Notes - This an idea that me and a friend have been working on for a couple of months now. A Ranma/Flash crossover set during the time when Wally West first entered the speed force and the while concept of the The Flash started to take on an entirely different type of story and richer history. I will be touching on various bits of the history presented in flash issues 95-100 in this chapter as it goes along. I've tried and failed at doing a Flash crossover before when I first got the idea, let me know if you think we've pulled it off with this one.
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Sudden Burst of Speed
Chapter 00
Cory D. Rose - [email protected]
BlindmanX - [email protected]
(c) 2003
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In a temple deep in the mountains, there was old in a room of the temple where no one ever went. For months on end this part of the temple would stand abandoned except for the priest that would walk through it halls twice a week to make sure that everything was where it should be. Today the temple has a couple of guests, a father and a son, and the priest was no where to be seen. They had stumbled on rumors of the place just hours before and the father set out to find it as quickly as possible. He had gotten quite excited when they found the place and instantly dragged his son along for the ride as they went through an open window. The father was a forty-ish, slightly overweight man who had a taste for any kind of food and had a white kerchief over his balding head. He was laughing to himself at how easy it had been to get into the temple while his son followed along grumbling about how much of an idiot his old man was. To the son an old tale about a long forgotten chi technique that would make one move like lightning was too much for someone like his father to resist. The son knew better, this wasn't the first time his father had pulled something like this and he had all but given up trying to stop the guy.
He knew this was a bad idea and had tried several time to talk his old man out of going into the temple to get what he wanted to steal, but like always he had no say in this mater. Most of the time he tried to keep out of the way when his father did something like this, but today he had no choice, so he just stood next to his father looking just lightly out of place in the shadow of his old man's greed and sighed. They had been walking through this place for about half an hour now and left in their wake several room full of over turned beds and dressers as his old man tried to pick the place clean. Stopping his old man was out of the question, at thirteen he just didn't have the skill to make his old man stop and would have ended up unconscious if he tried. He didn't want to spend yet another night draped over his old man's shoulder for trying to keep him from stealing something.
It took the father several minutes to find the main room of the temple, break into the wooden case set on a raised dais in the middle of the room and grab a small book. He crowed as it was opened for the first time in two hundred years and danced a little jig. The son rolled his eyes and shuddered a little as he recalled the last time something like this happened. Then had to stand back and watch as the moron pulled out his tanto and used it to prize several expensive looking gems out of the wall of the room. The boy figured that they would be enough to keep them funded for the next few months, then shook his head, the gems would last about a week as his father bought as much sake as he could and got falling down drunk. Then the small book was shoved into his hands and the father kicked a wooden case along the wall and pulled three scrolls out of the destruction and held them high and laughed some more.
This would've been an almost perfect theft, a quick break and grab if you will, if only the father hadn't been such a moron and started giggling to himself a little louder than he had been. With all the previous noise of the ransacking, the son was amazed that no one had shown up yet for him to knock out. So he did the only thing he could think of and left the father to his warped humor and made his way out of the temple as fast as he could. It wasn't much of a surprise that the camp was empty when he returned about an hour later. The boy, Ranma Saotome, was experienced enough to know that his father had decided to do something else when he left.
They had been using this cave for a week so he knew that there was no possibility of the old man getting lost. So he sat down and pulled out the book and started to read it in detail to see what it held, never again would he leave training from scrolls up to his old man. Not after he had been forced to endure the Neko-ken training when he was six. Barely seven years later and he still owed his old man a good hard kick in the ass over that little incident. He glanced up as thunder rumbled in the distance and it started to rain, luckily the sun was still up enough for him to read by. Being on the road for all this time had taught him to respect the weather.
As he finished off the book the boy realized that it was a good thing they had grabbed the scrolls after all, the book was like a description of the technique and what it was useful for. It was the scrolls themselves that explained just how the technique worked and he could tell that because of another technique he had learned a couple years ago he would pick up the technique with ease. Surprisingly one of the things the scrolls insisted on was a thunderstorm, a strong one that filled the sky with lightning. After some of the training his father put him threw lately he was actually kind of surprised he hadn't already picked this up, but he could tell that he already had the Ki control required to pull it off already. His path was set though, and he figured that he would pick the technique up easily. He even had to wonder why his father had broken into the temple to steal this things; what a waste of time. He hoped the moron got arrested and had to spend a few weeks in jail for petty theft while he learned this while the weather was working in his favor.
The most difficult thing was getting his mind into the right focus and would take quite a bit of meditation on his part, but he could tell just by looking out the cave entrance that it would be several hours before the storm reached it's peak and he could begin. So he took up his normal meditation by balancing on his head and reread everything to see if he could glean any extra information from them before beginning the next step. At the same time he slowly worked his way through the mind set described, to be aware, but not aware and what he had to do in order to focus his Ki into a pillar several feet above his head. He wasn't to sure why the pillar was necessary, but this wouldn't be the first time he did something without learning all the potential ramifications, he was a student of Anything Goes after all. Even the mud slide training to increase his balance on a moving material had been like that, though later he had recalled something from a movie they saw a few earlier and remembered something similar happening in the movie, though with ice. He thanked all the gods that existed that the old fart hadn't just copied the movie though, him and ice didn't get along to well.
So it was a few hours later when the storm had grown so huge that he couldn't even see the sun clearly that he got up and left the safety of the cave without a look of determination on his face. He knew he was in the right frame of mind, form his Ki into the right shape, and had no fears of failure. There was no way this technique would beat him. It was his and no stupid storm was going to make him give it up. The scrolls had said a night like tonight, with a giant lightning display, would help him reach into greater highs of speed that only the gods were capable of achieving. Ranma grinned in anticipation as shouted the mantra, "Ride the Lightning!" And with that he took the took a step and started to run through the woods around the cave, slowly forming his Ki, focusing his mind, and quickly achieving his fastest running speed as the storm raged overhead. Lightning and thunder filled the sky and nearly deafened him as he ran along, dodging trees and going as fast as he could. In almost no time he reached open ground and headed across without a bit of thought.
The technique was simple for him, as it did not cost him, any thing to learn it was the kind of technique he liked to learn, easy and quick. He knew that something was coming, though the scrolls had been kind of vague on just what it was, just that his Ki was required to be formed the way it was. So he ran and concentrated, within minutes he had traveled over two miles from the cave and started weaving his way back to the camp. He didn't want to get to far away if he could help it and he could have gotten lost in this storm. After about half an hour he was just beginning to find his second and focused his center a little more by letting out a regular slow breath that allowed him to ignore the elements around him. It didn't take him long to enter the mental state he needed to be in, but it did take him a moment more to bring out his small battle aura. All around him the rain seemed to be getting worse and worse, already he had witnessed several trees being struck by lightning as he passed in and out of the forest around him.
The off white gi he always wore mirrored the lightning in the background as his light blue aura came into being and his Ki entered the visible spectrum made the bar of Ki above his head visible for the first time. It was something for him to be proud of as well, most masters twice his age couldn't do this, but he could with a growing ease that was almost scary. But now wasn't the time for him to think about those things, it was the time for him to learn the technique and he was beginning to wonder just how long he would have to run for before anything happened. Then the little hairs on the back of his neck started to tingle like when his old man was about to ambush him and for a split second there was a flash of light that filled the world and everything seemed to vanish. All sight, sound, taste, all his senses seemed to go haywire. All at once and for a brief moment he could taste the rainwater as it passed over his skin, hear the muscles in his body as they contracted and relaxed, and wondered why the air around him seemed to be full of static electricity.
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Genma Saotome was having an enjoyable night, one of the best he's had in quite a long time in fact. It was if all, his prayers had been answered by the gods. He was a simple man and had simple wishes, a strong son who would do what he was told, easy money, and free food. So far he had accomplished the last two with this one short stop. He had found a good fist full of priceless gems that he planned to sell at the first opportunity and then had come something that he hadn't believed at first. Something that he had never seen before and had no way to understand, just that it was the answer to and almost constant need of his. His son, the wimp, had actually left the temple before checking over all the rooms and missed out on the fulfillment of his third greatest desire as he gaped at the treasure before him and drooled. The room was covered in shelves, nearly fifteen feet high and filled to the ceiling with food! He had never seen a larder so full and he was going to be full for the first time in years once he finished this place off, but he would have to hurry. Those priests would come to check on this place eventually and he didn't want to be here when they did, he'd cleaned out all the gems he could find. Now he was alone with his ill-gotten wealth and a roomful of food and his son wasn't around. Genma was of the mind that this night was truly blessed as he reached for some of the grapes. Especially after finding all the food he could handle, it might even fill him up, just sitting in a room with religious symbols and a bit of dust. Genma just laughed to himself as he thought of how foolish these people were in between eating there offerings as fast as he hands could get to his mouth, at Saotome speed this meant the taste was relatively brief.
