“Who’s a good boy!” Milly giggled while she pet an adorable golden retriever. She didn’t even have to duck since this one was in the middle of jumping out from the hatch of an SUV. Milly ruffled his ears, then twirled away, continuing her trek toward the latest alarm.
For the past few hours, no animal had been safe. It wasn’t Milly’s fault they were the perfect way to entertain herself while she traveled. It turned long, boring walks into fun treasure hunts! Every cute dog on a leash, cat on a prowl, or even the occasional raccoon in the trash were all great finds.
It really helped to keep her spirits up. Especially since every alarm had been false so far.
On the hunt, Milly kept a close eye on her surroundings. There was no telling where her next fuzzy victim could be hiding. It could even be a purse puppy!
So far it was just people, though. A gaggle of old ladies chatted by a newspaper stand. A young boy was crossing the road. A hotdog vendor taped a sign that read ‘no refunds’ while a customer looked about to throw up. A garbage truck was parked on the road.
“The closest thing to a dog on this street is apparently toxic waste.” Milly sighed.
She plucked a newspaper out of the trash, rolled it into a wide cone, then placed it in the customer’s hands. One less mess.
“Something feels off.” Milly looked back to the boy, then to the parked garbage truck. The boy was passing just in front of it, which ought to be fine, but still. “…How sure am I that it’s parked?”
If it was moving, how fast was it moving compared to the boy? Did he know he had time to cross before the truck got to him? That driver looked kinda concerned.
Milly grumbled. It was so hard to judge the relative speed when the entire world stood still. She hopped up onto the truck step by the driver-side door, then peered in.
“A foot on the brake. Good.” Milly at least knew what the pedals did. She’d gotten an impromptu lesson from her dad when they were stuck in a ditch once. “The speedometer says… twenty-nine. Not so good.”
“Right!” Milly hopped down and dusted off her hands. “Well, this is a car accident waiting to happen. In the middle of happening, really. Judging by the size of this truck, whatever it hits will be flat as a soda suntanning in July.”
She walked over to the boy. “That means you, by the way. I’m just gonna move you over to the sidewalk, alright? Don’t worry. I’m positive it won’t hurt a bit! Some of the dogs even seemed to like it. Granted, I’ve never tried it with a person before. It might not be fun, but I am sure you’ll be okay. Just… lemme try to figure out some handholds here. I don’t think you can grab people the same way as dogs…” After a brief inspection, she gingerly wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted him.
Fortunately, she had gotten plenty of practice while moving the pets around. She wasn’t sure how it worked, but nobody she had touched while trying to be careful had gotten hurt.
That made little sense. At the speed she was going, any touch ought to be dangerous. Like it had been to the custodian.
Even right now.
Milly shuffled backward across the street with the boy.
He was fine, but most of the force to move him came from her arms. Realistically, she might as well be hitting him in the gut with a baseball bat, but he wasn’t even curled over from the difference in acceleration between his waist and head.
Milly wasn’t merely fast. She was selectively bending the laws of physics. A scary thought, but not actually that strange when it came to superpowers.
The tricky bit was how to better control it.
So far, Milly figured there had to be some correlation between her intentions, intuition, and emotions that determined the effects of her power. She had meant no active harm to the custodian, but she had been annoyed and scared when she tapped him. When she kicked the wall and cratered it, she’d been frustrated. When she ran into the tree and shattered it, she’d been beyond upset. Plus, whatever the heck happened on that rooftop that smacked her back down, the only thing Milly knew for sure about that was that she’d panicked.
Perhaps that was why she’d thought objects were easy to manipulate. For the most part, she’d been calm —bored even— when she experimented with those. If she thought about her power like any other skill, then it made sense she had an issue with control while under pressure.
“Huh, if that’s the case, it’s not that different from preparing for a race. I gotta practice.” Milly concluded before she pulled the boy up onto the sidewalk with a grunt. People were heavy. She took a little time to check his new surroundings to make sure he wouldn’t run into anything or fall back into the street when the confusion of ‘teleporting’ hit him.
