2009-10-13: To Catch A Speedster

Starring:

Daphne_V4icon.png

Guest-Starring: Government Creeps

Date: October 13th, 2009

Summary:

You're going to have to be very fast.


"To Catch A Speedster"

The Frick Collection, Courtyard

It's just about closing hours for the museum, meaning that the few working there are slipping to the tired side, ready to just wrap things up for the sake of getting home. Someone has the job of walking through the rooms and making sure no one is lingering to finish up any sketches due the next day. If you didn't finish it by now, you're not going to, go home. Doors are checked, locked, and then left. Despite the security scare recently, there's still one part that is left routinely unlocked. A small square garden path with pond in the middle; it's always seemed accessible only by the inside of the museum because of the high walls on the other side. With the evenly spaced windows all grated up, the only light comes from the open air - the building's rooftop.

In this little abandoned sanctuary sits a speedster. Not quite warm, not quite cold, Daphne's still wrapped up in grays of all kinds. Gray undershirt, gray buttoned dress, and gray knit sweater. She's even got gray leggings and dark red boots. If not for the spark of distinguishable white that is her hair, she'd practically blend into the darkening atmosphere.

With her legs crossed and her toes tipped near the edge of the water, she practices the cliche of watching your own reflection with all the quiet contemplation this act demands.

Question: How do you catch a speedster?
Answer: very quickly.

As Daphne reflects, someone attempts to take the girl who always moves by surprise. Tranquility interrupted. Quiet time over. There is, very suddenly — as though someone was lying in wait before now— a shuffle and scrape as men in black gear pile onto the edge of the roof overlooking the gardens. There's one at each corner, popping up like Whack-a-Moles. An organized, timed attack, all for this petite blonde. Every second matters as the figure at the east corner aims his weapon and fires.

By the blessed light of the moon, this lady of acceleration isn't the only one reflecting. It's just the one side of the pool close enough to the wall, but even thinking there are two strange men stalking the roof is enough. Daphne's head snaps up and she instantly unwinds. Really, instantly. She's used to reacting to things as fast as her ability demands, leaving the first fired darts clinking against the concrete where their target once was. True to her nature, this one speeds immediately for the closest escape but as she reaches the door she's forced to a halt. Her gray-colored blur works at the door handle several times but it doesn't give. "—No! What?" So much for routine! Have her own sticky fingers cursed her?

It's fortunate for Daphne's would-be captors that she can't speed straight through that door. Silent, offering no explanation for their intentions, not one, but two tasers are fired at the young woman, each from the two corners closest the door that fumbles her quick escape. Fish in a barrel. Right?

She is definitely starting to feel a bit trapped, and it's not an emotion Daphne handles well. A cult television show on common myths might tell us that shooting fish in a barrel is as easy as the saying might suggest, but they clearly never tried a fish with superspeed. But even as she dodges across the courtyard, and right across the pond, to escape these next shots that zip right by each other into empty air, Daphne knows she can't keep running in superspeedy circles forever. Glancing up in a moment of normalcy, she sees how surrounded she is; their advantage, higher ground. She's not exactly confrontational, but the only thing to really do here is take the fight to their level. So, she trots back a few steps and then sprints forward. Her blur rockets forward, careening right up that wall in front of her with all the force of her speed. She's going for the spot between the two men that've already fired with the hopes that they can't fire again quite as fast.

They certainly try. The shooters flanking the super speed blur aren't fast enough, but as they once more ready their tasers, they scramble along the roof, ready to aim wherever she shows up again — if she does. The other hunters display the tasers' rather exceptional range as they fire across the open air.

And it is their persistence that gets them rewarded. Or else, Daphne's lapse in judgment. She comes up the vertical of the building with all her glorious speed but the angle change getting onto the flat top of the roof proves menacing. In the briefest second, the speedster stops right at the edge of the roof, rocking forward from her own momentum and gasping out a short breath. This very second all their training pays off. Sort of. Shot across open air, those pre-fired tasers have been calculated well and, sure enough, small barbed points strike through her clothing and into skin.

It takes less than a half of a second for the electricity to register, effectively paralyzing its prey. It takes even less for Daphne to run. She doesn't think, or even regain that breath; she just feels the stab of the probes and moves instinctively. Her ability will sustain her as long as she keeps running - but eventually even speedsters have to stop.

Daphne's hunters are left overlooking an empty garden. Even speedsters have to stop… but with no way of tracking this one, they simply look at each other from their four-corner points and lower their weapons. She won. This time.

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