Up above, a man in a cloak knelt on the floor and looked through the offering hole down into the room below as Genma ate and glanced over at his partner. "Should we stop this fool, Master?" The kneeling figure asked to the man in a red robe that stood beside him with a half smirk on his face.
"…" The red robed man said as he glanced down into the room that they only entered once a month to clean, a job that everyone of the priests dreaded with a passion. The smell alone was always enough make them gag even at the best of times, but the fool below had stumbled on the place before true purpose of the room came into being.
The first gray cloaked person turned to the second with a sigh he asked, "Could you please tell me what '….' means?" Still watching Genma eat from the pile for slightly old fruit, bread, and most especially...meat.
The second gray-clocked person looked for a moment at the first and then said, "Trust me, you really don't want to know." With a slight shutter they continued to watch Genma ate the spoiling food. It wasn't noticeable just by looking at the food, but room was used to get rid of things that weren't edible anymore by spreading up the decomposition.
"You know I almost feel sorry for the bowel pains that guy will get in a few hours… almost, then I saw what he did to the main room of the temple and I have to think that the guy is going to get what he deserves." The First cloaked person said to the second as they witnessed Genma eat an under cooked pig's leg while drinking orange juice that was several days past its expiration date. They were amazed that he hadn't noticed just how bad the food was.
"Well at least we're getting rid of all that bad food and on the plus side, we won't have to clean the room this month. That is a blessing from the gods. So if he wants to let his butt feel the three day burn who are we to judge?" The second clocked person shrugged as he watched Genma eat, what at one time, had been a months worth of Mexican TV dinners that had to be put aside because of a three week hold over in port. "But then again after the Mistress told us about his dealing with his own son. Well… I say leave him to his meal… For an hour longer or if he finishes everything, then we can run him off. The exercise alone will speed the digestion process up quite a bit. OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH!"
Genma's hands blurred as his went threw the four day old bread as he again toasted to his good fortune, coming to the temple that had a room like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Not realizing that in less then three hours he would find out the true meaning of 'the hardships of the road' he snarfed down what he took to be jello and moved onto a roasted pie.
"Are you sure we shouldn't chase him out of here, the smell alone is just making me sick." The first shrugged and chuckled as Genma finished off the bottled prunes. "I say we give him a good chase once he finishes most of it off and get his heart pumping, then we can sit back and smell the results… from a good distance."
"Heh… deal." The second said as he kept on watching the show of the glutton at his role in life.
And boy did Genma learn a lesson.
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There once existed a man with many faces. No he wasn't a shape changer or even an alien with weird abilities. He was a perfectly normal human that at one time had been thrust into a position that gave him a second chance at life. Ever since then he'd lived his life one day at time, slowly learning the limits of his new abilities and fighting for what he believed in. Because of this he was one of a small handful of men that could be in the running for the title of The Fastest Man alive, but it wasn't a title he was after. He had other goals in mind for he had given away that particular title to one who was more deserving long, long ago. When it came to his life and how he lived, time meant almost nothing because even though he wasn't immortal he did have the power to move through time if he timed things just right. Even at the moment he was considering making another try at his original goal, sitting in the middle of a small forest out side Keystone City meditating and allowing the very power that gave him his incredible powers to flow and ebb within him.
For the first time in a long while he had to admit that he was getting frustrated with current events. He was old now, and even after all these years of doing what he to do for survival he was tired. Unfortunately he didn't want to experience death, but to achieve the goal that had eluded him for so long. He liked life and got a kick out of feeling useful as he helped people and didn't care one whit if the fools he saved mistook him for someone else because of the blue and white in his costume. No, what he wanted was to prove that he had lived a life that meant something to someone. He had saved lives and performed his duty for so very long and would continue to so for some years to come. His connection to the powers that fueled him managed to keep him in excellent shape and perfect health.
His connection to this power was better than most and there was only one person on the while planet that knew more than him and there was no way he even wanted to think of that psychopath as a person to ask a favor from. So for the past few hours he had been trying to delve deeper into his power to figure out what it was that was bothering him and come quite close on several occasions already. The tap his power and let it flow through him at just the right amount of speed to read it's currents and find and understanding within himself and for his troubled mind. He called it The Speed Force, a form of energy that allowed him to run at speeds that seemed to go against even the hard core truths of physics at times. Just as he was about to relax for a few minutes before he tried again to reach what he wanted, he was distracted by a distinct arc of power as the Speed Force seemed to resonate all around him like a tuned guitar string.
His eyes narrowed and he concentrated a little harder to bring that feeling to the forefront of his mind so he could study it a little closer. It was a rather vague feeling, but if he wasn't mistake he'd just felt someone connect to the Speed Force for the first time. It was one of the few things he'd never experienced before and even now he suspected that he wouldn't have even noticed it if he hadn't been meditation and studying the energy as it flowed all around him. The first connection was the most dangerous one, because it was like taking a child and tossing them out of a plane with a parachute and telling them to pull the cord if they wanted to survive the fall. A child couldn't even understand what was going on around them at times so the first time the speed force was access it tended to cull the weak ones out as they killed themselves by accident.
He had to get to them before something happened and if he was to slow...
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Some time later Genma was on his way back to the camp site, having stopped in a nearby village to stock up on some things they needed. On his way back he literally stumbled across his son, tripping over him as he lay in the middle of an open field several miles from their camp. The ground around his body was charred and black, he wasn't sure as he bent down to examine the boy, but it almost looked like he'd been hit by a massive lightning bolt or something similar. The boy's gi was a total wreck, burned off of his body almost completely and the faintest hint of smoke still wafting off of his body. When he reached down to turn the boy over and get a better look at him he howled as electricity seemed to flow out of Ranma's body and hurl him away like a rag doll.
He landed on his shoulder and rolled with the impact before coming to his feet and letting the momentum of the fall fade away as he slid about ten yards. Smoke was coming off his arms where he'd tried to guard against the sudden eruption of energy and he glared at the boy from behind his glasses. Taking a deep breath he heard the boy suddenly moan a little and start to move around and sighed a bit. If the boy had died there was no way he could ever go home to his wife, she would have beheaded him in an instant and that was the last thing he wanted to deal with at the moment. There was something odd going on here, but he would worry about it later. From the looks of the boy he figured it would be some time before the lazy little good for nothing woke up so he decided to lug the boy back to camp and let him recover there.
The trip with Ranma on his shoulder wasn't something that Genma normally did, hell he was half tempted to just leave him there and let him make his way back to camp on his own. That's what he wanted to do, but even he didn't want to have to look for the boy if he didn't return, so keeping him close was the best option. Then 'it' happened and Genma stopped dead and felt funny. Not funny ha ha, more like slipping on a banana peel and tumbling down several flights of stairs and bouncing just right to land between a couple of trash cans funny. Then the pain started and for a moment he couldn't figure out what was going on, then he recalled that little feast he'd eaten earlier. He bellowed as he ran for the camp, they were close enough anyway and there was something in his tent that would settle his stomach.
He rounded a couple of trees with Ranma's body flapping in the wind behind him with little bolts of lightning arching out every now and then. It wasn't like Genma would ever notice as he did the only thing some one camping in the middle of nowhere had to do. He tossed Ranma to the ground the instant he hit the campsite and dove into his tent, grabbed a roll of toilet paper out of his bag and made for the nearest tree like a bull charging a red flag. If conscious Ranma would have been laughing at his old man's fate and insulting him the whole time, but Genma got off luck on that account. Instead in the hours that followed the nightmare of Genma Saotome began as his theft of all that bad food at the temple took it's justified revenge in the only way it could. Mercy wasn't a tenant of the Saotome School of Martial Arts, Genma never practiced any and Ranma would have had to look the word up to find out what it meant. In the forest around the camp all sound died except Genma's whimpering only to have even that shattered a few seconds later.