“Okay, I reckon you're good to go. I hope it’s not too disorienting for you. As I was saying, I never moved a person before. Or anything that stands on two legs, really…” Milly reflected on that. “Should I just lay you down? Just in case? Yeah, let’s lay you down.”
Disaster averted. She’d get Niki to help her figure out what being moved was like later.
“Alright, where was I?” Milly asked as she resumed her journey. “Oh, right. Alarms, pets, and practice.”
Reaching behind her back, Milly pulled a folded city map out of the waistband of her skirt. The school uniform was cute, but Milly wished the dang thing came with pockets. Just one more thing that wasn’t functioning quite as well as she’d have liked. At least that map worked immediately, rather than in three-second intervals like her phone. “Let’s see here… looks like I can cut through the alley and one more street. Almost there!”
Milly folded it back up while she walked, then paused at the entrance to the alleyway. Long bare walls of solid brick on either side. That gave her an idea. “Speaking of practice.” She sprinted at the wall and jumped. She felt her feet catch the rough stone as she ran horizontally along the wall. It was as effortless as the first time, with two notable exceptions.
First, this way she wouldn’t risk launching herself into space! She was only waist high the whole trip!
Second…
Milly remained calm and started slowing down when she was still a good ten meters away from running out of wall. Pumping the brakes like that, she managed to drop off the wall and back onto the street with a couple of stumbling steps before she came to a complete stop.
After a quick once over to make sure she didn't do any damage, Milly flashed a victory sign.
“Heck yeah! I could do this all day!”
----------------------------------------
The backend of a van jutted out of the shattered remains of a jeweler’s storefront. A sign reading ‘Polish, Perfection, & Prestige’ had come crashing down and cracked over the van’s roof. People were running away. Pandemonium.
Perfect.
“Finally! The alarm actually paid off!” Milly shouted, barely believing it herself. She abandoned her casual stroll along the wall and dashed toward the mayhem.
Well, mayhem to everyone else. To Milly, it was a still image that she could easily take her time to assess.
Glass and treasure littered the nice red carpet inside the store while two masked crooks were looting everything they could get their hands on. Crouched behind the counter in the back was a man in a nice suit and bowtie, the jeweler.
“Okay… now what do I do?” Milly walked around the store while she considered her options. Crooks, victims, evidence, hazards, stolen goods… She wasn’t sure what took priority. “Does it even matter?”
In hindsight, ACE had acted so quickly when Meatcrawl attacked the pizzeria. In barely a few seconds, they had engaged the villain and rescued Niki and her. How did they know what to do?
“Maybe those team resources Ruth mentioned included training… Eh, not like it matters right now.”
Still, remembering her own experience on the other side helped.
Milly hopped over the counter and checked on the cowering jeweler first. He had some cuts and scrapes on his face and hands, but he was otherwise okay. Apparently, he was of no interest to the crooks, not even to keep him at gunpoint, just his wares.
Milly brushed some glass fragments off of his vest. “You’ll be fine. I’m gonna get you out of here.” She ducked down and slipped under his arm so it was around her shoulders.
“Here goes—oomph!” She could barely get him to budge. The boy had been one thing, but a grown man was so much heavier than she’d imagined!
After a few more fruitless attempts to stand up with him, Milly abandoned that approach. “Forget this. I’ll just drag you out,” Milly said before she looked around at all the glass on the floor.
“On second thought, this is a pretty good spot.” Milly awkwardly slipped away and clambered over the counter again.
Perhaps she had gotten a little carried away. The plan was just to observe, after all. She didn’t actually have to do anything if nobody was in danger.
She just had to wait it out.
----------------------------------------
After hanging around for ten Milly-minutes, boredom was once again the biggest threat.
Milly kicked her feet while laying on top of the van. The best spot she could think of to monitor things without being too easily noticed. Nobody ever looked up.
She turned the final page on a comic book she’d borrowed from the bookstore next door. “To be continued? Bleh!” She casually dropped it over the edge. It never hit the floor, merely crawling to a stop mid-air.
