Holden loved watching soccer. Not because it was his favorite sport, but because he could skip large swaths of it while recharging his power and still miss nothing of importance.

The figures on the screen zoomed back and forth sixty times as fast, but the score rarely changed. The moment it did, he could return to a normal time frame and catch the replay of the goal from five different angles.

Truly the perfect sport.

Then the T.V. turned off.

“Dang it,” he grumbled, ready to perform some percussive maintenance. Before he could follow through, he noticed someone sitting right beside him. “Mhm? Oh, Milly. You sure got here quick. What’s the matter?”

Milly didn’t even look up from her phone. Teenager or not, it wasn’t like her to ignore him. Her fingers moved across her flickering screen so quickly that the only reason they were vaguely visible at all had to be because they were making the same movements multiple times.

“Right, you’re deaf…”

Thanks to his power, he was used to seeing people on ‘fast forward’, but even he couldn’t follow what she was doing. He could tell she wasn’t actually sitting still, though. After a moment, he had to avert his gaze to avoid the strain it was putting on his eyes; she was hard to look at.

Seeing her power in action, she moved so much faster than he imagined. She even wore different clothes than when he’d last seen her, half an hour ago. From what Milly had told him, she should only have been in ‘Milly-time’ for fifteen minutes.

Holden noticed a yellow note stuck to his hand.

Hey, Pa!

First, nothing’s wrong, I’m fine.

I just want to test how our powers mix.

Can you take us to the room for a sec?

TEN SECONDS TOPS!!

Thanks!

-Milly

“Just ten, got it.” He offered a hand to her. His power didn’t require direct contact, merely close proximity, but he was wary of springing it on her. To his surprise, her hand was on top of his before he’d even fully finished the motion.

Apparently, Milly was more aware of her surroundings than her disinterested posture would suggest.

“Hold on a second.” Holden focused on his power. However, something felt strange. The Holden Room was as natural to him as walking, but he felt as though he’d unwittingly stepped onto a treadmill and stumbled for a step. Nothing that really threw him off his game but odd nonetheless.

With the T.V. off, the small room held nothing that could visually confirm it. The all-too-familiar sensation of its effect was the only thing that told him it had activated. Nothing ought to be moving.

Then how could Milly run in front of the TV?

No, she wasn’t running, merely walking. Perhaps four times as fast as a normal person could. The strangest thing was that even now, she appeared blurry, an eerie sight. Holden was used to people zipping around much faster while he recharged, so even Milly’s movements should’ve been easy to follow.

Milly turned to face him. In an instant, her hands had formed a ‘T’ gesture.

Impossible. There’d been absolutely no movement!

Or, actually, as soon as that thought crossed his mind he spotted motion, but it didn’t make sense, her hands were also rising up rapidly from her hips, meeting the hands at the top, where they merged back into a single set.

The blurry effect on Milly was gone as she stood there.

“What in the Sam Hill is going on here?” Holden had no idea, but he at least understood that ‘T’ sign. “Time-Out?”

He dropped his power.

The experience had been so strange that he’d forgotten to keep track of time. Even so, the whole thing couldn’t have been more than three seconds or so.

“Sorry, I—”

Milly was gone, leaving only a terse note.

Taking a walk.

He took that to mean their powers hadn’t interacted the way she’d hoped. It must’ve been a big disappointment.

Now that he had a little longer to think, the ‘fuzziness’ was starting to make sense.

He stretched out his hand, fingers splayed. “Hold on a second.” His power kicked back in while he rotated his hand a little. His physical hand stayed still, but his ‘ghost’ hand moved out of alignment just enough to create the blur he’d seen around Milly.

The strain that came with being out of sync was barely noticeable at such a small distance. If he held that pose for long enough, eventually his physical hand would slowly catch up and realign.

That had to be what he’d seen Milly do, but that could only happen if her mind were faster than her body.

If that meant their powers were multiplicative, how long were those three seconds?

Holden sighed and scratched his head. “Father of the year, right here…”

On the roof of the hotel, Milly sat on the edge, kicking her heels against the edge of the building.

She stared at her hands, opening and closing them slowly.

