Emerald Falls Down (Rainbow)

Eight. Seven. Six.

Much of the town slowed down about this time. The slow bustle of the small city taking to the highway cutting through town spun around the city in a hypnotic way. Or, at least it felt that way to Danny as she walked through the city towards a sight attraction unleashing for the first night.

Five. Four. Three.

An Infernally Delightful Descent Into Madness. Sprawling across the entry way into the fairgrounds, stilt legged callers ushered people into a carnival under the calling banner of the event. Over the course of three months this festival traveled through America after coming out of South America, but no one could find any information on the owner's origin or the origin of this fabled festival. When rumors of danger circulated about disappearances coming from the magic displays and a number of crimes occurring after the festivals left, Prodigy decided it needed to look into these instances.

Two. One...

A burst of confetti shot into Danny's face, pushing a section of her hair into her face. Danny picked the small glittering pieces of paper from her hair while spitting out a few loose strands. "That hardly seems safe at all." A ring continued to sound in Danny's ear as she collected herself towards a tent standing on the outskirts of the carnival.

Presto.

Pulling back the curtains, Danny stepped inside a crowded tent boasting to be the "Palace of infinite Space". Within the small area sat a man with a twisted smile. "Welcome to my palace."

"It's not very big for infinite."

His smile grew.

A streak of multicolor jets through the city, weaving through traffic and around people. On one street corner, a woman with more groceries that she can carry drops her bags in the street. As she reaches to pick up their contents, she hears the horn of an oncoming bus. The rainbow blur suddenly appears, sweeping both her and the bags out of harm's way and setting her down on the sidewalk. When it's gone, the woman looks around in confusion. The bus stops and the driver steps out, looking down the street in the direction of the blur that just saved that woman's life.

At the front of this colorful speed trail is the fastest girl in town, Rainbow. "I'm late! I'm late! I'm horribly, terribly late!" Suddenly, with a wave of her hands some form of rainbow road appears beneath her feet and arcs up from the street like a ramp, disappearing behind her as she runs. The prismatic pathway bends and curves to the girl's will as she rushes further off from the inner city in the direction of this carnival she's heard so much about.

Once nearby, she comes to an abrupt halt and sneaks into the restroom to change into her civvies before rushing back outside to find the main tent. She checks her watch. "Ah. Early as usual. One of these days I'll arrive on time."

Something about this man sat odd with Danny. He slid his fingers across the smooth wood of an ancient carving. When Danny took notice of the surroundings of the carnival on her way in, everything looked cheap and easily broken down, but this place seemed to grow larger with every passing moment. Danny kept her hands on her knees, just above the him of her skirt. While the smoke from the braziers continued to rise, Danny felt her nostrils working over time to keep her senses clean. She could feel the denseness of the smoke seeping into the cotton of her white T-shirt. It felt as though it too dragged her down. "So this smoke helps..."

"No, you don't need to ask questions to understand." A powdered dust appeared in the man's hand. A quick gesture threw the rest of the mixture into a small container holding a candle. A purple strain of smoke rose gently into the air. "Watch the room become bigger."

"Step right in, step right in. You there girl." The man who Danny encountered in the tent stood just outside the tent entrance, pointing towards Amy. "Would you care to step inside the 'Palace of the Infinite?' It may look cramped, but that is only until you have freed your mind. Come, come. Step in. I already have someone you can experience euphoria with." He would pry the door open and usher Amy inside. A pillow sat next to Danny awaiting another guest. Words hung in the back of Danny's throat. She wanted to greet the new girl, but forgot all notions of social awareness. With her mouth stretched into motion, but no air coming out, Danny turned her eyes back to the little man who stayed with her the entire time.

Sitting across the table from Danny sat the same man who would usher Amy in. Not paying any mind to either girl, he continued to deal with the mixtures of powders surrounding his table. More smoke would come up and as it entered the room, the dimensions of the place they were in grew. The images they saw changed to whatever the girls most enjoyed. Easy, light, frivolous ideas and memories would draw the two girls into a complacent state. Danny felt her head spin in circles as she saw images from every dig she tagged along to and every moment she spent with her parents. It felt good to remember such cherished events and moments, but sometimes it masked the true danger sitting, starring, with a smile.

