debris, or create a wind based shield under five hundred kilometers per hour." He looks to her. "That enough information for you?"

[crazy_fast]

A little rush of mental math, a blink of the eye to most people but she calculated his safe threshold at under mach three.

"Good enough, you might want to hang on." She was grinning again, he should be learning about that look by now. She would let him take hold and secure his grip with her own hands and then when he was secure she would run.

She was going for flat out speed this time, it was a thrill, even if less than half her top off pace, but still to break free and just do it made her laugh.

[wannabeflashlantern]

He laughed too.

This was a rush. He had gone fast flying before, but now there was no tingling sensation, no electric feeling.

Just running. Just speed.

It was exhilarating.

Something else though. Oh right. Running with a hot chick.

Better than just running. Being unfair with an unfair person. Very fun.

[crazy_fast]

And now for the kicker. She gave a boost, a kick off of the ground and set them gliding once again. This time with something just a little different, it would be safe out here. Safe where no one could get hurt or things damaged. Right?

Genna tapped into that bit of Chaos inside her, pulled it out until it touched them both. Pure Chaos, it had a way of altering things, making them wild. The sky flashed over in colors, temperature varied wildly, even inside the emotions and thoughts could be roiled and turned. It was the nature of chaos to spin things out of and spit them out randomly, and a big random would be headed their way shortly.

[wannabeflashlantern]

The waves of temperature, the colors, all of it hit him at once. "Hell of a light show," he thought, though his brain followed the whole thing.

Chaos... chaos... oh lord. This is dangerous. This could backfire. She doesn't care.

That's it. She's staying.

Say what you will about Scott, he enjoys the danger sometimes. And this was some time she was giving him.

[crazy_fast]

"If you liked that, you'll love this"

Welcome to the world of Chaos, unbridled, unbound by the laws of physics. The world fell away beneath them like sand through a sieve. The fabric of reality warped around them, and thoughts solidified, sounds had scent, taste could be felt, time was a butterfly idly flexing it's wings on the stalk of a flower that once might have been a concept of love. In short all he knew, or thought he knew, all laws of nature were forfeit.

You wanted to get a thrill? This was about as extreme as it could get. Let him bask in that for just a bit. Normal humans couldn't take exposure to it for long and Genna had decided she liked him enough that she didn't want to leave him with mental scars. So with deliberate care she eased out of chaos and back into normal reality. She slowed them down and brought them to a drifting stop in a could of dust far across the flats from where they started.

"I believe the term you're looking for is 'rocked your world.'" She smirked and folded arms over her small bust.

[wannabeflashlantern]

"Now how am I going to match that?" He asked, his eyes still not expecting what he had just seen. Or was it registering? No, it wasn't registering. My gods, he thought to himself. It was an altogether different feeling than the one time Henry had let him experience how flying with a ring was, it was different than time travel, it was... something very peculiar, something amazing. Something he knew he couldn't harness, though he was surprisingly eighty percent okay with that.

He left out a long breath. If he was the sort to smoke, he'd want a cigarette right now and he wasn't sure why. "Quick question. Have you ever been to the edge of the atmosphere?" He knew she had been on the satellite, but what he was thinking was entirely different.

[crazy_fast]

He was taking it surprisingly well actually, she'd seen other people faint dead away with just a touch of chaos. He was stronger than that. Or more of a daredevil, he could get you in trouble but he'd be so much fun to play with. The chaos within her stirred again but she kept a practiced lid on it.

"I've been on the 'tower. But like, on my own? No, my powers don't work that way. Speed needs friction, space doesn't offer much of that."

[wannabeflashlantern]

"Here." He hands her the silver costume he brought. "It'll protect you and sync up with my armor. Put it on and... you showed me the colors. I'm going to show you the stars."

[crazy_fast]

Ok that? That was smooth. She grinned and in an instant was in the suit, already having had time to check and recheck it.

"Not exactly what I'm used to." It was bulky and lose, for someone more used to wearing a second skin this felt awkward and clumsy. But he'd held on for her trip, she would be more than happy to give him his shot.

[wannabeflashlantern]

"Activating black nanites." The suit tightens to be a little closer to her second skin she's used to. It's purely the flight system; the weapon systems burnt off on the Silver Sentinel suit on it's first run. "Scooter, we won't be gone long."

"Okay sir." The little robot mutters as Scott and Genna shoot into the air. Not too fast, close to about Mach 3. "Now hold on. The visor is actually transmitting my words into your skull so we don't outrun the soundwaves. And don't let go of me once we breach the atmosphere. Without the valorium's natural forcefield, you'd have about three minutes of air left in your suit before you suffocate."

An audible pop was heard. No, not a pop. Half a pop. The other half was lost to the void of space.

"Welcome to the quietest place ever. Right above the layer of most of the satellites, and five hours away from the Watchtower."

And he was enjoying standing there, holding her, watching the planet slowly turn.

[crazy_fast]

"Oh, ok this is better." Still, her ass had to look enormous in this thing. Oh well, forsake fashion for safety in this case.

She blinked when she realized she wasn't hearing him as she normally would. Told you he'd get in your head Shut up! She mentally chastised the snickering in her. "Hang on, got it."

Not like she had plans of letting go, flight wasn't her thing but the speed was at least comfortable. She could keep up with him all day if he wanted to--

"...Whoa."

Her silence was accompanied by wide eyes looking around her and finally down at the Earth. Able to see it rotating from her vantage point. "This is... wow."

If she seemed a little in awe, that was about right. She was holding on to him but moment by moment stretching that connection. Moving until there was just the most tenuous connection between them. She loved the idea of being on that edge.

[wannabeflashlantern]

He kept holding onto her by just a fingertip until he started to feel his armor heat up. Dammit, we went too long. Twenty minutes of expanding the forcefield that far would make the mesh start to heat up. He spun to grab her hand and put his arm around her, and the armor began to cool. "Care to dance among the stars?"

[crazy_fast]

She spun back, gracefully turning until her chest came to rest against his, and he saw the biggest grin on her face.

"That's...one verb."

Sure, she would dance with him, but her adrenaline was running high there was no doubt about it.

[wannabeflashlantern]

"Yes it is. I could think of a few more." He knows she's fast enough even in space that if she wants to dodge this, she could. But he goes in for a light kiss, and is willing to see her reaction.

[crazy_fast]

Dodge? Nope.

Light kiss? Also nope.

You got her out here buddy, you'll have to deal with the consequences. Those consequences in this case being a rather heated and long, drawn out kiss.

Just don't be offended if she doesn't close her eyes, she's still taking in the sights.