Brace yourself; I'm about to mack you.

[Johan Tempest]

Johan is your typical college student. He gets average grades, spends his time sitting inside at his computer, and runs at the school's gym for 3 miles every other day. This is just on the surface though.

Johan, through some means he can't quite explain, has acquired a natural speed that rivals the most modern speeders. He uses it to good effect, making classes in the nick of time, meeting people, and most notably, saving the world. The only problem is that between all this, there's no time for him to have a love life. Johan is usually your typical nice guy; quiet, polite and helpful, to the point of being absolutely luckless with girls. They just love how nice and polite he is, and how handsome, BUT...they don't wanna date him.

It seems less of a problem as his hero self...only problem is getting an equally superheroic girlfriend. One that can withstand his ultimate macking powers, hee hee. And...she seems to be a likely candidate.

"Brace yourself..." he mutters, "I'm about to mack you!"

[Saccharine Jones]

He was blonde, blue-eyed, tall, great looking... in short, exactly like every other guy who had passed her by. SJ sighed, pushing back a strand of her baby-fine blonde hair back behind an ear... it never stayed put, no matter how hard she tried, so she had pretty much resigned herself to a lifetime of fiddling with her hair.

She looked back over at the blonde man waiting in line at the coffee corner she worked part-time at, envisioning that he wanted to come over and talk to her, and she imagined that she would smile shyly, giggle or flutter her eyelashes like she'd seen so many women do, sitting outside in the warm summer sun with their dates.

"Sarah... Hello, Sarah?" Her manager called out, sounding a little more than a bit vexed.

"Sorry sir, I..." She started, only to be cut off again.

"No, no excuses from you today, Miss Jones. You've got customers here, you've got to stay awake!"

"I wasn't asleep I was..." She hesitated, not wanting to admit that she had been daydreaming "I'm sorry sir, it won't happen again."

He marched off, ready to chastise another worker, and she wiped her palms on her apron, furious and indescribably discouraged. Now there was no way that guy would want to talk to her, not that he was going to anyway, she thought to herself as she started on another customer's order.

[Johan Tempest]

Seems she's noticed him too. Could just be that she's on the job hunting for potential customers. Sure, he can be a potential customer. Especially after that little scene with the manager. Johan steps up to the counter and leans on it, looking in the direction of the manager.

"What's his problem? Ya can't yell at a cute girl like that."

He looks to Saccharine with a grin and wink.

"I'd say you're the cutest girl I've seen yet."

[Saccharine Jones]

SJ turned to look behind her. There was nobody there. There were only a few seconds before the realization hit her.

Oh man, is he talking to me? she thought to herself, all plans of being coy and flirtatious went out the window. Thankfully, the manager was out of earshot, but if he had been...

"Excuse me! You could have gotten me fired!" Anger now replacing shock, she walked over and stood defiantly behind the counter.

[Johan Tempest]

"Huh?"

This is unexpected, but nothing he can't handle. He just needs to figure out what she's talking about.

"How could I have gotten you fired? I'm just talking. I haven't done anything wrong."

[Saccharine Jones]

The confidence of anger slowly draining from her, Sj looks shyly down at the floor.

'Well, he's not a very even-tempered man... he likes to yell at who he pleases and nothing but nobody talks him out of it."

She looks back up at him, meeting his intense gaze before looking to her side nervously.

"It's just... well, he would have thought you were a friend of mine, or something. Here to stir up trouble."

[Johan Tempest]

"If I wanted to stir up trouble I'd be doing something a bit more radical. I don't see how just talking is a bad thing. But if its gonna get you in trouble, we can wait until you go on break or get off work. I'm Johan Kraft."

His eyes wander to the menu put up on the wall behind her. He knows nothing of coffee and doesn't drink it at all, but he can play it off and maybe present himself with a few opportunities to try and pick her up.

"So...which is your favorite?"

[Saccharine Jones]

He wants to talk to me on break? She thought to herself incredulously, replying with a simple "Oh, ok."