Amy follows the man into the tent and looks around.  She's led to a seat beside another young lady and sits on her knees, resting her hands in her lap.  The gravity pulled harder here.  Then came the haze.  Memories were called forth from the ether.  Memories she had no cause to think of.  Pushing her little sister on the swing at the park, going to carnivals with her parents when she was little... running through the city along her rainbow roads.  The sensation of cutting through the wind like a knife, being free to run wherever she pleased.  There was something freeing about having super speed.  Her burdens were lifted.  She had time, now.  She needn't worry about losing track of her studies or being late for appointments.  This, however.  Something about this was wrong.  It felt wrong.  Her mind.  This was the longest her mind had lingered on any one thing for ages.  As whatever portion of her psyche is experiencing this slows to a crawl to get lost in memories, the Speed Aura rockets the rest of her mind ahead, stretching the sensation until something snaps.  She wants to linger on this sense of elation, but her mind is lapping itself.  Racing so quickly that memories last only a millisecond before moving on.  Images flash by, faster than they can be read.  At that speed, the strain in her head proves headache inducing and she jumps up.  "Agh!"  Can't... think.

The walls grew larger. Danny looked to the back wall thick through the smoke and saw two eyes gaze back at her. It shot through her opening mental defenses and the back wall disappeared into smoke. A large door appeared before her. Heavy with metal and bolts, but not without weaknesses. Danny looked it over and could see how a small amount of explosives could dislodge the door. Why she would want to do that played out in her mind, but the information remained at hand.

"Hey..." Danny reached over to try and swat Amy. "You kay..?" Her head felt miles away from her body. "I'm a..." Disjointed from the rest of her senses, Danny fell over on the table. Neither of her mental state or physical abilities wanted to work with one another, even though she could feel everything in the room. A harsh cough broke from her mouth, but none of the smoke came out.

Any exit to the tent seemingly vanished, the cloth coverage of the tent faded into smoke while pillars of stone rose to anchor walls. Off in the distance of the darkness, Danny heard a voice speak to her. The vision became more clear. Images of power lay hidden behind the door before her. Someone knew what she possessed and could assist her. All she needed to do was get through that door and her powers would unlock.

"The first time is very difficult my dear." Behind the form of the superheroine freaking out, another vision of the man would appear, placing a large handful of powder into a brazier. His intentions would be to lay down enough images to convince Amy breaking into a vault would help her in some way. Right some wrong. Correct some misdeed. Expand some frontier. It did not matter what reason she wanted, just that she did. After the heist, the man always had a way of entering and taking what he wanted before leaving his accomplices behind.

The puff of smoke would continue to rise around Amy and Danny, all the while the white haired man stoked the flames.

As Amy's subconscious mind runs laps 'round her consciousness, the headache squeezes at her skull like she'd stuck her head into a trash compactor.  Her body eventually begins to fail her and she drops to the floor, curling there and holding her head.  Too fast.  Can't think.  You...  She looks to the man, wincing with one eye trained on him and the other tightly shut.  He's the one doing this. Get... get out. Get outta my head!  She touches her hands to the floor.  "OUT!"  A bubble of multicolor forms up around her, cutting her off from the smoke and giving her some untainted air to breathe.  Without the drug barraging her system, Amy's body works it out almost immediately.  Her mind catches up with itself and she stands up inside her bubble.  "Mind controllers.  Why is it always mind controllers?  Why can't the crooks in this town do anything themselves?"  She slips a hand into her jacket pocket and puts on her mask, then looks around.  "Okay.  Now to clear out Smokey Bear."  She spots the other girl, basically K.O'd over the table.  "And save the day. Wonderful."

"You are more troublesome than I thought." The same white haired man stood before Amy as before, but a second man appeared behind her with a metal rod. His feet moved without a fleeting sound. Each foot stayed in perfect synchronized step with the voice of the man speaking to draw Amy's attention. "I bet you think that mask is mighty nice. You think it will save you from my mind control, but do you know the most important element of mind control?" His eye brow would raise as the doppleganger would slowly raise the stick over his head, standing with the blunt edge ready to strike Amy into a state of unconsciousness.

Smoke and vague idle chatter hoped to fill Amy's senses to mask the strike against her head, but without another dose of the powder, Danny found her senses come back over the smokey conditioning. Before the rod caught against the back of the speedster's head, Danny grabbed enough of the assaulting staff and redirected it towards herself. The hard metal impacted against her shoulder, giving her enough of a jar to level her head a little bit.

"We should get out. I don't think we're going to figure anything out with this smoke." Throwing her shoulder downward, Danny though the staff to the ground and pushed herself on top of the man. A hand grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her up. Another mirror image stood before her. "So, we should go." Danny owuld break lose of the man, but a brazier began to flame up behind him. Danny coughed up more of the powder. If Amy didn't get the two of them out of there soon, the man behind the counter would surround the two until the fumes knocked Danny out and he could subdue Amy. "Like now."

