Team Viper

F O L L O W I N G A N I N C R E D I B L E History class that had started out as a marker towards a boring afternoon, the topic actually turned out to be pretty controversial as it was taken all the way from class to the recess lounge.

“Race has got nothing to do with this considering that there are scientists and innovators of different color and not just white!” Marcus was arguing out, leading the heated conversation in which his sister and Henry were a a part of.

“Oh really?” came Carmen, "then I dare you to name at least five major scientists who are black!"

"Well," her brother pondered on, "let's see. There's Neal deGrasse Tyson and..."

Carmen widened her emerald eyes at him, expressing she was winning the case.

“So what ?” Marcus added, shaking his head, “just because there's fewer colored people in the field of tech advancement doesn't mean that they haven't done their part...”

“And don't forget how my ancestors were denied the aspect to venture more into that area by the bitch called slavery!” Cassie, who had been busy working on a poem excerpt, cut in.

“Whoa!” Marcus threw his head back against the sofa he was sitting in. “Hey! We're all on the same page here. I'm colored too, remember?”

“And this is why I utterly loathe the Arts,” Henry added silently in his English accent while shaking his head.

He was turning away from the group when he spotted Lucas approaching the lounge.

“Hey!” Marcus called out, “if it isn't the golden boy himself!”

Lucas was grinning and almost failed to notice the incoming ovoid ball that was thrown at him by some kids from the football squad. He caught it with both hands and tossed it back to the thrower.

The hype and glory for the quarterback was still at its climax, following the events of the outstanding victory by the Warriors in the Opening Games.

Lucas sat next to Cassie, facing Marcus, Henry and Carmen.

“You dropped your...”

“Uh uh. Zip it!” snapped Cassie to Lucas without looking up from her tablet.

“Shakespeare over here is currently prepping for the musical,” Carmen explained to Lucas and Cassie had to narrow her eyes at her before returning back to her tablet.

“So, is it true?” asked Marcus, hunching in his seat and leaning towards Lucas.

“Is what true?”

“You know... landing the scholarship.”

“Oh, I heard you might leave North Atlanta High,” added Carmen, “I hope they're not gonna take you to some place like an exotic college where you'll end up involuntarily signing up for the military or some dark shit and call it a noble cause...”

“What ?” Lucas shook his head, chuckling, “it's just an after-school scholarship so I'll have to wait until I'm done with high school and no, I'm not signing up for the army.”

“I told you you read way too many books!” Marcus scoffed but his sister pretended to not having heard him.

“There is something else though...” Lucas added slowly.

“I knew it!” hissed Carmen excitedly.

“I'm not the only one who...”

A strange low buzzing sound came from Lucas who went ahead to move up a finger over his ear and a tiny blue transparent screen popped up just a few inches from his left eye.

"What the hell is that ?" asked Marcus.

"Wait, I've seen those before," came Henry and it was no surprise to anyone there that he knew about the micro-communications device engineered from Elon Musk's Neuralink that was retrofitted just behind the ear — just as he blatantly explained.

"Yeah,"Lucas responded, probably even a little shocked that Henry knew some things about it that even he didn't. "My uncle received a batch of them from Carter Labs and I forgot to repackage two of 'em."

Lucas still worked at his uncle's tech store, Mac’s, going on for almost five years now.

"What's that?" asked a new voice as Natasha joined the rest of the group and Lucas's smile was all over the place until it was replaced by a face that was almost of scorn when he immediately noticed the other tall black kid coming in after her.

It then got a little weird for Lucas who was suddenly wondering why he'd gotten that twisted feeling. He did not trust Xander that much but that was because of how he was constantly laying shade (as Scott was suggesting) on the football team.

This felt entirely different however, and he was beginning to note that he experienced this sort of feeling whenever he saw the new kid near Natasha...

Henry handed the device to Nat who went on to adjust it behind her ear as instructed.

"Let me," came Xander, standing next to her and positioning the device accordingly.

Natasha giggled a little from Xander's touch at the end of her jawline to the base of her short golden hair.