After nearly fifteen minutes of slowly inching her stupid body forward, it felt good to finally control it without any lag again.

“Never doing that again.”

The crazy thing was that her ‘brief’ stay in the Holden Room hadn’t actually been that different from the first time. Her thoughts and ability to move as a ‘ghost’ outpaced her physical body by the expected amount.

But, she’d been alone there.

What a difference absolute isolation made. She could not even leave the hotel room without snapping back to her physical body like she stretched a bungee cord. Her phone obviously didn’t work, but neither did her pen so she could not communicate her predicament at all.

Well, except one. Dad didn’t know sign language, but the ‘time-out’ sign was almost universal. It’d just been a painfully slow process. Thankfully, she’d foreseen that possibility and set a time limit, so it wasn’t as scary as it could’ve been. Worst case, she’d only have been trapped for forty minutes.

The real loss was that she was no closer to figuring out how to avoid being trapped for the rest of her life. A sobering thought. Dad’s power hadn’t worked the way she’d hoped, but at least it told her something about interaction that might come in handy at some point.

Milly did her best to find a silver lining to it all, but she couldn't deny the setback had her shaken up. Laughter was the best medicine, if she could just find something.

Actually, the experience granted her one small benefit she could think of.

“All is forgiven.” Milly hugged her phone to her chest. “I’ll never complain about how slow your keyboard is ever again!”

At least that was something.

As though it were accepting the newly called truce, a new text popped up.

@Stella

Stella:

Hi! I heard from Terra that I accidentally teleported you! Sorry about that! Not sure what I could’ve done to prevent that, but I’ll try to avoid it! Anyway!

I’m gonna be on my own for a little bit, and I was wondering if you maybe wanna hang out? I’d love to hear more about those star nebulae and spider threads you saw. It might help me learn more about my power. I’d return the favor, of course! There’s lots of stuff a teleporter can help with! …Most of which involve traveling quickly, which I’m just now realizing is something you probably have covered.

I guess I also know some hot goss if that’s more your speed? Get it? Speed? For example, did you know that Sonia makes extra cash by vibrating dirt off of City Hall on Sundays? I can’t believe they didn’t call it ‘City Ball’ after building that thing like a dome. Supposedly it's the most sturdy shape, but good luck convincing a cleaning crew to soap it up! There’s lots of little super-jobs you can do for pocket money if you’re interested.

Anyway, drop by if you have time to experiment and get teleported intentionally!

“Dang.” Milly scrolled through the wall of text. “She’s kinda all over the place.”

While it wasn’t as if Milly had anything better to do, she didn’t know Stella all that well. Granted, if Milly had to describe her based on their brief interactions over the past few weeks, it would be as ‘the nice ACE’. Plus, she could really use the distraction.

“If I agree to meet up, she’s going to cotton on pretty quick that I can’t slow down. Probably some other stuff too. I guess I gotta decide whether that’s a problem?”

Stella (and Terra) already knew about Milly’s identity as The Millisecond. Milly wasn’t wild about it, but that cat was out of the bag.

“I guess it can’t hurt at this point. Besides, if we’re on the same team, it’ll probably be good for them to know at least a bit about my situation. Like when I can actually help out.”

Milly started on her trip back to school. She swung by Dad’s room to update her note while she thought aloud. “Come to think of it, there is one thing Stella might be able to help with.” She turned the T.V. back on before she left.

@Stella

00:00.001:

Sounds good, Stella. Quick question, does your teleport maintain inertia?

With the way Stella texted, Milly expected to be at school long before she’d get her response. She resumed her usual pattern of roaming the streets with an eye on pets and peril.

On her way, she stumbled onto a dog park.

“Jackpot!” Milly ran forward. A chest-high fence in her way gave her a moment’s pause. “Mhm, I could easily climb over it, or even just go to that open gate over there, but…”

She stomped the ground as a quick test. The ache in her feet from her last round of jumping practice wasn’t bothering her anymore. Plus, unlike in the alley, she also had a good view of her landing area: A nice clear strip of short grass without anyone nearby. Even if she overshot the jump, nobody would get hurt.