Head still throbbing, Amy winces.  She dashes over to Danny, surround the two of them in a multicolor protective aura-like construct.  "You don't have to tell me twice.  Let's make tracks," she says.  The floor beneath her takes on a rainbow pattern and before anyone can tell what's happening, it expands into a rainbow road, reaching out of the tent.  Amy holds Danny over her shoulder.  "Just a warning.  Everyone always tells me this feels really weird.  So... you know... try and hold it for a barf bag or something."  The multicolor marathoner darts from the tent at speeds inhuman.  Once outside and far enough away, she sets Danny down and tries to tend to her.  "Are you all right?  That gas or powder or whatever it was didn't mess with your mind too badly, did it?  And your shoulder.  You should get that looked at.  I can have you sitting cozy in a hospital in a matter of seconds.  Just say the word."

A number of things took Danny by surprise and left her with a queasy feeling. The powder made her head feel like it could float off at any moment, and the sudden burst of speed made her stomach feel as though it could burst from her stomach at any given moment. Once she stopped moving, she took a time to put a little more attention to the girl who pulled her out of the fire. The tent she went into did not look too close anymore, letting Danny thing she moved away from the most dangerous thing in her sight, but something stayed with her.

"Yeah, that was weird, but I think I know what he's up to." Danny rubbed her head to try and get rid of the throbbing headache shaking her head. "I saw a bank. I think he wants to rob it. There is something special there. It's more than just money, I- uh-" Getting ahead of her statements, Danny felt she needed to slow down a bit with the disclosure since she had no reason to talk as fast as this girl ran. "I think there is something special in that bank other than money, and we might want to get there."

A cloud of smoke began to move from tent to tent, edging closer towards the duo. "I hate to keep using you as a bike, but we need to get out of this carnival and get to that bank."

"I saw it," Rainbow says.  "A glimpse of it while my brain was slowing down.  It looked like it was on the west side.  Maybe... Kirby Street?"  She looks over her shoulder at the approaching cloud and turns full around.  "I say thee nay."  Then she holds her arms out in front of her.  "Grab something."  She suddenly begins spinning her arms at speeds unimaginable.  As her arms spin faster, then kick up a gust, forming small cyclones that fan away the oncoming fumes, at least for the time being.  "Sorry, creep, but I don't smoke."

Rainbow scoops Danny up and proceeds toward West Emerald Falls.  On the way, she projects her Rainbow Road to avoid traffic and get there sooner.  "The name's Rainbow, by the way.  My little sister came up with it.  She was seven at the time. I know.  Very clever.  Nice to meet you."  In under a minute they arrive in the West Side and Rainbow slows herself until they stop at Kirby Street.  She sets Danny down and looks around, stopping and pointing.  "That's the bank I saw," she says.  "You?"

The smoke continued to move, but at least Danny and Amy got out of the carnival quick enough to get to the scene of the crime before it actually became a crime scene. "I'm Sphinx. I'm actually from a group looking for-" Caught up in a whirl, Danny felt herself lifted off her feet again and moving through the stalls at a remarkable speed. By, remarkable, she meant at no time could she see any markings as to how fast the superpowered girl beneath her carried her. Up until they stopped just by the largest bank in Emerald Falls. "Yeah." Danny needed  a quick break to kneel over. "That's the one. Now how do we get in?"

The question served as a forum, but Danny already knew what she would do to infiltrate the building. She mainly just wanted to know how Amy would react the the news of breaking and what plans she could come up with. "I need to get a mask out of there before this guy can get his creepy hands on it." In her haste to get out her plan she covered her mouth as a series of coughs came out. "It has something to do with this bracelet I have, so I know it has some power, but I'm not sure just what it is. Not yet at least."

The inside of the bank sprawled out with a very spacious main lobby with an assortment of offices tucked away in the back. A row of teller tables stood in front of a number of doors capable of bolting down under the pull of an alarm, guarding the staircase leading down to the vault under the bank.

Rainbow looks up at the bank for a moment, her hand to her chin.  Then she turns to Danny.  "Be right back," she says.  Suddenly her body takes on some kind of energy form and she slips through the wall.  She looks around in the bank vault and then exits before scouting the interior of the bank, itself.  This just doesn't feel right.  A moment later, streaks of multicolor light circle the building.  She returns, coming to a complete stop on a dime, right in front of Danny.  "I'm wondering if we should be bothering with this place, at all.  There's nothing even remotely suspicious about it.  And think about it.  Why not just walk in with that drug and manipulate the tellers into handing over whatever he wants?  Seems like a runaround way of getting at something.  And why would some sort of mask or artifact be in a bank?  A bank?  Not a museum?  All of this doesn't add up."

