5: Living Up To The Title

T H E   W E E K E N D;  J U S T  the best thing that could ever happen in a person's life after pondering through an entirety of five full days—five whole days, eight hours a day and filled with torture or as a certain Puerto Rican boy from the Vega Family would put it; the worst days of your life!

Marcus Vega was just emerging from the kitchen counter wearing a white t-shirt with a watercolor sketch of Darth Vader in sunglasses with the words “Force Be Drippin” just below it, when his sister quickly brushed past him, making him almost drop the glass of mango juice in his hand.

"Hey, watch it!" he cried out, "What's up with you?"

Carmen ignored him as she went on to fish out a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator.

"Where the hell are you going on a Saturday morning?"

"Well, well," came a light cheerful voice from the entrance of the living room, "someone's already running late for their first official internship."

It was the twins' father, whose young and fairly simple features often fooled people into thinking that he was like their big brother. Marcus particularly recalled a scenario where his sister, mother and of course their dad, were attending one of those family get togethers which Carmen really despised and it happened that his dad had decided to go on an entire week applying some kind of facial enhancement chemical on his face to get a beard. Yeah, his face was as smooth as a baby's butt, Well, let's just say things didn't turn out well for him when they got to the party after he reportedly came down with an attack of vicious rashes all over his face.

Edgar Vega never again touched let alone look at a cosmetic product ever again which only added to the incessant mockery from the children's mother.

"Internship?" Marcus asked, taking a long gulp from his drink, "What internship?"

"Your sister didn't tell you?" came Edgar again, "she decided to become a junior detective!"

"Haha, that's lame!" scoffed Marcus.

"Dad! I told you it's not junior detective," Carmen finally spoke, rolling her green eyes at her insolent brother, "I'm taking an internship, so I'm an intern!"

"A... junior detective intern!"

"Whatever... what are you doing today anyway?" Carmen quickly raised a hand, realizing her mistake and not wanting to indulge anymore nonsense from Marcus.

"Duh... it's Saturday!"

Carmen took a moment to stare at her brother who was taller than her but younger than her by two minutes and slowly began to realize the similarity between him and Henry Roderick, the only difference between being that Henry was annoying with his big brain while his brother over here was annoying with his dumbness.

She was taking the internship to try and make something for herself as she had told the police captain earlier that her brother had been assigned succession to the family business -- a corporate technological business firm to which both their parents co-partnered as the CEOs.

So much for women empowerment!

"Anyway, see you guys later."

With that, Carmen grabbed her satchel and left.

Marcus exhaled before moving over to a sofa and slumping, savoring its cosy welcome as he sunk into the purple cushions.

"Weekends, huh?" came his dad who slouched next to him.

"Yeah, there's nothing like it!"

"Which is why you're gonna sign and organize these stock exchange papers for me."

Marcus's jaw dropped and his butt cheeks clenched after his eyes spotted the huge pile of papers lying onto the marble coffee table.

"All of them?"

"No, just pick one, sign and you're good to go."

"Really?"

"No! Get up and start sorting them!"

"But Dad, what about..."

"Marcus, just as we talked, we're not using computers in order to..."

"...To learn, experience and incorporate skills manually!" Marcus completed the statement, which was probably the most boring he'd ever heard. That, Physics and Calculus.

"Or if you're not feeling like it, you can watch as your sistergets to earn more than one title in the family..."

"Alright! I'm on it!"

"Now that's the Vega spirit!"chuckled Edgar who got up from the couch and straightened the dark sleek suit he was wearing.

⚡⚡⚡

Carmen was in a taxi cab, a few minutes after she had gotten out of the house. She was looking through the window and for a moment began to think about the future; what she would want to venture in when she was done with school; if she could live up to her own title as the excellent researcher that she was.

Her thoughts were then interrupted by the blaring sounds of what turned out to be an ambulance, emblazoned on the sides as 'Austin Hospital'.

The ambulance suddenly swerved and Carmen's heart began to race after she was thrown to the other side of the cab, almost bashing her head against the window.

The ambulance had shoved at the cab she was in, causing it to spin out of control on the freeway and the driver pressed on the brakes, bringing the cab to a halt right in the middle of the opposite lane of the two-way traffic.

"Oh no!" gasped Carmen, "what are you waiting for? Get us out of here!"

"I can't!" yelled the driver.

"What do you mean you can't?" retorted a freaked Carmen, "the wheel is right there!"

