Blinking, I tried to bring into focus the world around me. I was in one of the rescue tents. Unintentionally, I groaned, feeling like I had been thoroughly beaten.
"Whoa there, champ." I looked over to see my Uncle Johnny immediately stand from where he had been sitting next to me.
"Bout time you came around. You know," He coughed. " Your parents were worried." I raised my eyebrows at him.
"And you weren't?" He scoffed, sitting down agin.
"Nah, you're tougher than that." I laughed and groaned again as my body protested. Same old Johnny. Growing up a single child, he was always stuck with babysitting me. While he used to gripe, I know he loved it. We were pals. Its funny, I thought, looking at him now, that he hasn't changed much in 20 years, except for a few barely noticeable wrinkles around his eyes – which he will deny having.
"I should be helping…" I started to rise, but Johnny stopped me.
"Don't you worry about that – in the two hours you have been out, the situation got back under control. They even told me I was no longer needed, can you imagine that?" I grinned. "People always need Johnny Storm. So I hear we got ourselves a Fantastic Fifth – what is this about a power?" I grinned wider.
"Wait till you hear what I can do." I started. Not that I had any idea of all the things I could do in the future as I got a better handle on things. I had a feeling though, that walking through walls would be the least of my abilities…
Three weeks later….
"Ready?" I nodded, grinding my sketchers into the ground.
"Forget it kid, you are going down." I glanced sidewise at Johnny's smug face. I just grinned.
The buzzer went off and Johnny and I took off running. Our two tracks were identical and parallel to each other – except that mine had walls up in front of me every five feet. Steel, wooden, concrete, all kinds – and nowadays it was cake to walk through them. I phased through my fourth wall, and I could see that I was keeping up perfectly with Johnny. After my tenth wall, there was the final wall up. Johnny's side had hand and footholds – mine didn't. I jumped upwards and phased only the parts of the walls I needed to create my own footholds. Halfway up I heard a whoosh and looked up to see Johnny sitting at the top, his flames dissipating around him.
"Dude, that's cheating!" I gasped as I reached him.
"Hey, some people are just faster, kiddo." He said as we both descended. Mom came up to us and glared at her brother before turning to me.
"You have officially met your set time." I whooped and pumped the air. I had originally ran without the walls to set a time for me to strive for. Running through all the walls slowed me down a full three seconds for each wall the first time I went through.
"So does that mean I'm finished with training?"
"Now let's not get ahead of ourselves. Your powers are going to keep growing, so the moment anything out of the ordinary, you need to contact your father or me." I nodded, but my mind was already on the many projects I was behind in at school.
"Ok, so lets get some pizza or something. I'm starving." I slyly smiled and dropped my headband on the floor. Standing, I turned to Mom.
"Let's go." Mom and I turned to leave.
"Hey!" I just laughed as Johnny yelled behind us. I had touched the floor and phased around his feet, trapping him there – safely. With some help from Dad, I am now able to phase someone in to the floor or wall without injuring him.
"I guess speed isn't everything," I said smirking.
The next day, I was running behind, trying to finish my errands, and of course, being hounded by the dammed paparazzi. Now, fans I can deal with, but these scum sucking mongrels really got on my nerves. Before I had powers, they hounded me but now it was like open season, especially since unlike the others, I couldn't really do anything about it. Dad could reach up and pull himself out of the craziness, Mom could go invisible, Ben could just give them a look, and Johnny, well, Johnny was the only one who loved it. But if he wanted to, he could just jet off. I couldn't do anything without getting in some trouble.
I ran into the bank where the news knats were barred from entering. Standing in line, I was rummaging in my purse for my checkbook, my nose almost touching the rim of it. Please tell me I didn't forget it….!
The distinctive sound of multiple guns cocking made me freeze.