He flashed that smile towards her and asked her about her coffee preferences. Although she had worked here for a few months, she had no real favorite, and to tell the truth, only took the job because her hours had been cut back at her other job.

"Well, I actually like tea, myself." She smiled, beginning to relax with him around, and not caring if her manager watched. "What about you?"

[Johan Tempest]

"I don't drink coffee at all," he admits. "I've got friends that do, and thought they may be in here. Usually when I come I just order something off the sidebar."

He gestures at a short list of two or three drinks, consisting mostly of milk, hot chocolate, and a few assorted juices.

"Orange juice will work. I've got to go running later and milk's no good before a run."

[Saccharine Jones]

"Yeah, sure." SJ replied, smiling as she went to grab one of the bottles of orange juice from the front cooler.

"Here you go." She handed him the bottle and rang it up on the cash register.

[Johan Tempest]

He slides her a chit and when she tries to hand him the change, he curls her fingers around it and looks into her eyes, holding her hand in both of his.

"Keep it, you deserve it. For services well-rendered," he says with another winning smile.

[Saccharine Jones]

Looking deep into his eyes, SJ could do nothing but nod and smile. Somehow, she managed a weak, "Ok. Thanks." before breaking his gaze again.

What was it about this one guy that she couldn't even keep his gaze? He's probably just like every other guy... She thought to herself, watching him as he turned to leave the store, but not before giving her a saucy wink. ...he won't come back.

She thought for a moment, then put the tip in the tip jar on the counter, and turned to go clean the counters off. It was going to be a long shift...

[Johan Tempest]

Johan checks the time on the door. Hm...it closes in an hour. That's long enough for him to get his miles in, bathe, and be back. He downs his drink, flips it neatly into the garbage bin outside, stretches, and takes off.

[Saccharine Jones]

(One Hour Later)

SJ reached around behind her back and untied the apron emblazoned with the coffee shop's logo and hung it up in the back room. After saying hello to the girl who worked the next shift, she picked up her lunch and went to sit outside in the bright sunshine of the afternoon.

...not that she was expecting the young man to actually come back. It was her common practice to eat lunch outside, if it was a nice day, and then head back to her apartment, take a nap, and get ready to work the late shift at her other job, an entry-level clerk at a bank not too far from here.

Sighing, she began to saw her bagel in half.

[Johan Tempest]

"Breakfast for lunch?"

Johan, now finished with his run and clean (it just wouldn't do to come back to her smelling like a 5K, now would it?), Takes a chair next to her with a chicken sandwich and a bottle of water.

[Saccharine Jones]

"Well, I wouldn't necessarily call a bagel breakfast food."

SJ smiled up at him, glad that he had actually come back. She also detected the slight scent of... soap?

"So, how was your run then?

[Johan Tempest]

"A personal best...made it in faster than I thought I would. How was your work? Boss give ya any more trouble?"

Johan can't stop thinking about it; how that old fart guy gets off putting her down for no reason. It boils his blood.

[Saccharine Jones]

"Oh, he's not usually that bad." She continued spreading the cream cheese on her bagel as she talked. "He's just had some difficult times these past few days."

Looking back up at him, she smiled and shook her head. "Enough about work... I spend most of the day there anyway. What about you? What do you do for a living?"

[Johan Tempest]

"Nothing yet, but one day I'm going to draw comic books. I'm in college learning it now, and it absolutely rocks. I'l make the best series the galaxy's seen yet!"

[Saccharine Jones]

"Wow!"

She exclaimed, probably a bit too loudly. SJ looked around nervously, frightened that she had startled someone. Thankfully, it was a particularly noisy day today, with all the outside customers chatting up as if nothing had happened. She leaned forward a bit and continued.

"Really? I love comic books. I sometimes used to wish..."

SJ stopped herself. She had wanted to say 'wish that I could be one too' but it was best to keep her powers under wraps for now.

"I used to wish I could draw like that."