Carmen spotted Lucas cringing and looking down to the other device that was in his hand.

The two were about to sit when Cassie gasped.

"What " asked Lucas, grateful that somebody disrupted that moment which did not feel at all pleasing to him.

"Some fire just broke out at this new building!" Cassie replied, turning the tablet so that Lucas could view the screen and indeed there was live footage on her Instagram showing a burning building.

Subtly, they all turned to Natasha except for Xander who had no idea that the blond teen standing there could move at superhuman speed aka the Viper.

To everyone's surprise though (excluding Xander), Natasha barely made a move and they watched the footage with the fire spreading and growing rapidly.

Cassie even gave her a slight 'the fuck are you waiting for ' wince.

"Oh would you look at that!" Natasha finally blurted out. "I need to use the bathroom!"

"But you said you just got there on our way here..." Xander calmly pointed out.

Natasha froze. She didn't know how to respond to that which was silly, considering she had a whole bunch of options of how she could have come up with a perfect answer. Instead, she got this:

"Nat's got a bladder problem and it's been bugging her for a while," Cassie came to her rescue.

"Yeah! Yeah that's it!" with that, Nat excused herself and walked away.

"Hey man," Marcus started, turning to Xander. "What's your take on technology and the human race "

"Humans are doomed and one thing or another will lead to their downfall, eventually..." was Xander's comical yet eerie reply.

"Ookey..." chuckled Xander, not knowing how to respond to that.

Having locked herself in the bathrooms, Natasha took out her phone and dialed Carol's number.

It was unresponsive.

Where are you?

She had expected her to show up at the building and save the day as she had done countless times when Nat was busy in school or in too tight of a situation to summon her alter ego.

Sighing, Natasha tapped a loose green bracelet tied around her left arm which instantly tightened and a fluid mass which spontaneously spread out from the bracelet, covering her body into the super suit, compressed with nanotechnology.

Having suited up, the Viper bolted off from the bathrooms and was soon hurtling towards the burning building.

"Oh my God. It's bad!" she gasped, staring at the tall building that appeared to have still been undergoing construction before the inferno.

"Somebody help!" came a shout from inside the building.

The fire department was already assembled and hosing powerful jets of water towards the building but a low blowing wind was exacerbating the spread of the fire, making it harder to fight the flames.

Viper assessed the situation and learned that there was only one person left inside the building.

She had never put out such a big fire before let alone any fire except for the one that happened in the chem lab back at school but away from that... She had somebody to save here and it did not look like Carol The Pink Projectile was showing up anytime soon.

Breathing in and out, Viper's eyes sparkled with tiny arcs of lightning which shot off her body the moment she charged toward the building.

Well, she might have lost to a race but it taught her how to run up against buildings as her feet leaped from one metal bar to another, heaving herself even higher until she was inside.

The smoke was so intoxicating such that her eyes immediately began to water from the sting. Her lungs however were safe, thanks to her heightened metabolism as a speedster that allowed her body to quickly flush out the carbon monoxide from her system.

Things were not going so well for the man trapped somewhere inside the building when Viper heard his wails again.

Following them, Viper found herself standing in front of a door that had stone and metal collapsed all over it, preventing her from opening it. That was not the worst part though. There were flames eating away at the ceiling right above Natasha and the way the ceiling creaked and heaved, it was clear that it would collapse and squash her like a bug if she did not act quickly.

"Help! Somebody!" cried out the man again.

"Okay, think!" Viper said to herself. "What would Carol do?"

A chunk of burning debris fell from above, making Viper jump a little.

She clenched her entire body, trying to channel her speed into putting all her molecules into one state. She was trying to phase and vibrate her way through the door.

"Shit!" she cursed.

It was not working.

The ceiling heaved threateningly and Viper reacted by gathering the energy she had obtained from running up the building and thrust herself towards the door, blasting it open and to her surprise, there wasn't a single bruise on her.

How did I do that

She spotted the man. One of the workers lying on the ground and quickly went over, heaved him up by propping one of his arm over her shoulder.