“Can’t you guys hurry up?” The glass cracked beneath her feet as she dropped down and strolled up to the bigger of the two crooks. He was crouched down to grab a watch, yet he was nearly eye level with her as she complained at him. “Maybe you could call your boss for an update? I’ll… wait a second.”
Milly frisked the big crook. She came away with his wallet, and most importantly: his phone! Of course, the lock screen barred her way.
“Dang.” Milly grumbled. She’d already grabbed the comic book from the air and walked halfway to the bookstore in the time it took for the phone to finally show it required a code or a face. “It ain’t a big deal to unmask him and push this in his face, but I better get something new to read if I’m gonna be holding this thing for an age and a half.”
That left her with a little bit of time to kill on the walk with no comic and a locked phone.
Stolen story; please report.
“Suppose I could try a couple of random codes. How about 0000?” It took a bit to enter the code and get the result, but she was used to that. “Nope, that wasn’t it. Heh, 0001? That’d be so dumb, there’s no way th—no way!”
The phone unlocked!
Milly stared dumbfounded at the screen.
“Well, bless your heart. You aren’t the mastermind, are you?”
Milly flicked through the phone.
While there was a lot, the most immediately interesting was a group chat with nine others. They weren’t using names, but the discussion revolved around a confirmed tip and brief coordination of three coded locations. The last one was labeled ‘PPP’.
Milly looked back at the cracked sign. “Polish, Perfection, & Prestige, ay? So, I guess the others on here must be short for something too. There’s only gonna be so many locations worth robbing that also match the letters. Would be a dang shame if someone was quick enough to check ALL of them, wouldn’t it?”
What’s more, if any of the alarms popped up in a matching location, she’d prioritize it immediately.
Milly rolled her shoulders and did a couple of stretches as though she were preparing for a race. “This just got interesting again. Ain’t no need to hang around if I can just round up the lot of them.”
“Better bring this back first, though.” Milly entered the bookstore, then wandered over to the comics section. After returning the book to its rightful place, she made her way over to the counter, riffled through the crook’s wallet, then left a dollar. “Let’s call that book rent. Thanks.”
Was it technically still stealing if you stole from a criminal? Maybe, but Milly sure wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
Just as she was about to leave, a small booklet on the wall behind the counter caught her attention. The cover had a couple of hands making weird letter shapes that read: Learn Sign Language.
Niki’s odd reaction to that web-shooting sign came to mind.
Milly dug through the wallet and left a twenty.
“Keep the change.”
----------------------------------------
@Ruth
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/514453362511577103/985909832240484352/01_avatar.png] 00:00:01:
Hey.
Found out what the minutemen are hitting:
**3 Locations Shared**
You can come grab ‘em.
[https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/25943?v=4] Ruth:
Sweet info!
We’re on it!
[https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/25943?v=4] Ruth: (5 minutes later)
Quick question, 01…
Why are all of them 90% cocooned in duct tape?
They are as confused as we are.
Stella is taking them to jail.
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/514453362511577103/985909832240484352/01_avatar.png] 00:00:01:
Because handcuffs are really hard to find?
The minutemen might need a name change, btw.
They couldn’t last even that long.
And most of it was travel time.
[https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/25943?v=4] Ruth:
…
Sooo, Did I mention we have handcuffs? ;p
But seriously. Great work! I gotta sign off now.
Time to work my magic on these creeps.
[https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/25943?v=4] Ruth: (1 hour later)
That went well.
Btw, party at our place tonight.
You in? It’s kinda in your honor.
----------------------------------------
“You wanna go to a party tonight?” Milly asked, glancing over at Niki. Even though it wasn’t even noon yet, they were already in bed, side-by-side. If Milly was only going to get an hour and change, then she was going to make them count. No more class.
