stamina and will

legend in his own way

Another 4 years go by and Dean and his friends are in another new school. Once again he becomes the star of the Track and Field team while Fuji becomes the top wrestler. Michael has made his T.V. debut and is already starting to garner some fans. Leroy has earned a bachelors and is on his way to his first PHD. Even Stephanie is on her way to solidify herself, getting modeling gigs for new clothes designed for teen girls. Everyone is growing except for Kenny who if anything is getting worse.

His rankings in both athletics and academics are at all time lows and his attitude is getting even worse. He starts bullying those around him and seems to target those who have skills and talents. Most of the time Dean or Fuji can stop him but there are a few times he went too far. It didn’t take long for him to be expelled and that was the last time Dean heard from him in a long, long time.

Dean was living his best life though, doing what he loves and loving what he’s doing. His stamina is at a point where his own strength can’t keep up and he can use full effort for longer than most can use minimal effort. His runs can last days at this point and it is quite often for him to go without sleep for a lengthy period of time simply because he forgets to. Standing now at 6’3, still dwarfed by the 6’11 Fuji, Dean has also grown quite a bit.

Now the reasons why Dean was well known have stacked up on each other. Star athlete, incredibly nice, good looking, and friends with other high profile people his age Dean was finding it harder to just run without having to include the word away. That’s what brought him to some of the smaller areas to run like Z City or Q City. Of course people knew about monsters, but at this point in time they weren’t as common as you know of now but that still didn’t get rid of the risk of such areas. Though Dean wasn’t quite worried about that, no monster could catch him unless they were sufficiently faster than him, and so far, none have been fast enough. So he keeps on running and running.

Another 2 years and Dean started taking part in what will be his life for a little over a decade, He ran in his first marathon. He won his first one, then his second one, third, fourth, the list goes on. For 4 years any marathon being held in any city you could always expect one thing, Dean being the one to tear the ribbon. For 4 years Dean would start to be known for his endurance and stamina and for 4 years he would be undefeatable, seen as unstoppable. Of Course there is one thing that can stop him, Dean was still a nice man.

At 22 years of age Dean would lose his first marathon as he was distracted by a kid being bullied. This girl had green hair and couldn’t have been older than 5 being picked on by some kids that look like they could be almost twice her age. Dean was in the middle of his marathon but it’s not like he did it to win anymore, no he hasn’t ran to win for a long time. He went off path over to the group of kids.

“So what’s happening over here?” Dean says, making his presence known, “do your parents know y'all are here.”

“Why do you care,” one of the bullies broke off from the others to say.

“Ah, you see, I was taking part in the marathon but I couldn’t help but notice the sounds of some brats picking on a girl so I came over to check it out. So now that I’m here how about you lot get lost,” Dean says to the bullies, towering over them at his height of 6’5 and with a traitorous smile on his face.

“Pft, yeah, whatever you say,” the bully says before leaving, waving the rest of his clique to follow him.

“Can you get home by yourself, youngin?” Dean says to the little girl after the others leave.

“Why did you help?” the girl says quickly.

“Why wouldn’t I help?” Dean says back just as quickly.

“You’re a stranger,” the girl shoots back.

“I prefer good samaritan,” Dean quipes.

“I could have done it myself, I’m strong enough.”

“I’m sure you are but even strong people have to ask for help sometimes. I'm pretty strong myself but I have a great group of friends to help me with the things I struggle with.”

“Then maybe you are just not strong enough.”

“HA, maybe you’re right,” Dean says but then he hears the sounds of people calling a name. “Is that your parents?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says.

Dean stood up and started walking back to the marathon path as he yelled back, “You don’t want to keep them waitin’, don’t ya, youngin.”

That time around Dean ranked in the 3rd place as his interaction with the girl had him thinking, maybe he should be stronger. Helping people is the only thing in his life that he enjoys nearly as much as running but he can’t always help people without being strong, especially with the rising monster rates over the years. Maybe, just maybe, he should start better sectioning his workouts was what Dean was thinking as he ran home after the marathon that day, once again not tired.

After the end of 4 years of complete dominance, an even longer time of unstoppable dominance started, this one predicted to last even longer. By 26 Dean had become the face of marathons within the media and one of the few people to be considered a true ultramarathoner. He just kept winning, never stopping even when a marathon was designed to last several days. Dean would never stop or slow and then run home, once again not tired. His Fame had inspired hundreds of others to start marathoning too and the extra eyes to the sport resulted in the highest rewards ever seen.

In this time Dean’s friends are also making names for themselves. Michael became one of the top actors of the decade. Fuji ran rampant in the heavyweight division of many combat sports, now standing at 7’6 and weighing easily within 700 lb. Leroy has achieved many awards for his discoveries. Stephanie is at the top of the modeling world and met someone who she married named Kevin who is the owner of a line of hotels and resorts known as Kev and Co. Everyone in Dean’s life is doing great and he is still loving what he's doing and doing what he loves.

Two years later Dean is running his own marathon. Sponsored partly by him and Kevin, the marathon was an event to build up money for relief funds for a part of Z City that was destroyed. Spanning between 5 cities and with a predicted time of 2 weeks this was to be the biggest marathon ever. With its size came many dangers, in order to prevent major incidents it was an invitational only allowing the best of the best to take part. Hosted by Michael and with a sizable winner’s prize it truly was the biggest event of the year.

You would think that such a big race would be all Dean would think about but that those pesky character traits are always around so he was a bit distracted. Over the past 6 years practically every marathon had the same outcome and while at first people were being driven to change that, it showed no signs of stopping. People eventually followed through and stopped trying. The number of people who ran marathons was dropping, the number of people who watched marathons was dropping, and it could all be linked to one thing, to one person’s dominance. Thats what was on Dean’s mind as he ran, the fact that he was ruining it for everyone else. Dean loved to run but he hated to hurt others, he could certainly still run without racing couldn’t he. 1 week of running later and Dean came to a decision, he would retire once he can build a better supply of income for himself. So after 1 week of running, never tiring, never slowing, Dean tore the ribbon, gave a speech, gave away the money, and ran home still not tired.