Ash was getting very frustrated with Google. No, actually, she was more frustrated with herself, for not being able to put words to what just happened in the kitchen. Searching 'super strength' just brings up comic books and superhero cartoons. Typing in 'super strength+seizures' didn't turn up anything at all.
Finally Ash started thinking about the timeline and went with 'impossible things in Central City in the past year.' That seemed to do the trick, because a bunch of blogs and Facebook posts popped up, the top hit being 'Saved By The Flash' by Iris West.
Curious, Ash clicked on the link and read in dumbfounded amazement the reported sightings of 'the Flash', a man who could apparently run so fast he could outrace explosions and whisk people away so quickly they think they've teleported.
Jade peered over her shoulder. "What is this, some blog about an urban legend? There's no way that's possible."
"This site's gotten thousands of hits, Jade, and collaboration from multiple sources telling the same story at any given incident. Whoever this Iris West is, she's good. Besides," Ash grabbed the remains of the plate on the computer desk and waved one of them at Jade, "how impossible is this?"
Jade remained silent, glaring intently at the screen.
Ash clicked a tab called 'The Burning Man' and the moment the picture loaded onto the screen her mouth fell open. "How is this possible?"
Ash sat there, dumbfounded, just staring at the mutilated plate in her hands, and thought, 'Is this real? Is this really me? Could I actually be… a part of this?'
"What are you going to do? If this wasn't just a fluke. If you do have some kind of… power."
That was not a question she was prepared to answer. Possibly ever. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We don't even know if that's what this is yet. First, we have to experiment a bit, try to figure this out. I just… don't have any idea how to do that." Taking a steadying breath, she set the half of the plate she had in her hands back down on the table. "For now, let's just go eat dinner. The casserole should be about done by now."
Ash didn't sleep much that night, wondering what was happening to her. What she would do if she really did turn out to be some kind of… freak. Really, what can you do with super strength besides break things? And what did this mean for her?
The next morning she called into work and she and Jade headed to a nearby scrap yard. Here, she didn't have to worry about breaking something important while she… experimented.
And how was she going to do that, exactly? "So… now what? I don't have any idea where to even start."
Jade had a few ideas ready though. Obviously Ash wasn't the only one who didn't sleep much last night. "First, we go over the circumstances around each attack and if there's anything they had in common, any triggers. Start with last night- what were you thinking, feeling when it happened?"
What had she been thinking about? "I was thinking about that doctor-" Jade growled "-and about… about what the other doctors at that hospital must think about me. How I had to schedule another appointment, maybe at another hospital. What would happen if they never found anything, if I just keep getting worse…"
There was a sick, nauseous feeling in her stomach, and then… then the muscles in her legs started to tighten. Startled, all thoughts of the hospital flew right out of her head and to her surprise, she immediately felt normal again.
"I- I felt something! I could feel a seizure start, but when I stopped thinking about the hospital it just stopped." Words could not describe just how incredibly relieved she was. For the first time in months, she had something. She was getting answers.
"Negative feelings, then. What about the other times?"
"That time at the supermarket, I was short a dollar at the cash register. And then there was the time I was late to work and my boss yelled at me… How did I not notice this before?"
Jade gave her a small, rare smile. "You were looking for physical causes, not emotional triggers."
"Yeah, and maybe if I'd actually gone to those psychologists the doctors kept recommending I'd have noticed this sooner." She sighed, and then yelped when her muscles started contracting again. This time, curiously enough, she didn't feel any paralysis. "It's happening again!"
Jade moved closer, presumably to catch her if she fell over. "Don't fight it this time, just breathe through it."
Yeah, well, that was easier said than done. She tried to force down the panic and remain calm, but that was hard to do when she could see her skin visibly darken in ripples going down her arm. "Oh my god, what's happening?!"
"Ash, Ash calm down! The… change is triggered by negative emotion, so the more you panic the faster it happens."
"That's easy for you to say, you're not switching races!" she hissed, but closed her eyes anyway. Thinking back to her yoga classes, she started in on the breathing exercises they taught her.
Surprisingly, they actually did help. Now that she wasn't panicking she could feel it, the… whatever it was that caused her to change. It hurt, yes, but it was more of a mild burn compared to what it usually was. It was… strange. Yeah, strange was really the only word for it.
Jade's voice broke her concentration. "I think it's done."
The change wasn't too drastic, at least at the intensity it was at right now. Now that Ash had actually made it through the change instead of fighting it, she could tell a lot more about it. She instinctively knew that she could go further into whatever this was, that she was only about halfway to the peak of her power. As it was, she looked like she'd just come back from a tanning salon.
"This is so weird…" Ash marvelled as she examined her arm.
"It doesn't seem to hurt." Jade commented after a moment. Her voice was calm and even, but Ash could tell by the slight widening of her eyes that she was just as affected as Ash was.
"No, not now that it's over. God, I can't even tell you how this feels. It's like… it's like I have high tension wires for bones, and if I just let go it'll snap."