“Mhm?” Niki was fully engrossed in the Slingshot Sue episode that played on the tablet they’d strung to the top bunk. In fairness, it was a fantastic season finale. If Milly hadn’t seen it fifty times already, she wouldn’t even have checked her texts. Honestly, if she’d only seen it forty-nine times, she still might not have! It took a repeat of the question during the ending credits and a little prodding before Niki hit pause and turned over, propping her head up so she could look down at Milly. “As much as I love hanging with you, if you make me go to a party, I will turn to villainy and spend the rest of my days trying to destroy you. You’re already on thin ice for getting us a cricket as a pet.”
“Alright, geez.” Milly smiled in the face of the clearly credible threat. “I wasn’t planning on going either. Jiminy is great, though. He’ll help fill any awkward silences!”
“I think you mean ‘accentuate’.” Niki rolled her eyes. “It makes it worse.”
“I dunno. We had those critters on the ranch. Pretty peaceful sound in the evening.”
“I’ll take your word for it. We only had traffic sounds from the highway.”
Milly grinned. “I always knew you were a lifelong city-slicker. With all that tech around, I’m surprised you didn’t grow buttons. Wait, did you?” She leaned in closer to Niki’s face, studying it intensely while Niki blushed. Finally, Milly tapped her on the nose.
“Gah!” Niki shot her a glare, but couldn’t stop smiling long enough to make it intimidating. Adorable. “Shut up, hayseed. I knew you couldn’t read, but I didn’t know that went for reading a mood, too.”
“Ouch. Well, actually.” Milly cleared her throat, warming up her accent. “Why, I ain’t much fer readin’ any a’them books that ain’t got them pictures in ‘em. I was just fixin’ to get one a’them ones started. It’d be mighty neighborly of ya ta help me out. On account o’ ya knowing this one already, by my reckoning.”
“Okay, first, I love the way your voice sounds like that. Second, I think I got about half of that. What?”
“One sec.” Milly reached beside her bed, then pulled out the book on sign language she’d gotten from the store. She quietly hoped Niki wouldn’t question why she had it hidden between the mattress and wall. “This. You mentioned it might be good to learn. It’s kinda hard, though. Do you think you could help me with some of these?”
“Oh!” Niki lit up. “Yes, absolutely! Which ones are giving you trouble?”
Milly opened the booklet to an earmarked page and showed it to Niki. “At the moment, this one and the next one. Seems like there’s a lot of variants on this. How do I know which one I want to use?”
Niki launched into a brief explanation, to which Milly dutifully nodded and made affirming noises. Not that Milly actually listened to too much of it. This sign was irrelevant to her. It just preceded what she really wanted.
“Does that clear it up? Great! Let's try the next one.” Niki flipped the page and immediately froze.
The page showed the same web-shooting symbol she’d used before biology class. Two fingers pressed to the palm with the rest spread out. Directly below it in big bold letters was the meaning: I Love You. It went on to explain some of the different contexts and types of affection it could portray, but neither of them needed that nuance.
Niki looked up from the book only to find Milly flashing her the ‘web-shooting’ sign.
They both blushed silently at each other.
Jiminy chirped in the background.
“You were right.” Milly admitted, sheepishly lowering the sign. “He does make it worse.”
“I hate you so much.” Niki said while she curled up, resting her head on Milly’s shoulder. Conveniently ensuring she wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye.
Milly wrapped one arm around her while she reached up to hit play on the tablet. “I know.”
Halfway through the episode, Milly felt her phone buzz, then buzz, then buzz again. It was like a small beehive in her pocket.
@Orchid
[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/514453362511577103/993729062902190190/Orchid_2.png] Orchid:
Kasper just called!
Like, actually called!
From jail! He got caught!
He confessed to everything.
I’m free to go! He even apologized!
Whatever you did, thanks!
Also, Ruth invited me to a party.
Bit random, but I guess I’m glad she’s not mad?
----------------------------------------
“What’s wrong?” Niki hit pause again. “You've gone all stiff.”
“I forgot about Orchid. Well, not her, but I promised I’d bring her Kasper’s phone, and I totally forgot.”
