The Ongoing Adventures of Stupendous Girl!

Götterdämmerung (Part 5 of 7) 23 Oct 2009

Irene had covered a distance that 24 hours ago she’d have handled within a minute by flying. (Making the rather large assumption, that is, that anything or anyone would be powerful enough to drive her to flight.) Today, though, she ran as fast as her now normal legs could take her. She ran for what seemed like hours, until the single voice screaming in her head to keep going was joined by a pessimistic partner, growing in intensity with each stride, telling her she should not, could not keep going at all.

The muscles in her legs felt like they were on fire, the lactic acid burning away at the fibres that kept her going. Her feet throbbed with a singular demand to rest – she had not worn running shoes, not expecting to be chased by a homicidal maniac – and every step included a painful reminder of her sadly deficient choice in footwear.

Her back – oh, how her lower back ached! (It was, she thought without wanting to, better than the condition of John’s back, the pain she felt contrasting markedly to his inability to feel much of anything in his extremities.) Over the years she’d been thrown into walls, dropped from great heights, shot at, clubbed with all manner of blunt instruments, driven to the ground, punched, kicked, hurled, slammed, suffered all the different types of attack and bodily indignity possible that one who made a life of fighting could expect. In spite of all that experience, she couldn’t remember a time when her back hurt as much as it did now.

That was the worst pain, of course, the loss of self that her depowering had brought on. She’d taken for granted the way her hyper-capability made her feel, that in a dangerous situation she’d always be able to put others’ safety ahead of her own, that she’d know what to do or at least feel confident that she could figure it out. Watching John get shot, and knowing all she could do was try to save herself felt almost as painful as the fact that – for the first time ever- her body was failing her when she needed it most.

One thing was certain. If she could get out of this alive, she was going back to the strange old woman to have her powers restored. After this, she couldn’t deny any longer that she’d ever be anything but Stupendous.

She could feel herself hunching over, her breath shallow and near useless as she shuffled more than ran. This wouldn’t do. Even with her now diminished ears, she could hear the gunman’s footfalls in the sand some distance behind her.

Straightening up as much as she could, she lengthened her stride. She didn’t need to run forever – just longer than he did.

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