"Alright, now let's experiment." Bending down, Jade picked up an iron rod that'd been lying around and tossed it to her. Caught by surprise, Ash fumbled for it and almost dropped it. "Try bending that in half."
Ash looked at the very solid rod in her hands and hesitated, then shrugged and applied a little pressure.
It was laughably easy, like she was bending a pool noodle instead of solid iron. With a slight groan the metal gave and Ash, fascinated, kept bending until it was twisted into a pretzel.
And there it was- proof that she was by no means normal anymore. Despite her apprehensions, she grinned ecstatically, elated, wondering what else she could do. Looking up, she caught the the excited gleam in Jade's eyes, the smile hovering about her lips, and knew that she felt it too.
"This is amazing! Did you see that?! That was easy and I can get even stronger if I wanted to!"
"Let's see what else you can do." She pressed a hubcap into her hands. "How far can you throw that?"
They spent hours experimenting with what she could do, and learned that she could throw a hubcap with enough force to dent a car door, could move but not lift a car with a bit of effort, jump two meters in the air, and that her newfound strength didn't make her any faster. In fact, it was a little harder to move than usual, especially at the joints. Not significantly so, but enough that she really had to work to twist herself into one of the mid-level yoga poses.
"I think we have a pretty good grasp of what you can do now." Jade said after the both of them were struggling to think up anything else to test. "You said you could go further?"
Ash hesitated. "Yeah…"
"What's wrong?"
It was hard to put into words… "I… don't know. I just feel like… like that's dangerous, somehow."
"But we do have to figure out just what you're capable of. Better here, where you're safe, than when you actually need to use it and find out that you can't."
She couldn't fault that logic. "Okay, I'll try."
Taking a deep breath, she thought back to those months just after… it happened, before she found Jade. That gaping chasm of grief and apathy that made any sort of positive emotions impossible. She made herself think about the morning right after, the horror she felt when she woke up to find…
As her mood darkened, so too did her skin. The pain she felt before when she had a seizure was back in full force, as well as the sudden paralysis. That feeling of not being able to control her body terrified her, and with the added fear the whole thing spiraled out of control.
"J-Ja-" she tried to speak, but to her horror her jaw would barely move.
Jade could tell that something was wrong. "Ash?" She called, her voice pitched higher with fear. "Ash, are you okay?!"
No, she was not okay. Her skin was now as black as pitch and she couldn't move. With a crack the ground gave underneath her and she sank in up to her ankles."Ash?" She cried, for once sounding like the fourteen year old girl she was. "Ash, you have to turn back!"
She would if she knew how!
Taking in a shuddery breath, Jade closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again she'd gotten ahold of herself.
"Okay, so, you managed to stop the transformation before, but how?" She thought out loud. "This was all triggered by negative emotion so… right, that has to be it."
Jade turned to address Ash's statue self. "Ash, I know how terrifying this has to be right now, but I need you to calm down. The change was caused by negative emotion, so I bet the key to undoing that is positive emotion. Think about the happiest moment of your life- what you were wearing, who you were with, what the weather was like, anything you can remember."
The happiest time of her life?
She's coming out of the bathroom and there he is, pacing. When he hears the bathroom door shut he immediately spins around and grasps her waist.
"So? What did it say?" He asks anxiously.
Ash smiles at him, and shows him what she was hiding behind her back. He studies it for a moment and then breaks out into an ecstatic grin. He pulls her against his body and spins her around until she's dizzy, then kisses her breathless.
John…
"Marry me." he whispers while they lie naked in bed, her ear against his chest listening to his heartbeat. "God, I love you so much Ash, I'll never love anyone as much as you."
Her heart skips a beat, and then starts pounding away so hard she could feel it in her teeth. "Yes, yes of course I'll marry you!" She pushes herself up just so she could kiss him.
"I'm going to get you a ring, Ash." He murmured as he kissed the top of her head. "I've been saving up for while now. Let's pick one out together tomorrow."
"Tomorrow." She agreed, then leaned down for another kiss, smiling seductively. "But tonight, I say we celebrate."
"John," she gasped, so caught up in the memory that it didn't register that she was free again.
She pressed her hand against her chest as if to soothe the ache there, the longing. How long has it been since she felt that? A year? She was trying so hard not to remember, because it hurt so much more when she did.
"Ash." Jade's relieved exclamation broke her out of her revere. "Ash, are you okay?"
"Y-yeah. I'm fine." She lied.
Jade frowned and moved closer. "You're crying."
"What?" Startled, she lifted a hand to her cheeks, surprised when her fingertips came back wet. "I-I am." She hadn't even noticed. Shaking her head, she forced a smile in Jade's direction. "Just a little shaken up is all."
Jade wasn't buying it. "You look… strange."
"Gee thanks." Ash said sarcastically. That's-" but she didn't get to finish her sentence, because the next moment she felt a rush of heat crawl up her spine and her knees gave out from under her.
"Ash!" She heard Jade call for her, but it sounded muffled and distant. The last thing she was aware of before she passed out was a cold sensation in her arm, and then nothing.
