Story 7: Born to Run

It was about two days after that, and the studio had all heard of the Lost Children, when we next pick up the story. The studio had gotten settled into a rhythm, the Café was now a host for common events, the halls were active and thriving. Several different labs were set up. A robotics lab run jointly by Gate and Dr. Light, Lucca's lab of general science, and one, secretive lab run by CD..

We pick up the scene in a hall, with none less than Vash the Stampede, heading down towards a recreational area.

"It's nice to see Earth as it used to be...it's sad what happened to it where I'm from..."

In Vash's world, long ago, humanity finally realized their horrific error in mistreating the Earth, when Earth could no longer support life from the damage. They had fled Earth to colonize another world..

"I wonder what's going on in the rec room now..."

He was cut off, as he shortly was tripped by something rushing him fast. Too fast even for his inhuman reflexes.

"WAAUGH!"

THUD!

Vash had face planted into the floor, before getting up to see a blonde teen in jean shorts and a red T-shirt with a denim vest pointing and laughing at him.

"Hah, too easy! I thought you were supposed to be fast!" he taunted Vash.

"Gah..who are you? Are you one of those Lost Children?" Vash asked in reply.

The teen shrugged, before taking out a pair of sunglasses, and putting them on.

"Beats me, I'm an amnesiac. I just go by Amp now. You saw why."

"That was you? How fast ARE you?"

Amp just smirked, and took off, at speeds Vash couldn't keep up with...

Story Divide

Elsewhere, Goku was currently having difficulty with a vending machine that refused to vend.

"Come on...I gave you my money! I just want one little candy bar, is that wrong?"

He poked the button again. And again. And again. He was not so blissfully unaware that he had broken the button when he first pushed it, with his unnatural might, and had jammed the button, rendering it useless. He reached to press it again, but his ability to sense people's chi warned him to use his speed to reach back, and grab for someone coming up from behind. Goku was fast, but his target was faster, and ducked the effort, though their reaching for a wedgie was stopped.

"Whoa! Geez! Is there a speedster convention here or something?" Amp yelped.

"Wow, you're fast! But that doesn't let you off for trying to give me a wedgie." Goku scolded.

"Tch, what? You guys are all so slow. It's like being a jet plane among biplanes. You realize how easy it is to get frustrated with slowpokes around me?"

"That's no reason to torment them, it's not like they're purposely trying to make you mad."

"Yeah, I know, but you ever get stuck killing time waiting on a food pick-up at a Subway? Oh, speaking of which."

Amp then jetted off, and returned about a second later carrying a couple of Subway sandwiches with him.

"Sorry I'm late, bank heist in Ohio."

Goku stared, wide-eyed, jaw hanging open.

"Huh? But that only took a second!"

"Told you I'm fast." Amp said with a smirk, before bolting off again.

"Um...wow! He IS fast. He's not a bad guy either. Guess I was wrong about him." Goku mused to himself, before following...

Story Divide

Meanwhile, Forte was currently aware of the high-speed "intruder", and was using a terminal to try to find him, for the sake of stopping his antics.

"Where's that little runt? He's dragged me away from talking with that cute girl that works with Dr. Light..."

"Whoa! Back up, kerosene breath, you're flirting with Roll? Reality check, she's a robot last time I played Mega Man!" Amp interrupted, having stopped his running to talk to Forte.

"YOU!" Forte yelled, before trying to incinerate Amp out of anger over being insulted, and for being criticized for his taste of girls.

Amp yelped, and spun his arms in circles in front of him, to cause wind gusts to blow back the flames.

"Geez! Chill! I'm just saying, you're trying to date a robot!" Amp yelled, before snickering, "Heh, that sounds like a cheesy B movie title.."

"You shut up and knock it off! For starters, this version of Roll is human!" Forte growled.

"I said chill, I'm just having some fun! And I didn't know, OKAY? I'm still adjusting to the whole 'Fiction isn't' thing!" Amp retorted.

"Grrrr!"

"Look, you mind buzzing me in for using that terminal or something? I've seen folks here use it to look up stuff for other fiction stuff around the world, and I kinda want to get familiar with it first hand."

"Why should I help YOU? I don't even know if you're just going to use it to cause trouble or what!" Forte snarled.

"Geez, will you lighten up? I'm not a bad guy, I just enjoy pranking people. I mean, come on, you're all in slow-mo in my perspective, yet I'm more patient then you are right now. That says something."

"Why you little-"

"Think she digs guys who rip people's throats out on impulse?"

Forte stopped, and thought that over, before growling in frustration. He knew the kid was right. He hated it, but he knew it.

"Now, can I use the dang thing sometime before I just do so anyway, but run you into a bathroom for a swirly first?"