Carmen then noticed a large trailer headed straight for them and they were in the freeway, so it was coming at them pretty fast, until its wheels began to screech, white smoke formulating from underneath it which only made things worse as they were other cars behind it.

The cargo hold of the trailer started to turn in an acute angle due to the sudden breaking, resulting in it hitting a bus from behind, sending it rolling into the air and that's when Carmen spotted the all-too-familiar streak of pink lightning which wound itself through the bus.

It was Carol, the Pink Projectile, speeding through the freeway and getting everyone out of the bus which was still in mid air.

The truck did not stop, not until it rammed into the tiny cab, the residual kinetic energy turning the cab into a crushed piece of scrap, just after Carmen felt hands grab her by the shoulders and she was suddenly several yards away from the freeway's kerb with the driver next to him.

"Are you OK?" asked the girl standing in front of her in green sophisticated attire and in a mask.

The mask could have fooled some people but Carmen could instantly tell that it was her classmate.

"Nat!" she blurted out before putting a hand over her mouth, not wanting to risk exposing her identity.

Natasha had come to her rescue in her alter-ego as the Viper, both she and Carol managing to stop the trailer incident and outdoing what would have been carnage, to say the least.

But the crisis hadn't been fully averted yet. Not after what sounded like gun fire, making Natasha quickly turn to the direction of the freeway and watched the ambulance swerving down the road, with more shots being fired.

The Viper suddenly broke into a burst of super speed, her entire body lighting up with sparkles of green and blue as her signature color. She had caught up with the ambulance in a matter of seconds and was surprised to find out that it was one of her mother's medical vans.

She had to push her head back when another shot was fired and a bullet tore through the already broken window of the van, watching it pass by her eyes.

Using her speed, Viper thrust herself inside the moving van which was not such a good idea as she found herself stumbling onto the lifeless body of a police officer lying on the base of the van whose eyes had been gouged out, with blood soaking up his dark blue shirt.

Another shot went off, and this time Viper traced it to the stretcher where a man was standing against it, his backside completely exposed and the speedster could see his buttocks in the hospital robe he was wearing.

The man was struggling to get a gun from another officer, a black woman, whom Viper could notice had a small patch of red forming over her right shoulder where she had supposedly been shot in the ensuing struggle.

"Hey!" Viper called out and dashed towards the mad man who was clearly not a patient requiring immediate attention to be rushed to hospital.

The man managed to get the gun from the officer and did not hesitate to pull the trigger, aiming directly at the officer's forehead.

Being faster than a bullet, Viper was able to intercept and catch the deadly projectile with her hand, shoving the man who went on to lie back on the stretcher.

He still had the gun and fired again, all the while missing the speedster who ducked and moved so swiftly like she was just enjoying a game of dodge ball.

The man kept on firing until the barrel clicked empty after which he threw the gun at the speedster and missed, hitting the head of the already dead driver, thanks to a stray bullet to the side of the head that left part of his brain dangling about from the other end where the bullet had exited.

"Alright, that's enough!" Viper said, striking the man hard across the face and leaving him unconscious on the stretcher.

"You're OK, " she stooped next to the injured officer.

"The wheel! Get the wheel!" she cried out, cringing from the pain in her shoulder.

Gasping, the Viper sped off of the van and got back in into the driver's seat before gently pushing over the driver which only made his brains spread out onto the other seat.

The van was veering off from the freeway and was almost colliding into a street block before Viper pressed on the brakes just as Carol caught up with her.

The van stopped and the deadlock had cleared, with paramedics and the Atlanta Police Department arriving at the scene.

Captain Susan Claire spotted Carmen and was a bit shocked to find out that her intern had been involved in the horrific event.

"Well, well," began Susan, "already reporting first to a crime scene, huh?"

"You know I almost died, right?"

The Captain approached the van where she assessed the situation with the help of some forensics and she was not at at all pleased by the report of the situation, after which she had to make a call to two places; starting with the Austin Hospital.

As it had come to be the case, crowds -- or rather fans were already lining up to to applaud the two heroes of the day, with others even taking selfies but most of the glory to be fair, was all falling on the young teenage speedster, ever since she made her presence known to the city.

Natasha looked over to Carol and could see her smiling behind her mask.

"Live up to the title and there's nothing you can't do," was what the pink speedster ended up telling her protege.

⚡

Beyond the crowd and away from the freeway, however, nobody seemed to notice the other person who had been standing there for a while, perhaps even before the events occurred and had gathered all was to be learned from that scenario and was then suddenly gone -- vanished.