Genma screamed as his worst nightmare came to life and cursed all temples and their free food.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
Some nearby birds who were still sheltering from the light fall of rain that was left over from the earlier storm to flight from the noise, bursting out of the nearby trees where they had been hiding and flew for their lives. They chirped at each other as they flew to the unending scream of pain and agony coming from Genma's concealed position beside a larger tree. Ranma, still unconscious rolled over with a spark and didn't stir even as Genma started to really feel the burn that was coming.
Fingers touched the scrying pool that the clocked figures stood around as they watched the scene with huge grins in their faces and laughed out loud at each new and creative sound Genma made. "Man that was pain!"
The other next to him just looked at his companion and put another handful of popcorn in his mouth and shrugged. "You were right, it was well worth the wait to expend the energy on this pool to watch him."
The First looked back on the sight of Genma with a small grin. "Pass the popcorn."
"What do we tell the others though?"
"Not to worry, the guy only got away with some of the jewels and a few of the more esoteric scrolls. He didn't even get into the main room and took the 'bait' room instead."
"I've never heard this before."
"It was on a need to know basis and there was something of value in that room that they did get, but totally useless to anyone except a master of the fighting arts."
"Those two were martial artists you know."
"So what? You expect me to believe that a couple morons like that could actually learn that technique? Hah!" The first yelled and started to laugh.
"Yeah..hehehe..." The second one said a bit nervously.
"What?"
"Nothing!"
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His bright blue eyes snapped open and for a second he thought he could see yellow-ish white lightning arching around him, but it vanished after he blinked a few times. What in the world had happened to him? He could feel that every muscle in his body ached for some reason and he could tell that it wasn't from one of the normal beatings he endured on an almost daily basis. This felt different, really different and kind of freaky and it didn't help that his head hurt. Light was filtering through the trees above him and he could tell that it was coming from the wrong direction than is should have.
A few seconds later he determined that he had been out cold or unaware of his surroundings for close to ten hours for the sun to have moved that much. It had to be early morning now and the last thing he remembered was sometime, before sundown of what he figured had to be the day before as he ran through the obstacle course. His father had set up for him to develop better reflexes and a lot better speed than what he could currently achieve. He blinked and realized that he couldn't move his arms or legs and that his whole body was tingling. Straining as much as he could he grit his teeth against the pain and forced his arm to raise off the ground about an inch or so, it took five minutes and felt like he was straining against some giant unseen weight.
"What ha...ppen..ed..." He croaked out.
The head of Genma Saotome, with a half eaten chicken leg in his mouth appeared in his vision a few seconds later and looked down at him. "It's about time you woke up, it's been three days!"
"Wha..."
"Wimp! Pussy! You failed your training and gave up just because a little lightning bolt hit you in the chest!"
"Li..ghtn..ing?!" Ranma gasped. Why wasn't he dead?
Genma glared at him and Ranma had to wonder if he was about to be attacked, after all the old man had done so the last time he was sick and throwing up all over the place. After all a martial artist didn't get sick according to his father. At thirteen, Ranma had endured the kinds of pain that very few people have ever endured and he had done most of it voluntarily for the most part. After all he was the heir to his family school and that was the whole reason he was here on the road with his old man. He blinked in surprise when Genma slammed the bucket of chicken down next to his head and upped the glare a little.
"Your dinner is in there, two pieces left, if you aren't up in five minutes you will lose them. Understand?" Genma muttered to himself about having a failure for a son as he walked back over to the fire and sat down with a grunt.
"Y...es." Ranma croaked again.
Taking a deep breath Ranma focused past the pain and slowly sat up with a loud groan and spent a few precious seconds gasping for air. Everything that had hurt before seemed to ache even worse now that he was moving. He had to consciously force his hands to stop shaking as he crawled to his knees, but he could tell that his body was slowly loosening up a bit. He wasn't exactly sure why he wasn't dead because being hit by a lightning bolt was supposed to be fatal. Shaking his head he pushed himself to his feet and had to suppress a scream of pain as a wave of pain traveled up both legs and made his hair stand on end.
"Quite playing around you baby! Eat your dinner and do some stretches, you have to regain what you lost with this set back."
"Yeah, yeah..." Ranma muttered as he slowly picked up the bucket and saw that the two pieces of chicken were probably the two smallest ones that had been in the bucket. Make that buckets, there were four others tossed about the camp, empty except for chicken bones and a rather large stain on the front of his old man's gi. Then he noticed something odd with his one free hand, it was still shaking and no matter how much he strained he didn't seem to be able to stop it. Glaring down at the thing his eyes tripled in size as electricity started to arc across his fingers.
His jaw dropped in shock and he barely kept the nearly empty bucket of chicken from falling to the ground. The lethargic feeling of his body seemed to disappear as the electricity jumped from finger to finger. It was a rainbow colored arc of electricity too, something he had never heard of before. As the stuff neared his clothing it seemed to change to match it's color, some how blending in and amplifying itself in some way he didn't understand. Flexing his arm allowed the electricity to travel from his hands and down his arm as it moved and the pain in his body all but vanished into a dull ache after a few seconds.
"Pops! What the hell is going on?!" Ranma screamed, now he was starting to get a little frightened and didn't care what his old man would say about it.
"Pops!?" He yelled again and turned to look at his old man and had to stop in shock.
Genma was about a foot and a half away with his hand already halfway into the bucket trying to steal the last of the chicken. What shocked Ranma the most was the fact that the old man seemed to be frozen in place. He stumbled back several paces and was astonished to find that the bucket seemed to stay in place after he let go of it. Ranma wasn't yet the man among men he would one day become, at thirteen he was just a talented braggart that had mastered enough martial arts to be very dangerous. He didn't yet have the control he would one day achieve and that was why he panicked and the lighting swirled around his body and he turned to run. In an instant he achieved a level of speed he had never traveled at before, but in his head long rush to get away from the freaky lightning that was following him he just tried to run faster and faster without paying attention to what was around him.
He didn't have the skill to understand that he had touched something created by the god of speed Mercury/Hermes, only that he had to get away. To get away before whatever it was consumed him completely. He kept his eyes closed as he ran and didn't notice has he went through objects or when they exploded in his wake. Nor would he have because by the time they detonated he was a thousand miles away and accelerating. He could hear the eerie spark and crackle of the lightning as it lapped at his heels and wanted to scream in fear as it conjured up visions within his mind of his death being just one misstep away. He ran across the surface of the ocean and didn't even have the presence of mind to think about all the natural laws he was breaking at that moment. All he wanted was to get away, this thought consumed him so much that he didn't even have time to think of anything else as he ran. Leaving a trail of destruction behind him thousands of miles long.
This destruction was what first brought Ranma to another speedsters attention. Ranma blew by him moving so fast that even after images had to take a few seconds to form before they to vanished into thin air. The man was after him like a shot and almost instantly realized that the feeling he'd gotten just little while earlier was this kid getting access to the Speed Force and was to panicked to understand what had happened. His eyes narrowed as he concentrated and the lightning flowed off him in a long wave as he accelerated beyond his normal cruising speed and slowly started to catch up with Ranma. Normally he wouldn't have even noticed Ranma's achievement as the connection with the speed force was made, buy he'd been immersed in his meditation within its energies to feel the connection as it took effect.
It was usually a relatively passive thing as well, but this one was different in some odd way that he couldn't quite place his finger on. Yet in another way it was very familiar to him as it reminded him of the day he'd first gotten his own connection to the speed force. Though at the time he'd been a little more prepared for it to take hold of him than the kid probably was. As he ran he concentrated on the energy trail the kid was leaving behind and passed through it a few times to get a feel for it and noticed that it was almost as if it was out of phase with the normal energies of the Speed Force, and the boy's fear wasn't helping matters in any way. Max began to realize that the kid was getting faster and faster as they ran and it was becoming a struggle just to just catch up. The kid had just to much of a lead on him and the only person that he knew that could do it was Wally. Unless he pushed himself to the speeds that would start to make this whole chase beyond dangerous and into suicidal.