Niki shrugged. “So? You got him and his goons. That’s even better.”
“I know it’s just… I don’t like that I forgot something I promised only three hours ago.” Milly let out a long sigh. “But it feels like two weeks ago. I keep reminding myself we have a date tonight over and over so I won’t forget. I’m just worried about what else I might forget over time, and other stuff. Like, what if… I’m aging at superspeed?”
Niki was quiet for a moment. Long enough that if Milly couldn’t feel the light heaving of her chest with each breath, she’d worry Milly-time had started already.
“I see. Give me your hand.” Niki held out her own and made a grabbing motion.
Confused, Milly complied and reached across with her free hand. As soon as it got close, Niki snatched it and brought it down where she could see it. A curious examination followed where she rubbed the skin and tapped Milly’s fingertips.
Milly would have objected, but a silly thought took up all her attention. Did this count as holding hands? It was a bit weird, yet the attention was nice. Niki’s hands were a little cooler than hers and definitely felt more nimble as they explored.
“You have nice nails.” Niki remarked, while she turned Milly’s hand over. “When did you last cut them?”
“Uhm. I guess last Sunday. There wasn’t a lot to do during my quarantine and I’d chipped some during the escape. Why?” Milly was quietly glad. An alternate timeline where Niki would’ve paid close attention to her unkempt nails felt like torture. At least they were nice.
“I don’t think you have to worry about aging.” Niki gave Milly’s hand a comforting squeeze. “Your nails are still the same length. If time moved differently for you and you were three weeks older, they should have grown.”
“That actually makes sense!” A weight dropped from Milly’s shoulders, and she quickly channeled the extra energy to pull Niki into a tight side hug. “Thanks! You are the best! But how could you tell?”
Even though Niki had one of Milly’s arms, she still got squeaked like a chew toy. “E-easy. To you any change would be incremental over weeks. That’s hard to notice. To me, it's practically instant.” Niki wheezed.
“Sorry.” Milly eased up a little. “I guess you’re right. It’s only been a lil' while for you. I mean, I knew that, but it still feels weird to see concrete consequences of the time difference.”
Niki shifted to look up at Milly. Her head was still resting on Milly’s shoulder, yet somehow so much closer. She looked uncertain. After a moment’s hesitation, Niki found her voice. “About that actually… I know you only have eighty-six minutes of Normal-time. I agree going to class is a waste, but do you really want to spend it all on me? We blew half of it just watching cartoons in bed. I’m glad you’re here; it’s just that there might be more important people you want to talk to?”
“Honestly? I guess that’s part of the time difference.” Milly smiled sadly. There’d been plenty of time to decide how to spend her limited reprieve. Speaking verbally to anyone important was unnecessary when communicating was as easy as leaving a note. All except for one. “You saw me just an hour ago, but I’ve been dying all week to hang out with you for a bit. This right now where things get to be normal and fun? It’s helping me a lot, really… but I might be being too clingy…”
“Hey!” Niki glared and pinched Milly’s arm, making her flinch. Before Milly could grouch at her for it, Niki jabbed her in the chest sharply with a finger.. “Let me make one thing crystal clear. I’ll tell you if I need space. That’s not on you. I get you’re going through challenges right now, and I want to help you get through it any way I can. If that means I have to skip class, chill, and watch a movie with you, that’s a burden I’m willing to bear. And now I feel compelled to state for the record that I actually really like it and you, just so you don’t go emo on me later when I’m not fast enough to pinch you again. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Milly replied reflexively. Fierce Niki was kinda intimidating, but at the same time incredibly charming. Milly found herself smiling. “Wanna finish the episode?”
“Yes, please.” Niki flashed a smile back before she turned to watch the screen, nestling her cheek on Milly’s shoulder again.
While Milly stared up at the paused episode, a problem occurred to her. “Am I getting that hand back?”
Niki rubbed her thumb along the back of Milly’s hand while resting her head on the other arm that ran along her shoulders. She considered for a moment, then reached up to start the show.
“Nope.”