ChasNicollette
Allons-y Means Let's Go.
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2007
- Posts
- 16,135
Jessi/The Flash: "Footloose and Fancy Free."
"No," the word escaped Tara's lips before she knew it.
Jessi's dark brown eyes ached at that. At the pleading in that.
She hated to do this. On the verge of a modicum of emancipation, she was snipping it away-- but people could be dying, and-- they didn't usually run in this town, but if Superman was off in orbit or another country or something--
"No, please, take me with you, I can't go back in there. Its so close, I can FEEL it!"
'...that's what she said?' The Flash mumbled, but Jessi could tell her heart wasn't in it, Tara's desperation was too--
Tara spun and grabbed the control pad from Jessi's hand, and jumped back.
She stared at the stunned girl, and giggled a little maniacally.
"Hey!" Jessi blinked, her hands grasping at empty air.
'Nice moves, slowpoke,' The Flash opined wryly. 'You win any FPSes with reflexes that good?'
Jessi didn't bother snapping back at The Flash, there was no way she'd be able to explain it--
"Look," she shook her head, "please give that back. Dr. Sovette'll never forgive me if you break her frammistat on my watch."
"Or maybe I'll take you with me."
A fingertip along the touchscreen slider.
Neither Jessi nor The Flash had any comprehension of the epiphany that Tara experienced as The Chaos Field ebbed at her touch.
The theophany.
The geophany.
All they knew was that they felt The Earth move and not, as The Flash would ruefully note, in the fun way.
She rose, the stone beneath her feet lifting her and and the other girl higher, higher, a singular plateau, a new feature of the landscape.
Made for her.
Made by her.
She would leave her mark upon this world, create monuments to Stone.
And there, on that plateau, that pinnacle, she looked down into the eyes of the girl standing so close to her.
Jessi stared at the ground below, at the improvised edifice that held them aloft, and her breath was taken away. Tara's abilities were more dynamic than she'd realized from reading the report, there was an elegance to them, an otherworldliness.
"Hi. Um, yeah, I'm sorry about that. But I think you can understand why I had to do it, right? I mean, look at why I had to do it?"
They were easily 60 feet high, on a slender spike, like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon.
The Flash didn't miss that imagery. 'Heehee, irony.'
"I don't--" Jessi started. But she did. Or thought she did.
"And I can hear them, Jessi. I can hear the stone. They've been waiting for me and we've just been getting in the way."
Tara's hands hand found their way to Jessi's arms, gripping gently, but firmly.
Reflexively, Jessi wanted to pull away, she didn't like to be-- touched-- but-- the imploring, the heartbreak.
"The voices you're hearing," she babbled, "they're probably just synaesthetic effects from your brain's interpreting the geomagnetic field--"
Except what if they weren't? This was fringe science, what if they were the fringes of something totally unexpected.
"If I go back in there, if I let them put me in the box again, they'll never let me out. Can you imagine what that would be like? I can hear the world itself. How could I go even a single moment without that again?"
The Flash was quiet for a moment, which didn't happen often. 'She's got us on that one.'
Jessi knew this. Tara had them cold. And she reached out and touched Tara's face gently, cupped her cheek. She wasn't usually given to such signs of affection, but-- the moment demanded it.
"Sometimes you have to sacrifice for the things, the people you love," she murmured. "Sometimes you have to put your own needs and desires aside for the-- the greater good. I do this every day."
"But if you're lucky," she mused, "you find the right person, then they'll do the same for you in equal measure, you take turns and you give turns and one good turn deserves another."
"Right now there are people out there who could be suffering and I could alleviate that suffering by giving into life's ever-present coefficient of risk."
She stepped back out of Tara's grasp, and nearly teetered on the edge of the pillar. "Sometimes, by giving something up, if you're lucky, if you're really lucky, you'll find that you're equally rewarded. You just gotta-- and this is weird saying this, as a scientist --take a leap of faith."
And she stepped off the edge.
She dropped out of sight.
And as she fell she reached back into her mind and she flicked that waiting switch, that "on" switch, the mental trigger that took The Flash out of the waiting room and put her in the front seat.
Golden lightning crackled around her, faster than gravity, so very much faster than 9.8 m/sec/sec.
Her hair changed hue. From reddish brown to molten golden.
Her eyes glowed.
Everything slowed.
The Flash grinned against the slipstream of the fall and then her hand shot out and grabbed a handhold in the pillar, yanked herself in towards it... within the same instant she was sprinting down the side of the pillar, accelerating into gravity, running facing the ground, her body parallel to the surface of The Earth, her body perpendicular to the pillar...
...and she came rushing up the other side clad in her full Flash regalia, having shed the accoutrements of her scientista counterpart and stowed them away in the flick of a hummingbird's wing. She came running up the other side of the pillar and she gathered Tara up in her arms and she was yet again running down it and through Metropolis with a beautiful stone cold fox cradled against her.
"'Sup?" she greeted Tara. "I'm the Flash. I move quick. So, moving right along... you feel like doing that earthbendy voodoo you do to some bad dudes?"