He didn't have time to go and get Wally West, the current Flash and from the color of the energy bleed off of energy around them he could tell that they were moving into dangerous territory. Then they passed the speed that mad the world turn into nothing but a blur and they passed from the physical world into a slightly more energized one that allowed them to run faster and faster. So fast that even light seemed to slow down just a little bit and he had to grit his teeth as he started to feel the siren call of the Speed Force calling him once again and cursed his luck. He could feel the barrier to the speed force as they neared the speed of light and knew that one of them would most likely not make it if he didn't find some way to stop the kid before he passed beyond. In just the time he had been following the panicked kid they had circled the globe several times. At speeds like this planetary distances meant nothing at all.
This kids connection to the Speed Force was quite remarkable as well, even Wally hadn't managed to go even a tenth this speed for over half a decade or more and he'd had lots of practice. Though he had to admit that Wally was total idiot when it came to actually using his mind for anything other than a battering ram, so maybe this kid was smart enough to or good enough to learn things at an accelerated rate of speed. Then he shook his head for giving the kid to much credit and chalked it up to the kids fear and an adrenal response to that very fear. There was no way he could yell to the kid either, they had surpassed the speed of sound long ago and for him to talk to the kid he had to be beside or in front of him. Something that was turning out to be surprisingly, hard to do even at this speed. They flashed through a city and Max winced as the kids arm grazed a telephone pole and it exploded. This kid was going to speed the rest of his life in jail if they ever found out just who was blowing things up along their speed wake.
"I have got to stop this kid...oh no..." He muttered to himself just as the kid actually seemed to get faster and start pulling ahead by several seconds at least. Max could only watch as the kids clothing suddenly gave out and vaporized just as he passed the point of no return.
Almost instantly Ranma was tiny spot in the distance as he sped towards the horizon and it would have amazed him to know that this whole thing had taken less than five minutes in real time. Then the sound of the lightning vanished, the sense of danger passed, and he got faster and faster. His eyes opened a little and for first time he noticed that he seemed to have entered some kind of tunnel made up of rainbow colored lightning. It would have shocked him to see that his blue eyes had taken on the rainbow like consistency of the tunnel as he ran. Arcing out and covering his body like a sheath of warm energy. He thought to slow down entered his mind just as he slammed into a barrier of lightning and passed through into a world of lightning with a scream.
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Max Mercury came to a stop in the middle of Kansas and hung his head in defeat. "Damn! I wasn't able to get him in time."
He staggered over to a nearby broken down tractor and slumped down next to its back wheel and gasped for air. Whatever had happened to give that kid the power of the Speed Force had just resulted in yet another death he couldn't prevent. In a way he envied him even more for on his first run he had achieved something that had eluded him several times before. Deep down he knew it wasn't his fault, but he just couldn't accept yet another death on his hands. Those who crossed over were never heard from again. In all history no one using the Speed Force had ever been able to come back as far has he knew. He didn't even have any idea of who the kid was, just that he was now in the realm of pure speed and perhaps reached a kind of home in the afterlife.
He glanced up as a blood red blur seemed to just appear beside him and he glanced over to see Wally West, The Flash, looking down on him.
"What happened?"
"I failed."
"What?!" Wally asked, somewhat confused because he had no idea what was going on.
With a sigh Max turned and studied Wally for a moment before speaking. "Nothing, I just seem to have lost someone with out realizing it."
"Uh… sorry to hear that Max… look I came here to get your help… you see, I don't have a lot of time left to train Bart in the ways of speed and I need your help." Wally said rubbing his hand behind the back of his mask. The movement made him look younger then he was but with the way the Speed Force look like it was now reacting to Wally it looked like is was time for some… revelation.
**********
Euphoria was a term that few could truly comprehend, but at that exact moment Ranma Saotome knew what it meant as the feeling filled his soul. Lightning was flowing though the very air for as far as he could see, it caressed his body and arched back into the air as he stood there gaping at the sight before him. For the first time in his life he felt like he truly belonged to something, that he was whole once more. The rainbow like lightning filled his body as he gave himself over to the feelings that filled him with such wonder. He was home, a place he had never had a chance to see or even visit and it was perfect. There was no sense of time as he let his form simply dissolve away and he became one with the storm of power all around him and he lost all sense of time and space. He embraced the storm and controlled it with barely a nudge from his mind.
He had never dreamed that anything like this could exist and never wanted to give it up for anything. So why was some nut rocking the boat? Then all that changed and his perfect example of heaven was shattered as the very storm he had embraces seemed to twang for just the barest billionth of a second and it was suddenly like trying to swim upstream against the currents of power and he panicked in confusion. Something moved past him as he struggled and then it grabbed him, yanked him from heaven, and threw him into hell. For the first time in a lifetime he could hear again, feel and see the cold inhumane world that is reality and Ranma wants nothing to do with it.
He crawls to his feet, naked as the day he was born and glares around the area around him in pure rage. All around him is a devastated ruin of what had once been a huge city, but all that was left of it was a pile of rubble for hundreds of yards in every direction. There are people standing around wearing skin tight outfits, one in blue and white, another in red and white. It takes a second, but he quickly spots the one he's looking for kissing a girl in the rubble just out of sight of the others and his eyes narrow as a rage unlike anything he's ever experienced over comes him and he screams. Lightning fills the sky and for a brief second he realizes that it's raining and in that instant he realizes just who he's dealing with. Ranma knew who the Flash was, everyone in the world knew who the Flash was and what his powers were, even that there was more than one Flash. He was one of a small handful of superheros that didn't bother with a secret identity, though Ranma couldn't recall just what it was exactly. This was the man that had just cast him into hell and he wouldn't get away with it now that Ranma had someone to blame.
"YOU!!" Ranma screamed in Japanese.
Wally West and his girlfriend Linda Park cried out as Ranma screamed a second time, loud enough to catch everyone's attention as they all turned to see the naked teenager for the first time. Wally gaped at the kid and tried to figure out where he had come from and had to just enough time to blink as a powerful wave of pure speed force formed around the kid and he shot forward to deck him across the jaw at about mach two. Linda screamed as Wally was knocked the length of the room and the naked teenager stood before her arcing speed force from the floor and across his body as he seethed with rage. She could tell that he was talking under his breath, but didn't recognize the language.
"No! I just got him BACK!" Linda screamed.
"What the hell?!" Wally yelled as he staggered to his feet. He'd barely been able to reduce the speed and power of the attack before it hit him. His newly learned instinctive use of the Speed Force had taken over at the last instant. Then he spotted the kid stalking towards him, surprisingly at normal walking pace, and recognized the walk of a trained fighter. He'd met enough of them to know the danger signs. Max Mercury had a similar walk, but nothing like this, and why the hell was the kid naked?
"Wally! What's going on?" Linda yelled.
"I'll kill you." Ranma muttered over and over under his breath as he glared at the devil in front of him.
"What the hell is he saying, I can't understand a word of it." Wally snapped as he motioned for his wife to get of the way while he took care of yet another enemy. He wasn't sure why, but he knew this wasn't a last minute attack by Cobra to take him down once and for all. This was something different, yet another riddle about the Speed Force that he would have to figure out eventually. Wally glared at the kid and literally growled at him for taking him away from Linda at a time like this.
"This stops now." Wally's voice sounded like he barely suppressing his anger over this while situation and bolts of electricity began to form around him and his eyes lit up.
They ran at each other at speeds even Johny Quick couldn't match, so at speeds like this, at less than five feet apart, they would have killed a normal person. Wally West was The fastest and exceedingly most irritated man alive and there was no way some punk like this would be able to beat him. He had years of experience under his belt fighting hundreds of different battles with his life on the line. Ranma Saotome on the other hand wasn't thinking straight and was just a little out of his mind at the moment. So when Wally suddenly vanished half an inch from dying at Ranma hands it came as quite a surprise, though not enough to fool his trained reflexes. Then came the pain from being hit over every inch of his body as The Flash went into action.
Five seconds later Ranma collapsed to the ground unconscious as Wally cradled his sprained wrist where the kid had actually managed to block one of his attacks. He fell to his knees and just wondered what in the world would happen next. If it wasn't The Fiddler coming up with some other crackpot idea, it was some moron he'd never met before trying to streak his girlfriend right when they having a 'moment' together. Now how in the hell had this guy gotten a connection to the Speed Force in the first place?
