Chapter 58: Time Flies

Romaine's POV

Waking up in my bed, I followed my usual morning's schedule by zipping around the place and getting ready at superspeed. I did feel somewhat sluggish today but I denoted that to being that I just didn't get enough rest or something.

Heading downstairs, I spotted my mother in her usual spot on the couch; though for whatever reason she didn't appear to be moving. I slowly bounced over to her, wondering what was up with why she wasn't moving.

"Hey mom, you ok?" I questioned, going in front of her

Totally petrified. she was completely frozen in place, tea cup in hand and everything.

I waved my hand in front of her eyes and she didn't blink, she didn't appear to be breathing either.

"The hell's going on.." I questioned myself

My first instinct was to contact Cas, but since my comm's in my suit, I had to call her directly.

I dialed her a few times and got no response; the calls just wouldn't go through.

I ran outside in an attempt to resolve the situation, but instead was greeted by another suited individual. This one had a dark purple motif with splotches of black, and his initials were two glossy 'D's.

"This is the last thing I needed right now." I mumbled

"Well you sure took your own sweet time getting out here." He commented

Almost immediately I noticed that I was inside a weird forcefield, and the house was completely engulfed by it as well. The field itself covered around three houses in its diameter.

"So you guys are coming straight for my house now?" I questioned

"Well," He responded, "My contractor may have given me a tip on your home address."

Contractor, that must be Zero. And just what is this forcefield?

I'm not exactly able to fight this dude since I don't have my suit; and these friction resistant sneakers weren't made for combat, just temporary transport.

"Well it's no fair that you know my name and I don't know yours" I said

"So you are in fact the 'great' Velocity. Interesting. The name's Double Dial"

"I'm not really one for titles, but, if you know who I am then coming out here was dumb."

"Tough talk for someone who's barely able to withstand my ability."

Now clearly my mother being completely frozen must've related to his ability somehow, but what he said threw me off; what does he mean by barely being able to withstand it?

"Your ability, I don't understand what you're actually doing. Only that it relates to this giant forcefield and my mother being frozen."

"Ever heard of Time Dilation, kid?" he questioned

"Not exactly."

"Too bad." He groaned, "Time Dilation is simply the difference between elapsed time."

"I still don't get how that relates to this."

"Then there's no more point in explaining, you'll see for yourself."

In my attempt to respond I realized that my body was moving slower than the way my brain was perceiving it.

I felt a massive weight begin to affect my body, and it was affecting me as I was testing my movement ability.

"I see you're finally starting to realize what's happening." He said

By triggering my superspeed, I was able to dispel the feeling and move at proper paces.

"Ah yes of course," He went on, "With your super speed you'd be able to compensate for the dilation speed."

Not only was he able to slowdown my body movement, but his ability was also able to affect my thought processing speed.

It wasn't until I triggered my superspeed and essentially negated his ability's effect on me that I was fully able to think through and discern what was happening here.

"Though I don't understand where the time dilation comes in, I do now know how part of your ability works."

"Oh please," he said, "humor me."

"You're able to slow down the progression of anything inside this field."

"Not the best analogy of my ability I've heard, but you're not exactly wrong."

"You're also able to slow things down by so much that people and objects stop moving, right?"

"It's not by much actually; based on my extensive research, the normal human body can only withstand up to 10 Nords of dilation before brain processes and motor movement seem to completely halt. But really it's just moving so slow that there's no possible way to recognize movement."

"So then you're applying at least 10 Nords of dilation. It's not exactly hard to resist I must say."

"You've piqued my interest, speedster." he cackled, "Let's see how you handle 100 Nord Dilation then."

Now the overwhelming force was back on my body, ten times greater than before.

It took my body a while to carry out my mental commands of vibrating to increase speed; and even once it did I could still feel faint traces of slowness. Clearly if I was to do anything useful I'd have to exit the field first.

I darted toward the closest border, but was knocked back upon contact.

"You can't escape my temporal field." He cackled, "We transcend time in here; what you're seeing is merely the stagnant image of the environment prior to me opening the field. No one can see us, and we can't see them."

"Your ability's formidable, I won't lie." I commented, "But it's gonna take more than that to take down a speedster like me."