"Grrr, fine. But you're registering so we can keep tabs on you first."

"Whoa, I didn't agree to THAT...oh fine, you guys deserve that I guess. You ain't bad people. Not most of you. I dunno about that blue haired Goth guy from Chrono Trigger..."

Forte smirked at that last part, knowing Magus' habit of keeping to himself, before he worked on getting Amp registered in the studio. Unknown to either, the anomaly scanners were starting to go nuts...

Story Divide

About an hour later, Amp had left the studio after reading the data on every fictional character the studio's terminals had data on, including some not yet known to have come to life, and was speeding past countryside and cities, towards where the Justice League was setting up in this world. He wanted to meet the Flash in particular, or Superman. He was pretty interested in meeting someone up to his speed. However, en route, passing through New York City, he skidded to a halt when he found an odd sight. That of a red dragon being thrown into a store, smashing through the window, and a hulking monster of a man in a brown armor of sorts chasing after him.

"Aw great...I should've known things were gonna get crazy with fictional stuff coming real..."

Amp then ran over to help, firstly, by running laps around the massive man, trying to confuse him, long enough to start up a whirlwind to lift him off the ground.

"Whoa! Hey! Don't you know who I am? Nobody stops the Juggernaut!"

Amp sweatdropped, but kept running to power the miniature tornado, although he did put his hand on his face, and sigh.

"Oh for crying out loud...Let's see, there's Mega Man, Trigun, Chrono Trigger, X-Men, DC Comics...JUST HOW MANY FREAKING FICTIONAL THINGS ARE GOING TO COME TO LIFE?" Amp yelled, starting to get annoyed by how absurd this dimensional distortion was getting.

As he kept running, the dragon got up weakly, shaking his head, and holding it, before he yelped at the sight.

"Whoa! How're you doing that? I couldn't even get the guy to budge!" He yelped, before heading over to give Amp a hand.

"He sure budged you though, by the looks of it.." Amp muttered, stopping, letting Juggernaut fall and slam into the ground.

"Yeah, oww...G really packs a punch!"

Amp arched an eyebrow, still facing the American Dragon.

"G? Man, you try too hard to fit in with the 'in crowd'. Plus he's more of a J, considering the dope went into one of those self-promoting cliche villain-"

WHAM!

Amp was shut up the hard way by a good strong backhand slap from Juggernaut, flying into a wall, and landing upside-down and on his back, about 5 feet up from the ground, leaving an indent in the wall. Oddly, Amp didn't seem to be too severely hurt, though he was definitely going to be out like a light.

"Tirades..." Amp muttered, before sliding down off the wall.

Jake, the American Dragon, winced at the sight, before turning back to look at Juggernaut, who smirked, cracking the knuckles in his right hand.

"You wanna say something now, smart mouth?" Juggernaut taunted.

"Okay, I think we have a problem..." Jake muttered.

Story Divide

While this was happening, at the Justice League's tower, being built outside of Metropolis, which like other fictional locations, had become imposed over this world's equal, the members of the League were busy with settling in, and getting it running. Which wasn't hard, since there were over a hundred members... This made it easy for one or two to be off duty to handle the call from the Studio, those two being Flash and the Martian Manhunter, with Forte on the call screen.

"Yo, it's the dragon guy again." Flash noted.

"His name is Forte." J'onn informed him, "What do you need, Forte?"

"Hey, I'm just checking to see if that super-speedy runt got there. Some kid named Amp showed up here running around like Flash can, and ended up wanting to see you guys. So, is he pestering you yet?"

"No one has arrived at all today." J'onn replied.

Forte and Flash sweatdropped. They knew something happened, if a high-speed type was late...

"I'm on it!" Flash stated, then took off to find out what happened.

Story Divide

Back in New York, Jake was desperately avoiding punches and flying objects from Juggernaut. He was used to magical threats, but this one was out of his league...

"Hold still, shrimp!"

"Yeah, like I'm really gonna do that!" Jake taunted, dodging a flying Chevy.

Juggernaut was getting annoyed, as he stomped over to a light pole, and ripped it out of the ground, trying to swat Jake down out of the air with it.

"Whoa!"

"Hah, I'll get you yet, you smug little.."

Juggernaut then yelled out, as once again, he was sent skyward by a speed-induced tornado, this time by Flash.

"Awww not again!" Juggernaut shouted, just before the wind ride stopped, and dropped him on his head.

"Sheesh, what's his problem?" Flash asked Jake.

"Hey, what with all the weirdness going down today, I'm trying to catch up to how I got here."

"Ah, I get it, more folks coming in because of that time/space thing. Be with you in a sec."

