Chapter 47: Zealous Race

Romaine's POV

While waiting for the elevator to go up, I glared at Dondre's messy and scratched up suit. I wonder if he doesn't plan on getting it renewed or anything.

"So," He got my attention, "Did the slowest moving relationship in the world make any progress while I was busy being awesome?"

"Yeah... I'm not discussing my love life in an elevator on my way to save people." I responded

As the elevator came to a stop, and the doors slowly opened, Dondre gave me his signature smirk, which never precedes anything good.

"Say," he started, "How 'bout we have a little race?"

Look, I knew it was a bad idea, but I had to prove to myself, and the others, that I wasn't falling behind in terms of speed. I don't care how much times the gravitational constant he was able to vibrate, I'm determined to prove that I'm still the fastest. So don't blame me for what I did.

"You're on." I agreed, having the burning determination not to lose

"Ready." He started us off

"Set." I continued

"GO!"

We sped off, with Dondre in the lead.

I'd let him go in front of me, so that he'd slow down to open the door, but he just phased through the door like it was nothing. I obviously couldn't let him get further in the lead now by slowing down, so I accelerated my speed and began vibrating, in order to phase through the door. Safe to say, I don't think I'll forget the feeling of refined wood in my face any time soon. I promptly got up and exited through the door normally.

Trying my best not to fall too far behind him, I kept on a straight path, increasing the speed of my velocity. My speed had dwindled during certain points, because we had to make a few turns; thus diminishing my velocity. When we reached the final turn-off point, I was now close on his tail.

"What do you say we take this a bit off the grid?" he questioned

I know that the people were in danger and all, but the exhilaration I felt from the adrenaline was just too good to let go of.

"Just try to keep up." I smirked, finally running past him

Instead of turning to go to the gas station, we continued straight, now with no clear finish line.

-"What do the two of you think you're doing?"- questioned Cas

"Relax Cas." Dondre told her, laid back as usual, "By time we're done it would've only been a couple of seconds."

-"Unbelievable."- she stressed

Now neck to neck, both of us were constantly trying to outrun the other. Then my big opportunity came up; a tall building was down the road, with the path we were on splitting in both directions to go around it.

"You may have density shifting," I thought to myself, "But I have wall running."

My eyes sharpened as we approached the building, and my smirk grew even larger. It's either he knew exactly what I was thinking, or just happened to have the same idea, because instead of turning off like I'd expected, he also attempted the wall run.

My transition from the horizontal surface to the vertical one was smoother than my previous attempts. Dondre, however, has never done anything like this; his step onto the wall wasn't firm enough, causing him to topple over and fall to the ground.

My elation surpassed me; as Dondre's attempt was thwarted, forcing him to restart running, and I was now at the apex of the building. Now going down the other side of the building, I quickly realized the flaw in my plan when I saw Dondre already around and going back onto the straight path.

Planting my feet on the wall to run downwards, I used my hyper perception to increase my brain's processing speed. Once it was triggered, everything in the environment basically halted movement, only moving at an unnoticeable speed; though Dondre was going fast, he was now moving at the speed of a snail, but my body was moving at a slightly faster speed. Perfect.

-Mental Process-

Now that I have time to think, where did I go wrong?.. Hmm.. My core velocity wasn't affected when I made the transition from the ground to the wall, and Dondre had fallen flat on his butt. His acceleration would've allowed him to quickly build up to the same pace as before, but how could he have already made it around in the time that it took me to get to the top?..

Of course.. I actually took the longer route.. ugh. How did I not see this before?

The perimetrical distance that I'd have to cross in order to fully go over this building is about twice as much as the distance required to go around it. I feel so stupid. It would've been much more efficient to phase through it if I wanted to get past faster than him.

I can't lose now... how do I fix this.. Think. Think. Think!

Maybe if I free fall then I'll go faster than I'm currently running, then I can just break my fall with a speed punch. Wait, no.. I'd be going at about 800 km/h right now, and the fastest that any object can fall is 190. Rookie numbers if you ask me. Plus it would take a few seconds to reach the terminal velocity anyway. So how am I going to get out of this?

Oh no.. the objects around me are beginning to accelerate. Not much time left before my hyper perception returns to normal. Think Romaine, Think.

The Sonic Boom... maybe I can do something like that. Though the Sonic Boom requires a 180 degree turn, and releases the force in whichever direction I was originally running. So I'll just have to do a 360 then. No, that stunt'd most definitely break my legs, and the overwhelming force might knock me into free-fall. Damnit.

I can't lose!

Hm. If I was able to do that density shifting thing Dondre did, then I'd be able to make myself heavier than the air molecules around me, thus creating much less air resistance.

Aha. I think I got it.. If I jump horizontally whilst maintaining this speed, it should help cover some of the distance while I free fall. It's my best bet. I gotta do it.

-End of Mental Process-

Now that everything's returned to a normal pace and I had a clear plan in mind, my heart was burning brighter than ever. Dondre now had the lead so there was no more time to waste.

I paused for a short while and instantly redirected my force downwards, thus pushing me off the wall and causing me to jump horizontally. The results were better than I'd even expected; I crossed a great distance in the air, jumping farther than I would've predicted. Then it came to me: Gravity's a downward force, meaning that the reason I was able to achieve this jumping distance is because I'm not jumping vertically, so the gravity wouldn't have negated some of my jumping force.

Now being airborne, I quickly realized that I had another problem on my hands: landing. But not to worry, I thought of something similar to this during my hyper perception. With the fiery determination not to lose, and the basic concept of what I was doing, my instincts kicked in.

I got my right fist ready, and then rapidly vibrated my body, but the levels of vibrations were as if I was trying to phase. I can't explain it right, but, the energy that I felt in that moment was different from my normal electricity. I felt a wave of this new energy rushing through me. I then focused the vibrations into my fist.

"Neutralizing..." I instinctively vocalized, as I fell closer to the ground, "PUNCH!"

Striking my fist into the ground with all my might, the force that was acting upon my body was instantly dispersed into the asphalt, causing it to crack. In the split second I'd landed, I found myself in one of those cool heroic landing poses.

I didn't hesitate for a second once I reached the ground. I sped off after Dondre, swiftly catching up to him and even running past him. Running down the street, I maneuvered toward the pier and stopped.

Turning around, I was fond to greet my competitor with a smile.

"Guess I'm still the number one hero." I teased, trying to hide my lack of breath

"Alright. You win." He conceded, taking deep breaths, "Now what was that cool stunt you pulled back there?"

"Oh, just something I came up with on the spot."

"Well you'll have to teach me how to do that sometime, and wall running too; I don't know if you realized, but, I kinda suck at it."

"Well only if you teach me how to density shift."

"Not sure how I did that myself, but sure."

-"If the two of you are done wasting time, then hurry up and get back to the gas station! The problem's escalated."- Interjected Cas

"Let's go." Dondre prompted

I nodded my head, after which we sped off.