Unfortunately, the ceiling came down from the outside of the room, and with it came large clouds of smoke that quickly began to fill the room.

The smoke was getting too intense even for a speedster's lungs to handle.

"Stay with me! We're gonna get out!"

There was no way out.

Natasha was beginning to get that feeling of dread and hopelessness when a tiny buzzing sound filled her left ear and a blue screen formed right in front of her left eye.

'Natasha! Natasha! Can you hear me '

It was Lucas's voice, contacting her through the device.

"Yes! Yes I can hear you Lucas. I think I'm in trouble!"

"The building's coming down, Nat. Get out of there now!"

"I...I can't. There's too much. I can't see!"

For a slight moment, Viper heard the device click like it had gone silent.

"Lucas! Are you still there "

No response.

"Lucas! Luc—"

The smoke was beginning to fill up her lungs, which meant it was probably way worse for the other guy.

The device over her ear clicked again and this time, it was Henry who spoke.

"You're covered in smoke so you need vision as the only solution to help here..."

"Get to the point!" Natasha heard Lucas's tense voice as he shouted at Henry.

"You need to drive off the smoke! Use your speed to create a funnel that should suck out the smoke!"

"What " Viper called but the device broke off probably due to interference of signal by the smoke.

She gently set the man down and began to quickly think how she was going to do that until it her.

Viper groaned a little, feeling the pain shoot up her lungs as she forced the smoke out of her lungs and stand erect before spreading out her hands horizontally as she began to spin on the spot, shuffling her feet at very tight angles.

She was soon picking up momentum as lightning of green and blue formed a spiral while she spun. It was working. The smoke was heated from the lightning and the spinning created a wind funnel that brought the smoke levitating higher, allowing Viper to spot a hollowed out section of a wall right behind her.

Without wasting time, Viper broke from her spin and grabbed the man, speeding out of the room before the smoke engulfed the place again and the entire building began to crumble.

Running near the speed of sound but careful not to damage the ears of the man, Viper carefully tore through the building and went directly for an open window, landing several yards away from the building with the man.

One fire fighter spotted the man lying on the ground after a streak of green hurtled away from him and disappeared. He ran up to him and found he was still breathing, with more men coming to his aid.

Viper wasn't up for the occasional applaud of a job well done from a hearty crowd as she stopped next to a tree, a few blocks away from the building. She gasped, catching her breath, all the more lucky to be alive.

The device started working again as she reassured Lucas that she was OK, though the absence of Carol still bugged her. There was no way she would have let her handle that fire alone.

Having regained her composure, Viper broke into a burst of lightning and sped away.

Back at school, the worried faces of Lucas, Cassie, Carmen, Marcus and Henry greeted her, with Xander giving her a puzzled look.

"Why do you look like you're out breath " he asked her.

"Oh, I ran on my way back from the bathroom!" this time at least she was able to get a quick answer.

They were heading back to class and Natasha had to ask how they were communicating with her, with Xander around.

"Well, let's just say poor bladder control is more common than you might think," Cassie responded.

Apparently, Lucas and Cassie somehow managed to convince Xander that they felt like also using the bathroom until Cassie called Henry over and subtly told her about Natasha's predicament.

"The weird part was me returning to the lounge without you!" laughed Cassie.

Xander was nowhere to be seen after they all left the lounge and Natasha went on to thank Lucas for his handy work with the communicating device.

"It was a team effort, actually," Lucas responded and Henry had to cut in with arguing that he was the one who handed Natasha the device and... you know how that went down.

"I think we made a pretty good team!" Lucas added, "we could help each other, especially you, Nat."

"So, what are you saying " came Natasha.

"You need us, Nat," chimed Carmen, "You need people to like cover for you, hell even rescue like Lucas just did."

"Hey!" lamented Henry.

"Oh, and we could be like Team Viper or something!"

"Lame," interjected Carmen.

"Actually guys," Cassie added, "I think I might have just the best idea."