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To Be Continued...
End Notes - Review Reveiw Review! I want to know what you think, is it good, bad, so ugly that it needs to be dragged out to the local turn pike and shot repeatedly. Anything will do!
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Sudden Burst of Speed
Chapter 00
Cory D. Rose - [email protected]
BlindmanX - [email protected]
(c) 2003
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In a temple deep in the mountains, there was old in a room of the temple where no one ever went. For months on end this part of the temple would stand abandoned except for the priest that would walk through it halls twice a week to make sure that everything was where it should be. Today the temple has a couple of guests, a father and a son, and the priest was no where to be seen. They had stumbled on rumors of the place just hours before and the father set out to find it as quickly as possible. He had gotten quite excited when they found the place and instantly dragged his son along for the ride as they went through an open window. The father was a forty-ish, slightly overweight man who had a taste for any kind of food and had a white kerchief over his balding head. He was laughing to himself at how easy it had been to get into the temple while his son followed along grumbling about how much of an idiot his old man was. To the son an old tale about a long forgotten chi technique that would make one move like lightning was too much for someone like his father to resist. The son knew better, this wasn't the first time his father had pulled something like this and he had all but given up trying to stop the guy.
He knew this was a bad idea and had tried several time to talk his old man out of going into the temple to get what he wanted to steal, but like always he had no say in this mater. Most of the time he tried to keep out of the way when his father did something like this, but today he had no choice, so he just stood next to his father looking just lightly out of place in the shadow of his old man's greed and sighed. They had been walking through this place for about half an hour now and left in their wake several room full of over turned beds and dressers as his old man tried to pick the place clean. Stopping his old man was out of the question, at thirteen he just didn't have the skill to make his old man stop and would have ended up unconscious if he tried. He didn't want to spend yet another night draped over his old man's shoulder for trying to keep him from stealing something.
It took the father several minutes to find the main room of the temple, break into the wooden case set on a raised dais in the middle of the room and grab a small book. He crowed as it was opened for the first time in two hundred years and danced a little jig. The son rolled his eyes and shuddered a little as he recalled the last time something like this happened. Then had to stand back and watch as the moron pulled out his tanto and used it to prize several expensive looking gems out of the wall of the room. The boy figured that they would be enough to keep them funded for the next few months, then shook his head, the gems would last about a week as his father bought as much sake as he could and got falling down drunk. Then the small book was shoved into his hands and the father kicked a wooden case along the wall and pulled three scrolls out of the destruction and held them high and laughed some more.
This would've been an almost perfect theft, a quick break and grab if you will, if only the father hadn't been such a moron and started giggling to himself a little louder than he had been. With all the previous noise of the ransacking, the son was amazed that no one had shown up yet for him to knock out. So he did the only thing he could think of and left the father to his warped humor and made his way out of the temple as fast as he could. It wasn't much of a surprise that the camp was empty when he returned about an hour later. The boy, Ranma Saotome, was experienced enough to know that his father had decided to do something else when he left.
They had been using this cave for a week so he knew that there was no possibility of the old man getting lost. So he sat down and pulled out the book and started to read it in detail to see what it held, never again would he leave training from scrolls up to his old man. Not after he had been forced to endure the Neko-ken training when he was six. Barely seven years later and he still owed his old man a good hard kick in the ass over that little incident. He glanced up as thunder rumbled in the distance and it started to rain, luckily the sun was still up enough for him to read by. Being on the road for all this time had taught him to respect the weather.
As he finished off the book the boy realized that it was a good thing they had grabbed the scrolls after all, the book was like a description of the technique and what it was useful for. It was the scrolls themselves that explained just how the technique worked and he could tell that because of another technique he had learned a couple years ago he would pick up the technique with ease. Surprisingly one of the things the scrolls insisted on was a thunderstorm, a strong one that filled the sky with lightning. After some of the training his father put him threw lately he was actually kind of surprised he hadn't already picked this up, but he could tell that he already had the Ki control required to pull it off already. His path was set though, and he figured that he would pick the technique up easily. He even had to wonder why his father had broken into the temple to steal this things; what a waste of time. He hoped the moron got arrested and had to spend a few weeks in jail for petty theft while he learned this while the weather was working in his favor.
The most difficult thing was getting his mind into the right focus and would take quite a bit of meditation on his part, but he could tell just by looking out the cave entrance that it would be several hours before the storm reached it's peak and he could begin. So he took up his normal meditation by balancing on his head and reread everything to see if he could glean any extra information from them before beginning the next step. At the same time he slowly worked his way through the mind set described, to be aware, but not aware and what he had to do in order to focus his Ki into a pillar several feet above his head. He wasn't to sure why the pillar was necessary, but this wouldn't be the first time he did something without learning all the potential ramifications, he was a student of Anything Goes after all. Even the mud slide training to increase his balance on a moving material had been like that, though later he had recalled something from a movie they saw a few earlier and remembered something similar happening in the movie, though with ice. He thanked all the gods that existed that the old fart hadn't just copied the movie though, him and ice didn't get along to well.
So it was a few hours later when the storm had grown so huge that he couldn't even see the sun clearly that he got up and left the safety of the cave without a look of determination on his face. He knew he was in the right frame of mind, form his Ki into the right shape, and had no fears of failure. There was no way this technique would beat him. It was his and no stupid storm was going to make him give it up. The scrolls had said a night like tonight, with a giant lightning display, would help him reach into greater highs of speed that only the gods were capable of achieving. Ranma grinned in anticipation as shouted the mantra, "Ride the Lightning!" And with that he took the took a step and started to run through the woods around the cave, slowly forming his Ki, focusing his mind, and quickly achieving his fastest running speed as the storm raged overhead. Lightning and thunder filled the sky and nearly deafened him as he ran along, dodging trees and going as fast as he could. In almost no time he reached open ground and headed across without a bit of thought.
The technique was simple for him, as it did not cost him, any thing to learn it was the kind of technique he liked to learn, easy and quick. He knew that something was coming, though the scrolls had been kind of vague on just what it was, just that his Ki was required to be formed the way it was. So he ran and concentrated, within minutes he had traveled over two miles from the cave and started weaving his way back to the camp. He didn't want to get to far away if he could help it and he could have gotten lost in this storm. After about half an hour he was just beginning to find his second and focused his center a little more by letting out a regular slow breath that allowed him to ignore the elements around him. It didn't take him long to enter the mental state he needed to be in, but it did take him a moment more to bring out his small battle aura. All around him the rain seemed to be getting worse and worse, already he had witnessed several trees being struck by lightning as he passed in and out of the forest around him.
The off white gi he always wore mirrored the lightning in the background as his light blue aura came into being and his Ki entered the visible spectrum made the bar of Ki above his head visible for the first time. It was something for him to be proud of as well, most masters twice his age couldn't do this, but he could with a growing ease that was almost scary. But now wasn't the time for him to think about those things, it was the time for him to learn the technique and he was beginning to wonder just how long he would have to run for before anything happened. Then the little hairs on the back of his neck started to tingle like when his old man was about to ambush him and for a split second there was a flash of light that filled the world and everything seemed to vanish. All sight, sound, taste, all his senses seemed to go haywire. All at once and for a brief moment he could taste the rainwater as it passed over his skin, hear the muscles in his body as they contracted and relaxed, and wondered why the air around him seemed to be full of static electricity.
**********
Genma Saotome was having an enjoyable night, one of the best he's had in quite a long time in fact. It was if all, his prayers had been answered by the gods. He was a simple man and had simple wishes, a strong son who would do what he was told, easy money, and free food. So far he had accomplished the last two with this one short stop. He had found a good fist full of priceless gems that he planned to sell at the first opportunity and then had come something that he hadn't believed at first. Something that he had never seen before and had no way to understand, just that it was the answer to and almost constant need of his. His son, the wimp, had actually left the temple before checking over all the rooms and missed out on the fulfillment of his third greatest desire as he gaped at the treasure before him and drooled. The room was covered in shelves, nearly fifteen feet high and filled to the ceiling with food! He had never seen a larder so full and he was going to be full for the first time in years once he finished this place off, but he would have to hurry. Those priests would come to check on this place eventually and he didn't want to be here when they did, he'd cleaned out all the gems he could find. Now he was alone with his ill-gotten wealth and a roomful of food and his son wasn't around. Genma was of the mind that this night was truly blessed as he reached for some of the grapes. Especially after finding all the food he could handle, it might even fill him up, just sitting in a room with religious symbols and a bit of dust. Genma just laughed to himself as he thought of how foolish these people were in between eating there offerings as fast as he hands could get to his mouth, at Saotome speed this meant the taste was relatively brief.