"I was hoping you'd say that." He smirked

Suddenly my body came to nearly a complete stop, moving so slow that you wouldn't believe I was vibrating at high speeds.

"1000 Nord Dilation." He announced

At this moment he began approaching me, taking out a gun.

My mouth couldn't move fast enough in reaction to my thoughts, so my ability of speech was now disabled.

He set me to kneel on the ground, then directed the gun to my chest.

"I surely did have fun here, Velocity," he sympathized, "but I'm afraid we've spent enough time here as is."

The thoughts that flooded my mind were now disappearing, as my ability to think was being affected as well.

I did attempt to trigger my failsafe, but no dice on that one. Who knows if my Hyper Perception would've even been fast enough to be useful here.

Dial pulled the trigger, firing a bullet out at high speed; though as soon as it left contact with the barrel of the gun the bullet slowed to the point where I couldn't recognize its movement either.

"It must be terrifying having this happen to you; staring death in the face, unable to do anything about it." He said, walking back to his original distance

There really wasn't much I could do, if anything at all. The bullet was on a straight path for my heart, so once it hits I'm done for; though only God knows when this thing's gonna hit me, probably a year at this rate. Though the others out at the lab will definitely come for me way before then.

"1000 Reiss Dilation." uttered Double Dial

Faster than the blink of an eye, the bullet pierced through my chest, throwing me over to the ground.

"10 Nord Dilation" he commanded

Things went back to being slow again, but this time I couldn't even resist the 10 Nord Dilation due to my incapacitation.

I attempted to vibrate in order to at least not prolong my suffering. My breathing grew very heavy, blood gushed from my mouth and my eyes became bloodshot.

"I guess that's it for the renowned hero 'Velocity'."

I know my odds didn't look good but, I wasn't about to die and leave everyone behind.

My innate senses kicked in, taking full control of my actions. Apparently when Dial sped up time then I was able to move slightly out of the bullet's original line of fire, causing it to miss my heart, but it still ended up dangerously close.

I turned myself to lay on my back, then slowly began steadily vibrating my left hand.

"Oh?" Dial reacted, "You can still move after that? Well then, 100 Nord Dilation."

Feeling absolutely no resistance, my hand continued being guided towards the bullet hole. Inserting my phased hand into my chest, I gently got a hold of the bullet and pulled it out.

"I- Impossible-" went Dial, "In your condition the effects of the time dilation should be too overwhelming to resist."

My body slowly raised itself from the ground, getting into the closest position to standing upright.

A faint dark-blue aura began emanating from me as I looked him dead on.

"Screw time." I muttered

In a panic, he swiftly amplified his effects.

"10,000 Nord Dilation!" he belted

Yet again I felt no effect, without even flinching, my right hand began vibrating, channeling the foreign energy I felt coursing through my veins.

"Anti-Mass Punch." I announced

Darting forward, my attack struck him right in his guts, causing him to spew an unsettling amount of blood.

His forcefield disappeared, followed by him barely managing to run away in his current state.

The unknown aura went away, along with my autonomous movement. Now barely standing while clenching my chest, I couldn't stop myself from coughing up blood.

I definitely needed to get inside, but I couldn't let my mother see me with a damn bullet hole in my chest, so I decided in attempting the trip over to Cas'.

Running like this sure wasn't the easiest thing I've had to do all day, and come to mention it I remember almost tripping a few times.

And for whatever reason there were a bunch of Christmas decorations everywhere, with Christmas carols echoing all over. Awfully weird for the middle of November.

~~~~~~~

Barely carrying my body into the elevator, I anxiously rested against the walls.

Once the doors unveiled the lab, I was met with a various array of looks, some surprised, others concerned and the rest relieved.

"Romaine." Cas called me, vigorously marching over, "Where the heck have you been?"

"Look," I coughed, "If you knew the kind of morning I had, you'd cut me some slack."

"Morning?" Cassandra questioned, "You've been gone for 3 weeks!"

"3 we~" my response to her absurd claim was cut short by an untimely faint spell.

I fell straight to the ground, with my consciousness slowly fading out.

"He has a bullet wound." Kyle pointed out

"Help me pick him up." requested Cas