This speedster avoided the blow from the recovering Juggernaut, and zipped over to the recovering Amp.

"You all right?"

"Ugh...that's it, that bum's going down!" Amp growled in anger.

Amp then took off like a blur of light past Juggernaut, who turned to shout at him.

"Hey! You runnin' from me? Get back here!"

Flash's eyes went wide, as he ran over to Jake, and carried him back away from Juggernaut, running up the side of a two story building, where he stopped.

"Hey! Warn a guy next time.." Jake muttered.

"That kid's crazy if he's doing what I think he is..." Flash responded, bolting off after Amp.

Story Divide

The next we see, is the world rushing by as blurs of color, a world that's devoid of any sound save for that from Amp, sprinting in a hypersonic pace, determined expression on his face, as Flash was catching up, exerting himself hard to do so, as Amp was running at a top speed matching Flash's. Flash was risking once more brushing against the Speed Force to do this, a strange, other world he once almost crossed over to, after going beyond his normal limits.

"Hey! Stop! You don't know what'll happen if you keep this pace up! It's too dangerous!" Flash yelled out after Amp.

"Yeah I do! I've done this before! ...right?"

Amp thought to himself now, wondering when he had. He couldn't actually remember the event, but he knew, he had indeed done this before. He also knew just how to take down the Juggernaut.

"Come on! This isn't necessary! We can get Superman or someone to help us out! You're going to get yourself killed!"

"And if we wait for back-up, that nightmare from a steroid magazine will kill innocent people! You back out if you want! I'll handle him myself..." responded Amp, before he put in an extra effort to boost ahead of Flash.

Flash slowed down, fearing that Amp was going to go too far with his speed, and pass on to the other side. But he also knew Amp was right. Either Juggernaut was stopped now, or others may get hurt.

"Why am I the one listening to reason for a change?" he asked himself.

Back with Jake, Juggernaut had grabbed Jake with his left hand, and was about to bring his right hand into Jake's face.

"Light's out, small fry!" Juggernaut yelled.

Before he could throw the punch, Amp appeared suddenly in front of Juggernaut, focusing all his built up speed into his own punch.

"Not on my watch!"

Amp then let loose with a punch with incredible speed as Flash arrived, in time to see, and hear, the punch that connected and caused a booming blast of sound that was like being right under thunder. Then all was quiet, as Amp's fist remained where it hit, square in the center of Juggernaut's stomach. Suddenly, Juggernaut let go of Jake, and groaned, stumbling on his feet.

"How the...how'd a runt like you...stop me..?"

Juggernaut then fell backwards, passing out. Jake and Flash were shocked.

"Whoa...how'd the kid do THAT? I thought he was just speedy, not a kid like Superman.." Flash wondered.

Amp then tensed, wincing in great pain.

"That...freaking...hurt." Amp grumbled, before he passed out as well.

Story Divide

Back at the studio, Dr. Mario was busy with Amp, who was unconscious still, in a hospital bed, with his entire right arm, and his right shoulder, in a cast. Forte, Flash, Jake, and others were waiting outside.

"So I'm just fictional?" Jake yelped.

"We ALL are here." CD informed him, "Because I blundered with an experiment in MY dimension, THIS dimension's pulling fragments of other worlds here. And it doesn't seem to be stopping..."

"We'll worry about that later, what I wanna know, is how'd the kid take out the big lug in one punch?" Flash asked.

"Well, as near as I figure.." explained Lucca, "He seems to have a great deal of experience with his powers. He was able to directly convert the speed he acquired into pure kinetic force for his punch."

"You mind saying that in English?" asked Jake.

"Instead of his punch being as strong as an average one, but much faster like Flash, he basically made the speed work to make the punch hit much harder. So hard, in fact, the apparent aura his body makes that prevents him from being hurt by kinetic energy his body generates couldn't cope with it all. He's fortunate he ONLY got bones broken in his arm." Lucca reiterated.

"So the kid knows his ways around speed powers better than I do.." Flash muttered, "You'd think it'd be the other way around."

"As far as I know, it's intuitive to him, but I'm not an expert in psychology." Lucca noted.

"Tch, so the kid's not just a fast brat.." Forte grumbled.

"But this does prove we've got a lot more to deal with than expected..." CD sighed, "Neither Juggernaut or Jake were present here about 3 hours ago, and things are just getting more mixed-up. Metropolis has replaced this world's version, but the population of the replace city is still IN Metropolis, and things are just picking up steam from there. I'm afraid, that soon enough, this world's going to lose all sense of what it was, and just be a collection of fiction..."

"Hey, relax, you guys'll figure it out, right?" Flash said, trying to lighten the mood.

"I hope so..."