Jumpstart [Open]

Click.

"Shit!" Still above a full second, really?! Perhaps she was a bit late on depressing the stop button of the watch, and that would explain the increase in time. Yet somehow... that in itself would be rather sad. She stood there, panting, staring at the static numbers displayed on the device for an extraordinarily long time; as if in disbelief. She knew better than to doubt the time she recorded, but accepting this result meant acknowledging a horrible truth. The fact that she was slowing down. Was this the punishment she brought upon herself for her excessive laziness as of late? Had her negligence worn away at her speed? She hated the thought of it, despite the aversion she had yet to maintain any healthy patterns in fitness. She felt like she deserved retirement, but there was always some excitement that drew upon her curiosity, getting a rise out of her. She didn't want to give up her form.

If she wasted away any more than she would, she'd have to give up the title of fastest to that Yuudeshi kid...

She shuddered at the thought, before resetting the stopwatch and pocketing it within the folds of her orange gi. Perhaps just a run free of pressure was best for now. She was starting to get anxious over the numbers she was putting up, as they weren't comparing nicely to her old times. If she didn't have to worry about testing herself, that'd be enough to let loose and just enjoy the rush. When she got really into it, it was perhaps one of her favorite pastimes, as her legs carried her through the diverse biomes of the world; urban to wild, hot and cold, light and dark. These runs were cycles around the world, fast as the lightning she is attributed to. Yet by the speed of her thought, it would be like viewing a panorama of the world in slow motion. She'd be moving at such a speed that it would be like living on a whole other plane of existence—experiencing life for an hour within a second.

Sighing and shaking her head, she mentally let go of the weights holding her back. With eyes closed, she prepared herself. A deep breath... and then she was off. Time slowed to a crawl as her perception sped up to a lightning's strike. She was not a blur, but instead a streak of lightning surging horizontally across the land. Each place she went she announced her arrival with a thunderclap before disappearing just as fast. In real time, it would be like the Shot Heard 'Round the World, because she'd end back up where she started barely before a second's time was up.

But for her, it was something completely different. She experienced running past entire communities whom stood at complete stillness; witnessing snapshots of people just living their lives. She experienced coursing through a rain storm at one moment and then a warm sunny day the next. She experienced dashing across the ocean, leaving a trail of gentle splashes in her wake as her feet tasted the water's surface. She experienced all manner of colors and shapes in crystal clarity... those that gave Earth its beauty. It felt like she was running for hours, just touring what the world had to offer, even though she knew better about the passage of time. When she finally came to a stop, everything would return to normal, as she stood there panting again. So much energy had been created by her velocity that some of the leftover static electricity was still crackling across her flesh. It tickled a bit.

"That... that felt faster than before. Damnit! I should have recorded it!"