Fast & Loose

Posted on Sat Jun 19th, 2021 @ 3:19pm by Kai Akana

3,349 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Episode 1: X-Odus
Location: Grounds Outside the Mansion

The sunset in the west, casting colors of orange, purple and blue over the campus. The heat of the day was abating, making it comfortable, if not a bit breezy. Kai sighed as his mind revolved around the task he had set for himself. He was hovering 20 feet in the air, his eyes closed and his arms outstretched. He was wearing a red t-shirt which had been de-sleeved and a pair of shorts. Several objects, including his large water bottle, his duffle bag, his bike keys, and a few other items he'd clearly taken from his room, rotated in wild oblong orbits around his body. His lips parted slightly, he sang the quiet lyrics to "Smells Like Teen Spirit", a song released that year by Nirvana. His singing was talentless, but was also absentminded as he floated at the height of a two story house, a solar system of objects floating around him.

"With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us
A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido"

As the sun slowly set in the west, Katy found herself wandering about the grounds slowly instead of at speed. She had a box of pizza in one hand and a slice in the other which she was rapidly consuming. As she wandered, she heard a recent song being sung, but a quick scan of the area didn't reveal anyone. "Must be an invisible mutant," she reasoned and kept going without looking up.

Kai continued, not perceiving the girl walking beneath him. He hummed the chorus to himself, feeling the effects of each of the orbiting items around his gravity field. It wasn't until a certain familiar finger began to rise within him that his concentration was broken. And there it was, a thunderous sneeze that burned his nasal cavity; and a stuffed animal he'd found in the common room, for his lack of concentration, decayed from its orbit rapidly and started falling toward the ground.

Later, Katy would try to recall if it was the stuffed animal or the sneeze from above that got her attention first. Regardless of which it was, it was a surprise to the young lady who was mindlessly eating the pizza and enjoying the cooler weather when suddenly, BANG! A stuffed animal to the head.

Startled, she dropped the pizza she had been about to take a bite of and looked up. Then she stopped and cocked her head back when she saw the muscular man floating above her with stuff floating around him. "Who....bless you?"

"Thanks." Kai answered, sniffling slightly without a thought about who it might be. Then, after a beat, he realized that he had been spoke to, so he looked down at the ground and saw Katy holding a box of pizza. As soon as his concentration was broken again, his water bottle collided with his head. It had been going pretty quick when it made its impact, so it hurt like hell, despite his durability. Then he felt his gravity field decaying within the confines of his mind, and suddenly, he was plummeting straight toward Katy. "Oh, shit!"

Now the young woman put on a burst of speed and moved ten feet to the right and looked at Kai hit the ground. "Aww...I bless someone and an angel falls from heaven for me. Can I keep you?"

The wind got knocked out of him the second he scored the ground. If he hadn't been mutant tough, he would have been broken. As she approached, he pulled himself to his feet, dusting off with his hands.

"No, I've got this." he said, self-assuredly as he looked up at her. "They deliver out here?"

"Oh, it's you," she said. "And no, I ran into town to get it."

"Yeah, it's me." he responded in a casual tone. "Did you get that to share with your boyfriend, or are you going to eat that whole thing yourself?"

Katy scoffed at the mention of a boyfriend. "I got it for myself. I'm like a black hole of snacks. A snack hole, if you will. I have to eat constantly because of my speed."

Kai ignored the hole talk because he had nowhere good to go with that. Instead, he bent down and picked up his water bottle.

"You eat whole pizzas and you keep your body looking like that?" he asked, grinning playfully. "I've gotta be honest, I'm kind of jealous. Tell you what, let's switch power sets for a week, no questions asked. You can float in the sky and try to orbit teddy bears and I'll be the snack hole."

She blushed at the compliment and opened the pizza box to reveal pepperoni, bacon, ham and pineapple. "Thanks and no chance. Wanna slice? Offer is gone in five...four..three.."

Kai seemed to consider the offer for a split second before making up his mind. He never took a long time to come to decisions, but lived on impulse and in the moment. He reached his hand into the box and pulled out one of the slices without giving a formal answer.

“Always enjoy the little things.” He reflected out loud. He brought the slice to his lips and then paused, giving her a cute smile before plunging his teeth into it like a junkyard dog. His bite was way to big, so his powerful jaws were visibly working to grind the food into swallowable chunks. Besides the smile, the only thanks he offered was a gentle touch on the elbow with his free hand. It communicated great fullness and momentary closeness, but it also showed that he wasn't afraid with her.

Katy watched him eat and it reminded her of watching an alligator eat at the Bronx Zoo when she had gone there on a field trip. She didn't mind his lack of manners, but when he touched her, she took a single step back. "It isn't very little when the closest pizza place I like is fifty four miles each way. But you're welcome." She took out another slice for herself and devoured it.

“All I meant is life is short and we have to enjoy simple things when they’re here; like pizza, and sunsets, and pretty girls.” He smiled, giving her some respectful distance, but taking up a position beside her. “It’s really good pizza, Katy. I see why you cross the world for it.”