Up above, a man in a cloak knelt on the floor and looked through the offering hole down into the room below as Genma ate and glanced over at his partner. "Should we stop this fool, Master?" The kneeling figure asked to the man in a red robe that stood beside him with a half smirk on his face.
"…" The red robed man said as he glanced down into the room that they only entered once a month to clean, a job that everyone of the priests dreaded with a passion. The smell alone was always enough make them gag even at the best of times, but the fool below had stumbled on the place before true purpose of the room came into being.
The first gray cloaked person turned to the second with a sigh he asked, "Could you please tell me what '….' means?" Still watching Genma eat from the pile for slightly old fruit, bread, and most especially...meat.
The second gray-clocked person looked for a moment at the first and then said, "Trust me, you really don't want to know." With a slight shutter they continued to watch Genma ate the spoiling food. It wasn't noticeable just by looking at the food, but room was used to get rid of things that weren't edible anymore by spreading up the decomposition.
"You know I almost feel sorry for the bowel pains that guy will get in a few hours… almost, then I saw what he did to the main room of the temple and I have to think that the guy is going to get what he deserves." The First cloaked person said to the second as they witnessed Genma eat an under cooked pig's leg while drinking orange juice that was several days past its expiration date. They were amazed that he hadn't noticed just how bad the food was.
"Well at least we're getting rid of all that bad food and on the plus side, we won't have to clean the room this month. That is a blessing from the gods. So if he wants to let his butt feel the three day burn who are we to judge?" The second clocked person shrugged as he watched Genma eat, what at one time, had been a months worth of Mexican TV dinners that had to be put aside because of a three week hold over in port. "But then again after the Mistress told us about his dealing with his own son. Well… I say leave him to his meal… For an hour longer or if he finishes everything, then we can run him off. The exercise alone will speed the digestion process up quite a bit. OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH!"
Genma's hands blurred as his went threw the four day old bread as he again toasted to his good fortune, coming to the temple that had a room like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Not realizing that in less then three hours he would find out the true meaning of 'the hardships of the road' he snarfed down what he took to be jello and moved onto a roasted pie.
"Are you sure we shouldn't chase him out of here, the smell alone is just making me sick." The first shrugged and chuckled as Genma finished off the bottled prunes. "I say we give him a good chase once he finishes most of it off and get his heart pumping, then we can sit back and smell the results… from a good distance."
"Heh… deal." The second said as he kept on watching the show of the glutton at his role in life.
And boy did Genma learn a lesson.
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There once existed a man with many faces. No he wasn't a shape changer or even an alien with weird abilities. He was a perfectly normal human that at one time had been thrust into a position that gave him a second chance at life. Ever since then he'd lived his life one day at time, slowly learning the limits of his new abilities and fighting for what he believed in. Because of this he was one of a small handful of men that could be in the running for the title of The Fastest Man alive, but it wasn't a title he was after. He had other goals in mind for he had given away that particular title to one who was more deserving long, long ago. When it came to his life and how he lived, time meant almost nothing because even though he wasn't immortal he did have the power to move through time if he timed things just right. Even at the moment he was considering making another try at his original goal, sitting in the middle of a small forest out side Keystone City meditating and allowing the very power that gave him his incredible powers to flow and ebb within him.
For the first time in a long while he had to admit that he was getting frustrated with current events. He was old now, and even after all these years of doing what he to do for survival he was tired. Unfortunately he didn't want to experience death, but to achieve the goal that had eluded him for so long. He liked life and got a kick out of feeling useful as he helped people and didn't care one whit if the fools he saved mistook him for someone else because of the blue and white in his costume. No, what he wanted was to prove that he had lived a life that meant something to someone. He had saved lives and performed his duty for so very long and would continue to so for some years to come. His connection to the powers that fueled him managed to keep him in excellent shape and perfect health.
His connection to this power was better than most and there was only one person on the while planet that knew more than him and there was no way he even wanted to think of that psychopath as a person to ask a favor from. So for the past few hours he had been trying to delve deeper into his power to figure out what it was that was bothering him and come quite close on several occasions already. The tap his power and let it flow through him at just the right amount of speed to read it's currents and find and understanding within himself and for his troubled mind. He called it The Speed Force, a form of energy that allowed him to run at speeds that seemed to go against even the hard core truths of physics at times. Just as he was about to relax for a few minutes before he tried again to reach what he wanted, he was distracted by a distinct arc of power as the Speed Force seemed to resonate all around him like a tuned guitar string.
His eyes narrowed and he concentrated a little harder to bring that feeling to the forefront of his mind so he could study it a little closer. It was a rather vague feeling, but if he wasn't mistake he'd just felt someone connect to the Speed Force for the first time. It was one of the few things he'd never experienced before and even now he suspected that he wouldn't have even noticed it if he hadn't been meditation and studying the energy as it flowed all around him. The first connection was the most dangerous one, because it was like taking a child and tossing them out of a plane with a parachute and telling them to pull the cord if they wanted to survive the fall. A child couldn't even understand what was going on around them at times so the first time the speed force was access it tended to cull the weak ones out as they killed themselves by accident.
He had to get to them before something happened and if he was to slow...
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Some time later Genma was on his way back to the camp site, having stopped in a nearby village to stock up on some things they needed. On his way back he literally stumbled across his son, tripping over him as he lay in the middle of an open field several miles from their camp. The ground around his body was charred and black, he wasn't sure as he bent down to examine the boy, but it almost looked like he'd been hit by a massive lightning bolt or something similar. The boy's gi was a total wreck, burned off of his body almost completely and the faintest hint of smoke still wafting off of his body. When he reached down to turn the boy over and get a better look at him he howled as electricity seemed to flow out of Ranma's body and hurl him away like a rag doll.
He landed on his shoulder and rolled with the impact before coming to his feet and letting the momentum of the fall fade away as he slid about ten yards. Smoke was coming off his arms where he'd tried to guard against the sudden eruption of energy and he glared at the boy from behind his glasses. Taking a deep breath he heard the boy suddenly moan a little and start to move around and sighed a bit. If the boy had died there was no way he could ever go home to his wife, she would have beheaded him in an instant and that was the last thing he wanted to deal with at the moment. There was something odd going on here, but he would worry about it later. From the looks of the boy he figured it would be some time before the lazy little good for nothing woke up so he decided to lug the boy back to camp and let him recover there.
The trip with Ranma on his shoulder wasn't something that Genma normally did, hell he was half tempted to just leave him there and let him make his way back to camp on his own. That's what he wanted to do, but even he didn't want to have to look for the boy if he didn't return, so keeping him close was the best option. Then 'it' happened and Genma stopped dead and felt funny. Not funny ha ha, more like slipping on a banana peel and tumbling down several flights of stairs and bouncing just right to land between a couple of trash cans funny. Then the pain started and for a moment he couldn't figure out what was going on, then he recalled that little feast he'd eaten earlier. He bellowed as he ran for the camp, they were close enough anyway and there was something in his tent that would settle his stomach.
He rounded a couple of trees with Ranma's body flapping in the wind behind him with little bolts of lightning arching out every now and then. It wasn't like Genma would ever notice as he did the only thing some one camping in the middle of nowhere had to do. He tossed Ranma to the ground the instant he hit the campsite and dove into his tent, grabbed a roll of toilet paper out of his bag and made for the nearest tree like a bull charging a red flag. If conscious Ranma would have been laughing at his old man's fate and insulting him the whole time, but Genma got off luck on that account. Instead in the hours that followed the nightmare of Genma Saotome began as his theft of all that bad food at the temple took it's justified revenge in the only way it could. Mercy wasn't a tenant of the Saotome School of Martial Arts, Genma never practiced any and Ranma would have had to look the word up to find out what it meant. In the forest around the camp all sound died except Genma's whimpering only to have even that shattered a few seconds later.
