The world was back to normal. Somehow.

As soon as Milly realized, she hobbled out of the cafeteria and hurried back to the dorms.

Milly climbed up the stairs of the dorm. This time, she immediately heard the familiar echo of her footsteps. Was it weird to feel nostalgic for something that was only gone for a few minutes? Especially when she had barely noticed its absence in the moment?

The door to her room creaked as it was supposed to as well.

The noise startled Niki, who slammed shut the notebook they’d been using. She looked relieved when she saw Milly limp through the door. “Milly! You’re okay?”

“Other than basically falling off a building, just great.” Milly flashed a bravado-fueled smile. “Also, apparently cafeteria food is my kryptonite, but that’s unrelated. Seriously, though, my back is killing me.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Niki immediately got up. “Come on, I’ll take you to the nurse.”

“No way. I just escaped that place this morning. I don’t want to be stuck there again. What would I even tell her?” Milly shook her head. “I just want to take a shower and sleep it off in my own bed.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I understand you might not want to draw attention to yourself, but…” Niki bit her lip then glanced at her suitcase. “On second thought, go grab that shower. I might have an idea.”

“Thanks for not making this a big deal.” Milly snatched up her towel on the way. “We’ll talk after, okay? I’ve got tons to tell you!”

----------------------------------------

One refreshing and long overdue shower later, Milly wandered back into the room in her bathrobe, still toweling off her hair.

To her surprise, the floor was littered with random pieces of junk, clothing, a hairbrush, and one half-empty suitcase in the middle of the room. Fortunately, none of that was hers.

“Oh, hey!” Niki was cleaning up her mess when she noticed Milly come in. She quickly hopped to her feet and tried to kick some of it under the bed as if nothing was amiss. “That was quick.”

“Are you okay?” Milly asked.

“Mhm? Oh, this stuff?” Niki glanced around as though she’d only just noticed it then looked back to Milly. “Never mind that. Come here.”

Niki sat down on the foot end of Milly’s bed and patted beside her on the mattress. She fidgeted with a flat circular tin in her hands.

“What have you got there?” Milly took a seat.

“It’s a liniment balm,” Niki answered, only to receive a blank stare in return. So she popped open the tin to reveal a strong-smelling white substance. “A heat rub? It’s supposed to be an analgesic, uh, a painkiller. Whenever I was sore, my mom would massage me with it. It always helped. I just figured since you don’t want to go to the nurse…”

“This’ll fix my back?” Milly’s eyes watered a little just from the fumes of the stuff. On the tin lid was a sticker with bold text and a familiar figure.

Welder Grease!

Burns away what ails ya!

It had an image of The Welder in full hero costume, holding a fiery thumbs up.

Milly remembered old man Welder had once told her he’d done some product endorsement during the height of his popularity. Though he mostly just grumbled about ‘creative accounting’.

“It’ll feel better at least,” Niki’s response tumbled out just a little too quickly. She’d been on edge ever since Milly got back, but now she was spending more time looking down at the tin than at Milly. She rubbed a thumb over the rim. “S-so… do you want me to have a look?”

While Milly didn’t see how some grease was going to help, she felt it was a reasonable compromise if it made Niki feel better about her refusal to see the nurse.

“If you say it helps, sure.” Milly turned her back toward Niki and slipped her robe off her shoulders. The sudden cool air on her skin gave her a shiver while she moved her hair out of the way.

It wasn’t a big deal as far as Milly was concerned. She’d already seen the damage herself in the mirror. Sure, she was red and sore, but it wasn’t that different from getting bucked off of a horse; she’d survived that more than once. Some rest and lemonade had always worked for her. It made no sense for Niki to be so nervous about it.

The real thing they should be focused on was figuring out how her power worked. Maybe all Milly needed was a trigger and then an hour later she’d slow down again? That would explain how randomly it ended.

“That must have been some fall,” Niki commented from behind Milly. “I don’t see any blood, so I think we’re good to go. This might be a bit cold at first, okay?”

“Alright,” Milly said while she tried to once more go over everything she did on the track field. “Do you think it will trigger every time I-iiii!”

Milly squealed as, rather than a cold dollop of cream, she felt Niki’s hands on her bare skin just under her shoulder blades.

“Did that hurt?”

“Uhm, no.” Milly sat frozen still as Niki continued carefully down Milly’s spine.

It only now dawned on Milly that this was what she had readily agreed to. No wonder Niki had acted so nervous! Milly could barely keep her composure while her heart felt like the only part of her that had suddenly regained her superspeed.

Meanwhile, Niki had left a tingling sensation in her wake. She briefly backed off and took more from the tin. “You should be feeling it soon,” she said before rubbing Milly’s shoulders and down to her ribs.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Milly wasn’t sure if that was because of the Welder Grease or just the touch. Either way, it was slowly turning to heat. Actual heat. Like she had her back to an open campfire that kept getting closer. She even felt the heat on her face, and Niki had gone nowhere near that.

“Y-yeah. I guess it’s working?” The fire was so overwhelming that Milly couldn’t tell if her back still ached. She supposed that was kind of like a painkiller if she didn’t notice it anymore. “The slogan on the tin makes sense now. Can you keep going?”

Her tension melted. It felt good in more ways than one.

“Sure! But only the first hit is free. I’ll have to charge you for the rest.” Niki’s voice carried that hint of smugness again. She gave a single-fingered stroke down Milly’s sides as a preview.

Ticklish, Milly squirmed at the tease. She didn’t need to see Niki’s face to know she was smiling in devilish delight to discover her weakness.

“Oh, please don’t stop. What could I offer you in return?” Milly pleaded in exaggerated sorrow.