"No," the word escaped Tara's lips before she knew it.
Jessi's dark brown eyes ached at that. At the pleading in that.
She hated to do this. On the verge of a modicum of emancipation, she was snipping it away-- but people could be dying, and-- they didn't usually run in this town, but if Superman was off in orbit or another country or something--
"No, please, take me with you, I can't go back in there. Its so close, I can FEEL it!"
'...that's what she said?' The Flash mumbled, but Jessi could tell her heart wasn't in it, Tara's desperation was too--
Tara spun and grabbed the control pad from Jessi's hand, and jumped back.
She stared at the stunned girl, and giggled a little maniacally.
"Hey!" Jessi blinked, her hands grasping at empty air.
'Nice moves, slowpoke,' The Flash opined wryly. 'You win any FPSes with reflexes that good?'
Jessi didn't bother snapping back at The Flash, there was no way she'd be able to explain it--
"Look," she shook her head, "please give that back. Dr. Sovette'll never forgive me if you break her frammistat on my watch."
"Or maybe I'll take you with me."
A fingertip along the touchscreen slider.
Neither Jessi nor The Flash had any comprehension of the epiphany that Tara experienced as The Chaos Field ebbed at her touch.
The theophany.
The geophany.
All they knew was that they felt The Earth move and not, as The Flash would ruefully note, in the fun way.
She rose, the stone beneath her feet lifting her and and the other girl higher, higher, a singular plateau, a new feature of the landscape.
Made for her.
Made by her.
She would leave her mark upon this world, create monuments to Stone.
And there, on that plateau, that pinnacle, she looked down into the eyes of the girl standing so close to her.
Jessi stared at the ground below, at the improvised edifice that held them aloft, and her breath was taken away. Tara's abilities were more dynamic than she'd realized from reading the report, there was an elegance to them, an otherworldliness.
"Hi. Um, yeah, I'm sorry about that. But I think you can understand why I had to do it, right? I mean, look at why I had to do it?"
They were easily 60 feet high, on a slender spike, like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon.
The Flash didn't miss that imagery. 'Heehee, irony.'
"I don't--" Jessi started. But she did. Or thought she did.
"And I can hear them, Jessi. I can hear the stone. They've been waiting for me and we've just been getting in the way."
Tara's hands hand found their way to Jessi's arms, gripping gently, but firmly.
Reflexively, Jessi wanted to pull away, she didn't like to be-- touched-- but-- the imploring, the heartbreak.
"The voices you're hearing," she babbled, "they're probably just synaesthetic effects from your brain's interpreting the geomagnetic field--"
Except what if they weren't? This was fringe science, what if they were the fringes of something totally unexpected.
"If I go back in there, if I let them put me in the box again, they'll never let me out. Can you imagine what that would be like? I can hear the world itself. How could I go even a single moment without that again?"
The Flash was quiet for a moment, which didn't happen often. 'She's got us on that one.'
Jessi knew this. Tara had them cold. And she reached out and touched Tara's face gently, cupped her cheek. She wasn't usually given to such signs of affection, but-- the moment demanded it.
"Sometimes you have to sacrifice for the things, the people you love," she murmured. "Sometimes you have to put your own needs and desires aside for the-- the greater good. I do this every day."
"But if you're lucky," she mused, "you find the right person, then they'll do the same for you in equal measure, you take turns and you give turns and one good turn deserves another."
"Right now there are people out there who could be suffering and I could alleviate that suffering by giving into life's ever-present coefficient of risk."
She stepped back out of Tara's grasp, and nearly teetered on the edge of the pillar. "Sometimes, by giving something up, if you're lucky, if you're really lucky, you'll find that you're equally rewarded. You just gotta-- and this is weird saying this, as a scientist --take a leap of faith."
And she stepped off the edge.
She dropped out of sight.
And as she fell she reached back into her mind and she flicked that waiting switch, that "on" switch, the mental trigger that took The Flash out of the waiting room and put her in the front seat.
Golden lightning crackled around her, faster than gravity, so very much faster than 9.8 m/sec/sec.
Her hair changed hue. From reddish brown to molten golden.
Her eyes glowed.
Everything slowed.
The Flash grinned against the slipstream of the fall and then her hand shot out and grabbed a handhold in the pillar, yanked herself in towards it... within the same instant she was sprinting down the side of the pillar, accelerating into gravity, running facing the ground, her body parallel to the surface of The Earth, her body perpendicular to the pillar...
...and she came rushing up the other side clad in her full Flash regalia, having shed the accoutrements of her scientista counterpart and stowed them away in the flick of a hummingbird's wing. She came running up the other side of the pillar and she gathered Tara up in her arms and she was yet again running down it and through Metropolis with a beautiful stone cold fox cradled against her.
"'Sup?" she greeted Tara. "I'm the Flash. I move quick. So, moving right along... you feel like doing that earthbendy voodoo you do to some bad dudes?"
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