“Okay, let’s give this another go.” Milly took a couple of steps back then crouched for the jump. She took a moment to picture the trajectory she had to follow to clear the fence. It already felt more natural to remember the right mindset even before she yelled, “Second to none!”

Milly launched herself over the small fence.

“Woo!” Milly cheered then touched down easily on the other side, but the impact drove the soles of her shoes into the soil. She wobbled and swung her arms to keep her balance. Once she was secure, she looked around with a satisfied grin. “Oh, I am definitely getting better at this! Ten points for the dismount!”

She pulled her feet out of the ground and inspected the deep footprints. They looked about the same as they might’ve had she jumped out of a tree. Noticeable, but not terribly remarkable. Certainly not what should’ve happened if a teen-sized projectile hit the ground at Mach one, but she’d long since gotten used to that discrepancy.

“I reckon that’s why my feet hurt before. Each hop was like jumping from a branch onto asphalt; not a lot of give there.” Milly sat down on a nearby park bench to quickly jot down her findings. The level of damage, the distance, and the number of cute dogs around.

None of the aforementioned cute dogs got away without at least one quick cuddle while Milly made her rounds. Many of them were off their leashes and Milly made a game out of guessing which dog belonged to which owner based on how much they looked alike.

During her game, she noticed something peculiar. The owners were all politely smiling and making no doubt terribly milquetoast conversation with one another, but the dogs were all facing the same direction, some even looking over their shoulders toward the west.

“What is it, boy?” Milly asked while she came to crouch down beside a broad-shouldered rottweiler and scratched him between his floppy ears while she looked west. “Did you hear something?”

Milly didn’t see anything worth mentioning. Some bushes, the fence, rows of buildings, and the road that ran westward between them before it made a bend. Too bad she was already too curious to leave it be now.

“Let’s take a detour, Theodore.”

The further Milly went west, the more she noticed other animals looking in the same direction. A few blocks away she finally found out why. A trio of masked people were sprinting out of the bank building at the end of the street. A fourth member was sitting in a car just a few steps away from them. At this point, it wasn’t just the occasional pet dog that looked toward the bank, but people as well.

“Okay, I’m just gonna guess some sort of alarm is blaring at the moment.” Milly cleaned out her ear with her pinky finger, but she remained as deaf as ever. Annoying, but she’d stumbled onto quite possibly the most adorable partial solution to that problem. “I hadn’t noticed it before, but I should start paying attention to whether all the animals on the street are in sync. It might not always pan out, but they are paw-sible leads.”

How well that would really work was yet to be determined, but for now Milly had a job to do.

“Four crooks and,” Milly stuck her head inside the car to check the pedals, “one parked car, probably. Let’s start with that. Easy enough.”

Milly leaned in further then pulled the handbrake to make sure the car wasn’t going anywhere. Next, she turned the ignition key off and took it with her. “Mhm, I guess they might know how to hot-wire their own car, so…” Pulling out her new crowbar, she came around to the front where she popped open the hood.

“Welp, that’s a tad more complicated than Dad’s pickup truck, but I recognize this part here.” Milly tore the battery cables free, closed the hood and reassessed her situation. She spotted a computer parts store across the street.

One quick trip yielded a dozen zip ties.

First, she tied the driver’s hands to the wheel and cinched his feet together. “Nice, now then I’ll just—What the heck?” Milly paused mid-stride as she faced the fleeing trio.

Two of them were perfectly normal. A bag of cash under one arm and a firearm in the other. The third wore a horned motorcycle helmet with a big duckbill. He also carried a quacking duck in his arms with a leash and a collar that read ‘Daisy’. An empty leash dangled behind him.

Milly peered past the trio to see a second duck inside the bank, pecking at a slice of bread on the floor. That already struck her as an odd sight, but what really sealed it was all the people in the bank who were hidden behind desks, chairs, and whatever else they could find to put between themselves and the bird. Terror streaked across their faces as if there was a bomb in the middle of the room.

“...What?” Milly ran into the bank for a closer look. Her first suspicion was that maybe it was actually a bomb shaped like a bird. Goodness knew that some villains had the strangest gimmicks. She discarded that theory seconds after inspecting the animal. Everything looked normal aside from the fact this duck had a collar with a name tag. “Hey there, Donald. Don’t suppose you’d like to tell me how you ended up heisting a bank?”