Ever merciful, Niki picked up where she’d left off while openly musing on her price. “Oh, let me think. Your desserts for a week? Nah. Or maybe you could do my homework? No, I don’t want my grades to slip… Oh, I know. I’ve never gotten to ride the Ferris wheel before.”

“You want to go on a Ferris wheel?” Milly cast a puzzled glance over her shoulder and caught Niki hastily looking away. The proverbial quarter dropped. “Oh… Oh! You mean like a date?”

“Don’t act so surprised when it was your idea! Unless you are getting some cliché cold feet?” Niki reached down and ran her fingers over Milly’s soles. “There!”

Milly squeaked and squirmed. To her relief, the touch was brief. A moment later, she realized what Niki had done when the Welder Grease lit a fire under her feet. She pulled her robe up and spun to face Niki. “That was evil! And rich coming from you. A Ferris wheel? Now that’s cliché. What? Was your first choice the tunnel of love before you chickened out?” Milly stuck out her tongue.

Niki huffed and crossed her arms. “If you think it’s sooo easy, then why don’t you pick a spot? Fair warning, we don’t have any hay attics.”

They glared at each other.

Then they both cracked up laughing.

“A hay attic?” Milly wheezed. “Did you mean a hayloft?”

“I don’t even know what either of those are!” Niki admitted while she doubled over. “I just thought it sounded southern!”

“Remind me to show you someday.” Milly giggled and slowly regained some composure. “Aahh, okay. So, a Ferris wheel then? I can work with that.”

“No,” Niki shook her head. “Honestly, I panicked and just picked something. I’ve got a better idea in mind.”

“Oh?”

Niki wagged her finger. “I’m not telling, but I trust you are free tonight?”

“Gah! Fine.” Milly conceded. “It’s not as if I’m going to spend all day thinking about this.”

“Good news then. I know exactly how to take your mind off it for a bit.” Niki blindly reached up to her bed and pulled down her laptop. She pushed her glasses further up her nose with a glint. “Why don’t you start by telling me everything about that new power of yours?”

“Oh, right!”

----------------------------------------

“And once I realized I was back in real time, I came here! I guess that was about an hour ago.”

Milly concluded her tale with just about ten minutes to spare before the start of class. She’d managed to get dressed in the meantime.

“And you have no idea what caused it or made it go away?” Niki sat cross-legged at the foot end of Milly’s bed, laptop across her lap.

“Not a clue!” Milly threw her hands up and let herself fall backwards into her pillow. “I guess I was running when it triggered? And I was sitting when it stopped, but that can’t be it.”

“But you were eating, correct? Perhaps it was the introduction of a large quantity of matter that was out of sync with your own.” Niki rattled away on her keyboard. Every new, unknown aspect of Milly’s experience only energized Niki. “Unless it is completely random, we should be able to identify a pattern or triggers. What about when you were in the air? Did that feel the same?”

Milly grimaced just thinking about her fall. “No, I just stopped and fell, but I wasn’t dizzy or anything leading up to it. I ran up the wall, into the sky and BAM! Got swatted and crashed into the roof like a second later.”

“…Strange.” Niki looked up from her notes. “How could you fall?”

“Uhm, gravity? Hello?” Milly propped herself up with her elbows. She gave Niki an incredulous look. “How do you not know how falling works?”

Niki shook her head. “You were four stories up. It should have taken at least a second to fall down.”

“It did. Weren’t you listening? That’s what I’m telling you.”

“That is the problem. What you are describing is impossible. A one-second fall for me should have been a five-minute fall for you.”

“Oh, right!” Milly shot upright and snapped her fingers. “Because it would be in Milly-time!”

“That’s what you are calling it?” Niki tried and failed to stifle her giggle with a hand.

“S-shut up!” Milly blushed. “Just tell me about the fall thing! If I move faster, wouldn’t I just fall faster too?”

“Do turtles fall slower than hares? You already identified that while you operate in Milly-time,” Niki grinned while she watched Milly squirm, “everything else still uses normal rules. This includes gravity. Anything you dropped appeared to float because the acceleration caused by the pull of gravity is time dependent. That’s why the longer you fall, the harder you fall, generally.”

Milly gave a slow nod. Aside from the light roasting, that was helpful. “So, I lost my superspeed in the air? That’s why I fell quickly?”

“Perhaps, but that would not explain how you stopped dead in midair. Your momentum should have carried you up a hundred times as high and…” Niki’s eyes went wide as a dawning realization set in. “How do you even run?! It should be as if you were on the moon!”

“It felt normal to me.” Milly shrugged. Still, now that Niki had pointed it out, it struck Milly as strange. “Maybe I’ll see how high I can jump next time… if I can find something softer to land on, anyway.”

Niki looked down at her screen while a rapid stream of keyboard clicks indicated she was already working on solving the mystery of speedster running. “Good luck with that. If you go up high enough, even water will be like concrete. You’re lucky that most superpowers come with a bit of extra durability or you might still be on that roof, but it was still a nasty fall,” Niki said with all the tact of a bullwhip.

The image of herself lying alone and broken on the roof made Milly shiver. Niki’s social bandwidth was usually limited while her attention was elsewhere, but couldn’t she have made that sound a little less horrifying?

It wasn’t really the comment that bugged her. It had been the first time in a while that Milly had gotten to enjoy Niki’s full and undivided attention, but now Niki was focused on a quirk of physics instead.

Logically, Milly knew Niki was only trying to help.

“Bring a parachute. Got it.” Milly rolled off the bed and winced as she stressed her back. She nearly forgot it was supposed to hurt, thanks to Niki greasing her up.

Gross.

Milly shivered and made a mental note not to refer to it like that again. She checked her phone.

“Class will start soon. Are you coming?”

Niki didn’t respond while Milly left.

Milly shrugged it off and walked down the stairwell.

She paused.

Something was missing.

The echo hit her a second later.

“Oh, come on!”