Genma screamed as his worst nightmare came to life and cursed all temples and their free food.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
Some nearby birds who were still sheltering from the light fall of rain that was left over from the earlier storm to flight from the noise, bursting out of the nearby trees where they had been hiding and flew for their lives. They chirped at each other as they flew to the unending scream of pain and agony coming from Genma's concealed position beside a larger tree. Ranma, still unconscious rolled over with a spark and didn't stir even as Genma started to really feel the burn that was coming.
Fingers touched the scrying pool that the clocked figures stood around as they watched the scene with huge grins in their faces and laughed out loud at each new and creative sound Genma made. "Man that was pain!"
The other next to him just looked at his companion and put another handful of popcorn in his mouth and shrugged. "You were right, it was well worth the wait to expend the energy on this pool to watch him."
The First looked back on the sight of Genma with a small grin. "Pass the popcorn."
"What do we tell the others though?"
"Not to worry, the guy only got away with some of the jewels and a few of the more esoteric scrolls. He didn't even get into the main room and took the 'bait' room instead."
"I've never heard this before."
"It was on a need to know basis and there was something of value in that room that they did get, but totally useless to anyone except a master of the fighting arts."
"Those two were martial artists you know."
"So what? You expect me to believe that a couple morons like that could actually learn that technique? Hah!" The first yelled and started to laugh.
"Yeah..hehehe..." The second one said a bit nervously.
"What?"
"Nothing!"
**********
His bright blue eyes snapped open and for a second he thought he could see yellow-ish white lightning arching around him, but it vanished after he blinked a few times. What in the world had happened to him? He could feel that every muscle in his body ached for some reason and he could tell that it wasn't from one of the normal beatings he endured on an almost daily basis. This felt different, really different and kind of freaky and it didn't help that his head hurt. Light was filtering through the trees above him and he could tell that it was coming from the wrong direction than is should have.
A few seconds later he determined that he had been out cold or unaware of his surroundings for close to ten hours for the sun to have moved that much. It had to be early morning now and the last thing he remembered was sometime, before sundown of what he figured had to be the day before as he ran through the obstacle course. His father had set up for him to develop better reflexes and a lot better speed than what he could currently achieve. He blinked and realized that he couldn't move his arms or legs and that his whole body was tingling. Straining as much as he could he grit his teeth against the pain and forced his arm to raise off the ground about an inch or so, it took five minutes and felt like he was straining against some giant unseen weight.
"What ha...ppen..ed..." He croaked out.
The head of Genma Saotome, with a half eaten chicken leg in his mouth appeared in his vision a few seconds later and looked down at him. "It's about time you woke up, it's been three days!"
"Wha..."
"Wimp! Pussy! You failed your training and gave up just because a little lightning bolt hit you in the chest!"
"Li..ghtn..ing?!" Ranma gasped. Why wasn't he dead?
Genma glared at him and Ranma had to wonder if he was about to be attacked, after all the old man had done so the last time he was sick and throwing up all over the place. After all a martial artist didn't get sick according to his father. At thirteen, Ranma had endured the kinds of pain that very few people have ever endured and he had done most of it voluntarily for the most part. After all he was the heir to his family school and that was the whole reason he was here on the road with his old man. He blinked in surprise when Genma slammed the bucket of chicken down next to his head and upped the glare a little.
"Your dinner is in there, two pieces left, if you aren't up in five minutes you will lose them. Understand?" Genma muttered to himself about having a failure for a son as he walked back over to the fire and sat down with a grunt.
"Y...es." Ranma croaked again.
Taking a deep breath Ranma focused past the pain and slowly sat up with a loud groan and spent a few precious seconds gasping for air. Everything that had hurt before seemed to ache even worse now that he was moving. He had to consciously force his hands to stop shaking as he crawled to his knees, but he could tell that his body was slowly loosening up a bit. He wasn't exactly sure why he wasn't dead because being hit by a lightning bolt was supposed to be fatal. Shaking his head he pushed himself to his feet and had to suppress a scream of pain as a wave of pain traveled up both legs and made his hair stand on end.
"Quite playing around you baby! Eat your dinner and do some stretches, you have to regain what you lost with this set back."
"Yeah, yeah..." Ranma muttered as he slowly picked up the bucket and saw that the two pieces of chicken were probably the two smallest ones that had been in the bucket. Make that buckets, there were four others tossed about the camp, empty except for chicken bones and a rather large stain on the front of his old man's gi. Then he noticed something odd with his one free hand, it was still shaking and no matter how much he strained he didn't seem to be able to stop it. Glaring down at the thing his eyes tripled in size as electricity started to arc across his fingers.
His jaw dropped in shock and he barely kept the nearly empty bucket of chicken from falling to the ground. The lethargic feeling of his body seemed to disappear as the electricity jumped from finger to finger. It was a rainbow colored arc of electricity too, something he had never heard of before. As the stuff neared his clothing it seemed to change to match it's color, some how blending in and amplifying itself in some way he didn't understand. Flexing his arm allowed the electricity to travel from his hands and down his arm as it moved and the pain in his body all but vanished into a dull ache after a few seconds.
"Pops! What the hell is going on?!" Ranma screamed, now he was starting to get a little frightened and didn't care what his old man would say about it.
"Pops!?" He yelled again and turned to look at his old man and had to stop in shock.
Genma was about a foot and a half away with his hand already halfway into the bucket trying to steal the last of the chicken. What shocked Ranma the most was the fact that the old man seemed to be frozen in place. He stumbled back several paces and was astonished to find that the bucket seemed to stay in place after he let go of it. Ranma wasn't yet the man among men he would one day become, at thirteen he was just a talented braggart that had mastered enough martial arts to be very dangerous. He didn't yet have the control he would one day achieve and that was why he panicked and the lighting swirled around his body and he turned to run. In an instant he achieved a level of speed he had never traveled at before, but in his head long rush to get away from the freaky lightning that was following him he just tried to run faster and faster without paying attention to what was around him.
He didn't have the skill to understand that he had touched something created by the god of speed Mercury/Hermes, only that he had to get away. To get away before whatever it was consumed him completely. He kept his eyes closed as he ran and didn't notice has he went through objects or when they exploded in his wake. Nor would he have because by the time they detonated he was a thousand miles away and accelerating. He could hear the eerie spark and crackle of the lightning as it lapped at his heels and wanted to scream in fear as it conjured up visions within his mind of his death being just one misstep away. He ran across the surface of the ocean and didn't even have the presence of mind to think about all the natural laws he was breaking at that moment. All he wanted was to get away, this thought consumed him so much that he didn't even have time to think of anything else as he ran. Leaving a trail of destruction behind him thousands of miles long.
This destruction was what first brought Ranma to another speedsters attention. Ranma blew by him moving so fast that even after images had to take a few seconds to form before they to vanished into thin air. The man was after him like a shot and almost instantly realized that the feeling he'd gotten just little while earlier was this kid getting access to the Speed Force and was to panicked to understand what had happened. His eyes narrowed as he concentrated and the lightning flowed off him in a long wave as he accelerated beyond his normal cruising speed and slowly started to catch up with Ranma. Normally he wouldn't have even noticed Ranma's achievement as the connection with the speed force was made, buy he'd been immersed in his meditation within its energies to feel the connection as it took effect.
It was usually a relatively passive thing as well, but this one was different in some odd way that he couldn't quite place his finger on. Yet in another way it was very familiar to him as it reminded him of the day he'd first gotten his own connection to the speed force. Though at the time he'd been a little more prepared for it to take hold of him than the kid probably was. As he ran he concentrated on the energy trail the kid was leaving behind and passed through it a few times to get a feel for it and noticed that it was almost as if it was out of phase with the normal energies of the Speed Force, and the boy's fear wasn't helping matters in any way. Max began to realize that the kid was getting faster and faster as they ran and it was becoming a struggle just to just catch up. The kid had just to much of a lead on him and the only person that he knew that could do it was Wally. Unless he pushed himself to the speeds that would start to make this whole chase beyond dangerous and into suicidal.