Donald looked at her like she was crazy.

“Won’t quack without a lawyer? I don’t see why you’d need one.” Milly walked a slow circle around him till she was at his back. She grinned. “...Unless there was fowl play? Hah! Okay enough messing around. I better get back to arresting those guys. Too bad I didn’t bring enough duck tape.”

Somehow, Donald was still looking directly at her. Even though he hadn’t moved an inch.

“What’s going on?” Milly wondered aloud while she moved about the room, but she couldn’t escape his gaze. In fact, with every passing moment his lovable dumb duck stare looked more and more threatening, twisting into a wicked scowl with piercing eyes. The new ski goggles Milly wore were useless, he saw exactly who she was!

“Nope!” Milly turned and marched straight out of the bank. She could feel his eyes on her all the way until she managed to break the line of sight by putting the trio between her and Donald. She wagged a finger at the crook with the duck. “What exactly are you trying to pull here? This is obviously some kind of power!”

Daisy now looked at her like she was crazy.

“Right. That does it.” Milly snatched the bag of money from the left crook and pulled the zip open to reveal it was filled with stacks of money. At least that part made sense. She chucked the contents straight back into the bank.

Daisy was still looking directly at her.

“Oh no you don’t,” Milly said while she pulled the empty bag over Daisy and zipped it back up. She felt a wave of relief soon after the last feather vanished from sight. She glared at the duck guy. “Seriously? Your power is to give ducks death stares? That’s so specific!”

Now that she knew the trick, she nabbed the other bag and repeated the process to also bag up Donald. Once the ducks were detained, it was only a quick couple of zip ties before all the crooks had been neatly taken care of.

Milly slapped a note on the windshield for the cops to explain the situation before she went on her way.

Walking down the street, she checked the Span-Dex for any mention of someone with powers like that. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long before she got a hit: Drakedevil. Apparently, his usual M.O. mainly involved daring motorcycle stunts, but the bike hadn’t survived his latest heist: using City Hall’s interior design for something called a ‘globe of death’.

“Whatever that is, it’s got serious supervillain vibes to it with a name like that.”

Milly scrolled further down to the section describing his powers. Supposedly, the fear effect of the duck was actually pretty slow to start. Most fights were determined by whether the heroes could get the ducks away from Drakedevil before the effect fully took hold, which usually was easier said than done.

“Interesting, I would’ve thought it’d be instant if I was getting affected.” Milly mused. “Between Drakedevil and Dad, that’s two people whose mental power seems to meet me where I’m at, rather than function at a standard speed.”

Milly briefly considered whether to use Ruth as a third test case.

“Pass.”

In her dorm, Stella leaned against the ensuite bathroom door, checking her phone. “Ruth’s really gotten hooked on that ‘Her-Sa’ show while she was grounded, huh? She’s been spamming the group chat with images of the catgirl character.”

@Millisecond

00:00.001:

Sounds good, Stella. Quick question, does your teleport maintain inertia?

Stella grinned as the message popped up on screen. “Oh! Millisecond says yes!” she announced enthusiastically before typing up her next text.

“Great,” came Terra’s reply through the door. She was barely audible over what sounded like someone pressure washing a gravel driveway. “Tell her I had lunch with Vanna.”

“Uh-huh. Speaking of which, are you about done or should I just pick you up right before class?”

“Tomorrow.”

@Millisecond

Stella:

Nope! It actually alters my inertia to match that of my target. It’s pretty handy, since I can teleport onto a flying plane without getting slammed into the tail section the second I show up. Why do you ask?

00:00.001:

I want to see if I can run up a wall, but I’m worried I might accidentally run into the sky. I could use a safety net. Figuratively. I’m pretty sure I’d just smash through an actual net. Same goes for parachutes, bungee cords, wing suits, mattresses, etc. Do you think you could help?

Stella blinked, and the reply had popped up already. There’d not even been time to look away. “Finally, someone who can write back without needing half an hour pecking away with a stylus pen!” She laughed while giving the door a whack with her open palm.

“Wrong.” Terra called back. “I just ignore you.”