"Lombardi's Pizza is the best," she said before she sat down on the ground and crossed her legs. "Sit. Talk. Be human. Where ya from?" Now her New York City accent was showing.

He watched her sitting on the grass and considered it again. He decided there was no reason not to go along with her request. He sat down next to her and folded his legs as well, reclining back ever-so-slightly and placed his hands among the blades of the grass.

“Born and raised in Wahiawa, Hawaii. Raised by my mom, abandoned by my dad. This is the first time I’ve left the islands.” He answered, the image of his home city playing before him in his head. “How about you?”

"Hawaii sounds like paradise compared to da Bronx," Katy said as she pulled another gooey piece out of the box. "Born, raised by my...sperm donor..." She couldn't bring herself to call the guy dad or even a father. "And then ran and kept running. Kinda boring, really. Eight million neighbors and the only place in the world where dogs make sure they don't step in human poop."

“Boring, are you kidding me?” He asked, energetically. “I always thought the city would be so fun and full of activity. Still, you can’t beat the beach.”

A moment passed as he watched the sun arching over the horizon as he listened to the sound of his newest companion eating her pizza. He sighed deeply.

“So, how long you been running, Katy?”

"Bout a year," she said. "I'd rather be on the beach kicking back instead of out here kicking pavement. Hawaii is paradise compared to where I used to live. Nothin' like havin' to walk up five flights of stairs because of a busted elevator. Worse is carrying up a load of groceries in the summer while being yelled at."

“Who would yell at you?” He asked, looking at her gently. “Tell me, and I’ll kick their ass.”

He offered a small smile, a moment of levity in a difficult part of the conversation. He didn’t know if she wanted to laugh, but this was how he’d always dealt with his pain.

Katy shrugged a wave of depression brought about by her past off and gestured towards the box. "I appreciate it, but they're long gone and the farther away, they better. Bastard probably drank himself to death after he didn't have me to beat anymore."

Kai’s expression saddened at her comment. She didn’t want levity, she wanted sympathy. He tried to push past all of his habits of shrugging off other people’s problem to try and figure out what he should say to her.

“My dad use to hit my mom before I left.” He said, recalling his early childhood. “And her other boyfriends weren’t much nicer when I was growing up. But screw them, right?”

It wasn't sympathy the young woman wanted, but she listened to him. "I think he killed my Mom," she said almost too soft to hear. "It was the night my speed kicked in. He was drunk and yelling at me again for whatever and getting ready to beat me..." She trailed off and looked down, her throat too tight to continue.

He placed a hand on her shoulder briefly, but said nothing. It likely seemed like he was just waiting for her to continue, but really he just had no idea what to say. He waited to see what she would do.

For being incredibly fast, it took Katy another minute of slowly breathing in and out before she could respond. "He...he told me...that he should have killed me." She paused and swallowed hard. "Like my mutant bitch of a mother." Now a tear that she hadn't let fall before spilled over an eyelid and down her cheek.

Kai was grateful that Katy was too occupied to notice that his eyes were bulging in discomfort. He pulled her closer to him without thinking but his heart was racing with sudden anxiety. He could feel the warmth of her skin against his. He didn’t know why he was still here; normally he would have said something dismissive and left immediately when the first tear felt, but for some reason, he felt like he needed to stay this time.

“Well at least that asshole is gone.” He said, sounding a bit angry himself.

"I'm stupid," she mumbled against his shirt as she clung to him. "I’m stupid. Didn't mean to.." Her body shook and her words got more slurred. "Should just run."

Holy crap, he didn’t know what to do. He held her close but said nothing for a long time. Then it occurred to him that running was the way she seemed to deal with her problems.

“Screw it, okay, let’s run.” He said, standing up and lifting her up with him. “Where do you wanna run?”

Katy finally got control of herself and stood up with his help. "I...I'm sorry to dump that on you, Kai. I didn't mean to...and ...thank you."

“Don’t worry, just don’t let the darkness get you.” He said, thinking about how hard their lives could be. “Just remember to enjoy the little things of life.”

"I try, but I want the big things. I want to see my name in the headlines. I want to be known," she said. "I want to shine and prove I can do it."

Kai smiled a little at that. He wanted the same thing, very much. The world, in his view, was mostly filled with mediocre people with mediocre goals; he almost never met someone who was driven like he was. He then remembered how often she seemed to practice and push herself to achieve her goals and he realized how much he admired that sort of thing.

"I know what you mean, believe me. There are times when I push myself so hard I feel like I'm going to explode. But I get so wound up trying to get better, I start being really hard on everyone else. I start treating people like crap because I've lost perspective. What's the point of getting to the top if you're a hollow shell when you arrive, or if you're all by yourself?"

He was asking rhetorically as he too stood up. He looked around the field momentarily in the silence of the early evening just as the sun tucked itself neatly under the horizon and dark blues overtook red and orange. Starlights pricked holes of brightness in the canvas of the sky, and the land around them was darkened.