Rainbow pauses for a moment.  She looks Danny over.  "Maybe that drug affected you.  Are you feeling all right?  Er... stupid question.  Do you want me to get you to a doctor, or..."  Then she crosses her arms and taps her foot.  "I guess I wasn't affected because I think faster than you."  Rainbow suddenly stops and turns to Danny, waving her hands in apology and opening into a high speed stammer.  "I-I mean I don't!  Well, I do, but that isn't to say I'm smarter than you or anything!  I-it's my powers!  They let me process information faster, so I was able to rationalize all this in about a half a minute. Uh!  Not that you aren't probably a totally rational person, I mean... I-I should just stop talking.  I talk too much. I'm Sorry."

Waiting on someone so fast took a surprisingly long time. But, it gave a very colorful display. As far as the effectiveness of the scouting, she could get through the building quick enough, but any villain who can see color could see her from a mile away. Danny coughed once more. It felt like a hookah lounge took up service in her lungs, and filled her head with the same amount of confusion as someone looking at the price of going to a hookah lounge. "Stupid cough. Never go in the creepy tent when you can win a stuffed bear and get on a Ferris wheel."

Right as Danny fought off one last big cough, Rainbow showed up right in front of her, spitting out words faster than she could run. "First, things first, I'll get back to you on that brain stuff, but second of all, there's a mask in there this guy is going to steal. He's probably going to turn into smoke or something and steal it. If I go to a doctor and this guy steals a priceless artifact, then that is a failure of action. No, we're going in there and we're going to bust that artifact out of the vault-" Danny let out one more major cough. "It's probably just because I'm not used to so much smoke." Still feeling the pull of a mental suggestion, Danny would walk towards the front door and rub her bracelet. With a swift back kick, a sudden impact would land just in the prefect place to trigger the locking mechanism. Still facing the street, Danny would shrug and open the door.

Now breaking into the lobby of a bank would be nothing in comparison to breaking into a vault, but Danny would figure something out between now and the walk to that vault. More smoke came out of her mouth as she let out one more wheezing cough. "Okay Rainbow. Just get me inside the vault so we can get this mask and then we'll probably see about going to that doctor."

Rainbow stands in the alley near the bank as Danny walks off to make her entrance. Rainbow slips back into the bank, through the wall. She disables security in a flash and stands near the vault. "But why steal this mask? Why not just try to figure out some way to stop this guy from getting into the bank at all? Or if we have to steal it, I can go talk to the police. The mayor, even. He's nice and he owes me a favor or two. I can be at either in ten seconds," Rainbow says. She looks over the enormous metal door and backs somewhat away from it. "They can call in a super brain to think up a way to contain the situation. Or I can make a barrier to keep the guy out for a while and you can go."

Rainbow kept going with her list of suggestions while Danny continued onward. Something inside of her let her know of the importance of this mask. Something obsessive. "I know one super brain and she would want me to grab this thing. I can call her if you want. She won't be that helpful- actually-" Maybe Rainbow knew something after all. Of course she knew something after all; Danny just could not see it through the smoke pouring from her mouth. A line of smoke trailed across the reflection Danny cast on her phone. "Hey, Bliss-"

"Danny, I have office hours for a reason. And I don't tell you what they are for an even better reason." Bliss sat wrapped in a bathrobe at home with a bottle of wine cooling in a ice chiller on her coffee table.

"I need to break into a vault to get a relic. If I get caught it will make everyone look bad and I am not backing down from this."

"Fine. Generate enough force to move the inner gears of the vault and it should be enough to open the lock. It's all about getting enough force to work against the lock holding them in place. If you ask me how to do that, I'm hanging up on you. Actually-"

"Hello? Well." Danny did not know if the deep breath she took came from relief or frustration, but she exhaled a little too much. Another deep cough tore through her lungs. "Let's just get this thing open. We need to generate enough force so the gears inside will break the lock and we can get this mask. I'm kind of hoping you can come up with that part of the plan, since it would take me some time to do any of what I just said. Oh, and this relic is needing to be taken into Prodigy custody. The owners of it will still have access to it, but they probably don't know the importance of it and it needs to be protected. It's a superhero kind of insurance. Even if the people who own it don't want it taken. It's complicated, but once you explain it enough and stop thinking about it, it makes sense." It did not need to make sense to Danny. Her mind filled up with some many ambitions and obsessions over the mask, she would stop at nothing to get it.