He didn't have time to go and get Wally West, the current Flash and from the color of the energy bleed off of energy around them he could tell that they were moving into dangerous territory. Then they passed the speed that mad the world turn into nothing but a blur and they passed from the physical world into a slightly more energized one that allowed them to run faster and faster. So fast that even light seemed to slow down just a little bit and he had to grit his teeth as he started to feel the siren call of the Speed Force calling him once again and cursed his luck. He could feel the barrier to the speed force as they neared the speed of light and knew that one of them would most likely not make it if he didn't find some way to stop the kid before he passed beyond. In just the time he had been following the panicked kid they had circled the globe several times. At speeds like this planetary distances meant nothing at all.
This kids connection to the Speed Force was quite remarkable as well, even Wally hadn't managed to go even a tenth this speed for over half a decade or more and he'd had lots of practice. Though he had to admit that Wally was total idiot when it came to actually using his mind for anything other than a battering ram, so maybe this kid was smart enough to or good enough to learn things at an accelerated rate of speed. Then he shook his head for giving the kid to much credit and chalked it up to the kids fear and an adrenal response to that very fear. There was no way he could yell to the kid either, they had surpassed the speed of sound long ago and for him to talk to the kid he had to be beside or in front of him. Something that was turning out to be surprisingly, hard to do even at this speed. They flashed through a city and Max winced as the kids arm grazed a telephone pole and it exploded. This kid was going to speed the rest of his life in jail if they ever found out just who was blowing things up along their speed wake.
"I have got to stop this kid...oh no..." He muttered to himself just as the kid actually seemed to get faster and start pulling ahead by several seconds at least. Max could only watch as the kids clothing suddenly gave out and vaporized just as he passed the point of no return.
Almost instantly Ranma was tiny spot in the distance as he sped towards the horizon and it would have amazed him to know that this whole thing had taken less than five minutes in real time. Then the sound of the lightning vanished, the sense of danger passed, and he got faster and faster. His eyes opened a little and for first time he noticed that he seemed to have entered some kind of tunnel made up of rainbow colored lightning. It would have shocked him to see that his blue eyes had taken on the rainbow like consistency of the tunnel as he ran. Arcing out and covering his body like a sheath of warm energy. He thought to slow down entered his mind just as he slammed into a barrier of lightning and passed through into a world of lightning with a scream.
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Max Mercury came to a stop in the middle of Kansas and hung his head in defeat. "Damn! I wasn't able to get him in time."
He staggered over to a nearby broken down tractor and slumped down next to its back wheel and gasped for air. Whatever had happened to give that kid the power of the Speed Force had just resulted in yet another death he couldn't prevent. In a way he envied him even more for on his first run he had achieved something that had eluded him several times before. Deep down he knew it wasn't his fault, but he just couldn't accept yet another death on his hands. Those who crossed over were never heard from again. In all history no one using the Speed Force had ever been able to come back as far has he knew. He didn't even have any idea of who the kid was, just that he was now in the realm of pure speed and perhaps reached a kind of home in the afterlife.
He glanced up as a blood red blur seemed to just appear beside him and he glanced over to see Wally West, The Flash, looking down on him.
"What happened?"
"I failed."
"What?!" Wally asked, somewhat confused because he had no idea what was going on.
With a sigh Max turned and studied Wally for a moment before speaking. "Nothing, I just seem to have lost someone with out realizing it."
"Uh… sorry to hear that Max… look I came here to get your help… you see, I don't have a lot of time left to train Bart in the ways of speed and I need your help." Wally said rubbing his hand behind the back of his mask. The movement made him look younger then he was but with the way the Speed Force look like it was now reacting to Wally it looked like is was time for some… revelation.
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Euphoria was a term that few could truly comprehend, but at that exact moment Ranma Saotome knew what it meant as the feeling filled his soul. Lightning was flowing though the very air for as far as he could see, it caressed his body and arched back into the air as he stood there gaping at the sight before him. For the first time in his life he felt like he truly belonged to something, that he was whole once more. The rainbow like lightning filled his body as he gave himself over to the feelings that filled him with such wonder. He was home, a place he had never had a chance to see or even visit and it was perfect. There was no sense of time as he let his form simply dissolve away and he became one with the storm of power all around him and he lost all sense of time and space. He embraced the storm and controlled it with barely a nudge from his mind.
He had never dreamed that anything like this could exist and never wanted to give it up for anything. So why was some nut rocking the boat? Then all that changed and his perfect example of heaven was shattered as the very storm he had embraces seemed to twang for just the barest billionth of a second and it was suddenly like trying to swim upstream against the currents of power and he panicked in confusion. Something moved past him as he struggled and then it grabbed him, yanked him from heaven, and threw him into hell. For the first time in a lifetime he could hear again, feel and see the cold inhumane world that is reality and Ranma wants nothing to do with it.
He crawls to his feet, naked as the day he was born and glares around the area around him in pure rage. All around him is a devastated ruin of what had once been a huge city, but all that was left of it was a pile of rubble for hundreds of yards in every direction. There are people standing around wearing skin tight outfits, one in blue and white, another in red and white. It takes a second, but he quickly spots the one he's looking for kissing a girl in the rubble just out of sight of the others and his eyes narrow as a rage unlike anything he's ever experienced over comes him and he screams. Lightning fills the sky and for a brief second he realizes that it's raining and in that instant he realizes just who he's dealing with. Ranma knew who the Flash was, everyone in the world knew who the Flash was and what his powers were, even that there was more than one Flash. He was one of a small handful of superheros that didn't bother with a secret identity, though Ranma couldn't recall just what it was exactly. This was the man that had just cast him into hell and he wouldn't get away with it now that Ranma had someone to blame.
"YOU!!" Ranma screamed in Japanese.
Wally West and his girlfriend Linda Park cried out as Ranma screamed a second time, loud enough to catch everyone's attention as they all turned to see the naked teenager for the first time. Wally gaped at the kid and tried to figure out where he had come from and had to just enough time to blink as a powerful wave of pure speed force formed around the kid and he shot forward to deck him across the jaw at about mach two. Linda screamed as Wally was knocked the length of the room and the naked teenager stood before her arcing speed force from the floor and across his body as he seethed with rage. She could tell that he was talking under his breath, but didn't recognize the language.
"No! I just got him BACK!" Linda screamed.
"What the hell?!" Wally yelled as he staggered to his feet. He'd barely been able to reduce the speed and power of the attack before it hit him. His newly learned instinctive use of the Speed Force had taken over at the last instant. Then he spotted the kid stalking towards him, surprisingly at normal walking pace, and recognized the walk of a trained fighter. He'd met enough of them to know the danger signs. Max Mercury had a similar walk, but nothing like this, and why the hell was the kid naked?
"Wally! What's going on?" Linda yelled.
"I'll kill you." Ranma muttered over and over under his breath as he glared at the devil in front of him.
"What the hell is he saying, I can't understand a word of it." Wally snapped as he motioned for his wife to get of the way while he took care of yet another enemy. He wasn't sure why, but he knew this wasn't a last minute attack by Cobra to take him down once and for all. This was something different, yet another riddle about the Speed Force that he would have to figure out eventually. Wally glared at the kid and literally growled at him for taking him away from Linda at a time like this.
"This stops now." Wally's voice sounded like he barely suppressing his anger over this while situation and bolts of electricity began to form around him and his eyes lit up.
They ran at each other at speeds even Johny Quick couldn't match, so at speeds like this, at less than five feet apart, they would have killed a normal person. Wally West was The fastest and exceedingly most irritated man alive and there was no way some punk like this would be able to beat him. He had years of experience under his belt fighting hundreds of different battles with his life on the line. Ranma Saotome on the other hand wasn't thinking straight and was just a little out of his mind at the moment. So when Wally suddenly vanished half an inch from dying at Ranma hands it came as quite a surprise, though not enough to fool his trained reflexes. Then came the pain from being hit over every inch of his body as The Flash went into action.
Five seconds later Ranma collapsed to the ground unconscious as Wally cradled his sprained wrist where the kid had actually managed to block one of his attacks. He fell to his knees and just wondered what in the world would happen next. If it wasn't The Fiddler coming up with some other crackpot idea, it was some moron he'd never met before trying to streak his girlfriend right when they having a 'moment' together. Now how in the hell had this guy gotten a connection to the Speed Force in the first place?
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To Be Continued...
End Notes - Review Reveiw Review! I want to know what you think, is it good, bad, so ugly that it needs to be dragged out to the local turn pike and shot repeatedly. Anything will do!