"I bet I can kick your ass in a race." he said, I swaggering smile on his face. He wasn't sure if he really believed it was so, but he said it with complete confidence, the way he said most things. His dark eyes met hers; a friendly challenge meant to pull her out of her sorrow. "You down or are you too busy eating pizza?"

"That's why I said I want to shine. Getting to the top and being nobody would suck. I want the world to know that Leadfoot is here," Katy said as the last three pieces in the box vanished in a blur of motion and a very unladylike belch came from the young woman. "Ready?" She asked, getting into a runners stance.

As he saw her get into her stance, he suddenly felt his confidence begin to fade away. He knew deep down he was about to get his clock cleaned, but he was no quitter. He got down in his own stance and began to concentrate on the field of gravity around him. If he directed it in a forward direction, he could move in that direction as quickly as the field was strong. The difference between running and flying were slight, and he could go pretty fast once he got the field right.

"On your mark, get set...GO!"

She took off like a missile, her feet barely touching the ground before she covered a hundred yards in a second and came to a sudden stop and threw her hands up. "Wait!"

Kai had bolted forward, feeling like he was half running, half falling. It was all happening so quickly, he couldn't process it, and he certainly hadn't seen Katy as he heard her call out for them to stop. All he saw was a flash of light resembling her skin-tone before he crashed right into her, causing both of them to fly a considerable distance away from where she had stopped. Eventually the both landed on the ground at a stop with a thud and Kai was left laying atop Katy, his arms splayed out. A bit dazed, though quickly regaining his composure, he shifted his arms and legs under him and rolled off of her and collapsed onto his back.

"What the hell?" he asked lazily, confused and experiencing some pain as he gazed up at the starlit sky.

A stream of Bronx invectives came from Katy as she jumped to her feet after checking to make sure nothing was broken. She looked over at him and sneered. "You ran into me, you clod! Why were you on my tail wind?"

"You'll be fine." he answered, pulling himself to his feet, dusting himself off, and then rolling his eyes. "I can't even think that fast. I didn't see you. Why the hell would you stop anyway?"

"We didn't agree how far to race to," she said. "And if you can't think that fast, what makes you think you could beat me in a race?"

At first he was angry at her challenge, but then remembered that he had suggested the run in the first place in order to get her mind off of her troubles. He decided he didn’t want to make things worse, but he wasn’t quite sure how to remove himself from the conflict.

“Whatever.” He said, having his hand dismissively. He started looking around, seeming to be searching for an escape from the discomfort. “Forget it. It’s ruined anyway.”

"Ohhh..whatever, is it? Such an enlightened response," Katy said sarcastically. "What's ruined besides your reputation?"

“Do you always get this emotional after a roll in the grass?” He answered, feeling his fight or flight response going. He’d learned a long time ago to avoid his trouble with a cocky attitude and a confident smile, so that’s what he did.

"Nevermind," she said. "See ya around, Kai." She turned to leave, having had it with his attitude for the evening.

Kai offered a shrug and watched as she turned away from him.

“So, this is you forfeiting then?” He asked sarcastically. “Doesn’t matter how cute you are if you’re slow and a quitter.”

With that, he turned his eyes toward the sky and prepared to take off fast into the clouds. He tended his muscles and felt as the gravity around him began to shift.

"Fine, see you at the door to the mansion," Katy said and with a rush of wind where she had been standing, the young woman was off and sprinting, rapidly passing two hundred meters per second as she rounded the grounds before she punched it and almost doubled her speed.

As soon as she was off, knew there was no way he could beat her fair and square. Not only was she super fast, she hadn’t done him the courtesy of counting before she started. He focused on her motion instead and, raising his hand in her direction, moved to lift her off of the ground so that her feet could no longer make contact. Maybe it was cheating; he didn’t care.

She flailed when she realized she was no longer touching the ground despite her legs still going. She looked up and around. "Bogus! Cheater!"

“That’s pronounced ‘winner’, Doll.” He said with a smile as he jogged past her at a moderate pace. Once he reached the threshold of the door, he lowered her gently to the ground again, allowing the gravity around her to return to normal again. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked highly amused, if not a little proud.

Katy merely glared at him, then shrugged. "I guess it's not how you get there, but getting there that matters. It's as far as you'll ever get, though."

“I know, I know; I’m an asshole and you’ll never talk to me again.” He said, regarding her with less conscience for what he had just said than what he was going to say. “I’m not gonna lie, you run like a rocket, Katy. I almost thought I wasn’t going to be able to stop you. I wonder how fast you could go if I..ya know.. gave you a boost.”

"No idea," she said. "But I like being in control of myself and we'd have to practice on something like that in the Danger Room."

“Maybe some other time.” He said, opening the door and leaving space for her to walk through. “I promise not to dangle you again, unless you want me to, at least. Other than that, let me know if you want to hang out again. If not, I guess I’ll just see you around.”

"See you around," Katy said and zoomed by him, but as she did, she slapped his ass and then was gone.

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