[Johan Tempest]

"It's not really a hard thing. People say you hafta have been born with some talent, but I don't think that's true at all. I had a friend with no talent at all, and people said he wouldn't succeed, but he proved them all wrong."

Of course, when he says "his friend", he's really talking about himself, but Johan hates telling this story. It always sounds so cheesy to tell.

[Saccharine Jones]

"Well, I think you have to start out with something...'

SJ thought to herself for a second, studying this mystery man's face for a second before exclaiming, "Oh! How rude of me!"

She extends a hand formally and smiles.

"My name is Sarah, Sarah Jones."

[Johan Tempest]

"Johan," he answers, shaking the hand firmly but gently. "Johan Tempest."

[Saccharine Jones]

SJ shakes his hand, successfully restraining the small whimper of pain from the slightest touch before returning her right hand to her jacket pocket. She had forgotten about the incident at the bank (http://swforums.net/forum/showthread.php?threadid=28274&perpage=20&pagenumber=1) earlier today, where her powers had taken their toll on her skin, as usual.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Johan. That's such an interesting name, you don't here about many people named Johan these days. Of course, everybody is named Sarah... quite common of a name."

Grateful for her forced ambidexterity, SJ continues nibbling at her bagel, picking it up with her left hand.

[Johan Tempest]

"Yeah, I knew five or six Sarahs back when I was in first grade...humans, Rodians...heck, even the Twileks were named Sarah. But Johan's just a slight change of the ever present 'John', so I guess it's nothing special either."

[Saccharine Jones]

SJ chewed her bagel thoughtfully.

"Well, even little differences can be special... It's what makes you unique."

[Johan Tempest]

"They can also make you dead," Johan mutters. His speed has nearly gotten him killed numerous times, either by people who were too afraid of him or simple lack of control.

[Saccharine Jones]

"Yes..."

SJ looked back up at Johan from examining a passing speeder. There was something in the way he had said that, something that reminded her very much of herself. After a silence, she decided to ask him about what he had said, even though she was positively sure that they couldn't have anything in common like her own personal... problems.

"...what do you mean?"

[Johan Tempest]

"I mean how people are stupid. If you're different they hate you and fear you, even if you do something good that defies what they think."

[Saccharine Jones]

"I know what you mean."

SJ thought for a moment. Could he know anything about this mysterious group at the bank? There was more she wanted to know.

"I mean, that happened to me earlier today. There was a holdup at the bank I work at, and... we had some unexpected help. These guys in costumes came in and just rescued us! One of them had... oh this is going to sound silly... he had lasers shooting out of his eyes, or from some special glasses or something. "

She had conveniently left out the interesting tidbits about her own new connection to the group, just to be on the safe side.

"But nobody thanked them... besides me, and a friend of mine. Not even the police, seems they thought these men were stealing their glory or something."

[Johan Tempest]

"Not at all...not at all..." Johan says quietly. More like him? So he's not alone in this after all. "Yeah...the cops are so afraid of getting their glory taken from them. It's like if anyone's doing a competent job and making them look bad, they're instantly part of the 'criminal menace that's plaguing Coruscant!"

[Saccharine Jones]

"Well, it's not like the police aren't doing their jobs..." SJ began to reply, and then thought better of it. "...but they should be willing to accept help when it is offered. These men were faster... and with such amazing powers. If they hadn't found me and my coworker, I don't want to think what might have happened to us."

[Johan Tempest]

"Yeah, they're doing their jobs, but they suck at it. It's guys like us that get the job done where they can't hack it."

[Saccharine Jones]

"Guys like... us?"

She paused, eyes widening. He had said it, there was no denying that he must know what those men were.

"What do you mean? Are you saying... that you have powers like... like that?"

[Johan Tempest]

"Yeah, my fastest sprint bests the top speed of Incom's X-Wing. I'm always the first to show up and the first to le--"

He stops as he realizes what he just let slip.

"Ahah...yeah...um...so anyways..."

He can't find a way to change the subject though. Guess he's goofed.

"Look, y'can't tell nobody, 'kay? It's important that no one know about it."