3: Pixies & Football

N A T A S H A  W A S  W A L K I N G over to her seat in class and her eyes momentarily landed on the boy seated just right across her desk to the right, a desk in front of her. This had happened a couple of times before but she always pretended to be looking at something else-or was he doing that too?

Passing by his desk, Natasha noticed he was scribbling something in his book. No. He was drawing. He was kind of an artist-okay, he was a great artist. Natasha briefly looked back at all the things he had drawn, all of which she never actually got to see up close.

The boy never showed anyone his drawings, so Natasha would always catch him sketching something during class and at times she would be so 'drawn' to the art work that she would fail to hear Mr. Eisenhower point at her to explain the Bernoulli's Principle.

Natasha was placing her books on her desk and moving to her seat when somebody else beat her to it.

"What do you want, Bianca?" she started, with a hint of annoyance.

The girl named Bianca was seated in Natasha's place with her long exposed legs crossed over each other from outside the seat.

Bianca Synclair-or as she was popular known; 'Queen B' .

She was tall with dark brown hair and green eyes that always seemed to be in a fight with the heavy mascara she wore everyday but she was really pretty though and a bit of a self-righteous arrogant attitude, which of course was an understatement.

"Natasha!" she began with her cool, high-pitched voice while smacking her lips which were dubbed in, well...lipstick.

A dark red color which contrasted deeply with her very pale face.

" You know I've been made into top cheerleader with the Pixies , like there was ever any doubt there!" she went on, showering herself with the never-ending waters of self-praise, " Okay, so, I've been doing some scouting and you might just be the next Pixie!"

"What?" Natasha gasped, but not in a surprised way; more like in a 'dammit girl, take your diva nonsense someplace else!'

"Are you ready to join us?"

Two more girls appeared behind Natasha. Of course, Bianca and her little crusade.

"I don't..."

Bianca raised her index finger, causing the silver bracelets around her wrist slide down a little and make a slight jingling sound.

"Hold on there, Nat dear!" she hissed with a smile, "just take your time before making this decision."

With that, Bianca got up and turned to the other two people standing behind Natasha.

"Girls!"

They followed her to her desk.

Natasha sighed and sat behind her desk.

"She asked you to join the cheerleaders?" came a voice right next to her left.

"Hey, Carmen, you heard that, huh?"

Natasha turned to her desk mate; Carmen Vega, who at the moment seemed to be deeply engrossed in a book with a black cover and a white title - War & Peace .

"So, are you going to sign up?" Carmen asked, her eyes still fixated on the book.

"What? No! Of course not!"

"Do you mind?" came another voice.

"What?" Natasha responded, turning back to the kid who sat behind her.

"Some of us here are trying to do something that actually matters, so would you keep it down!"

It was Henry, the smartest kid in class with his annoying perfect English accent.

Cassie was his desk mate as she got to her seat and began playing loud music through her headhones, making Henry direct his attention to her.

"Really?"

Both Natasha and Carmen giggled.

Cassie went on playing her music while totally ignoring her infuriated desk mate who went ahead to yank them off.

"Hey! Alright, alright! I'll stop!"

Henry held on to the headphones.

"I was just messing with you! Geez, you're such a buzz kill, you know that!"

Henry handed Cassie her headphones back just as Mr. Eisenhower appeared from the door.

"And yet another day..."

"Oh, boy, here we go again..." Cassie muttered as the Physics teacher began his lesson with some silly anecdote like he always did.

"...Free Fall, the state a vertically moving object achieves upon reaching its maximum height with zero velocity..."

Towards the end of the period, a loud noise filled the classroom, making the students cuss as the principal's voice came through the speakers which were in every other class of the school.

'Fellow students, you'll all be glad to hear that a certain school has been chosen to host a mayoral function this week! Care to guess which school that is ? '

"Oh, no, kindly enlighten us!" Ben yelled from his desk which was back towards one corner of the room.

A few kids laughed.

' It's North Atlanta High! Thought I'd give you a head's up because it's always good to be...'

The bell went off, drowning the rest of what the principal was saying.

Some time after lunch, Natasha and Cassie happened to pass by the football field where the Pixies; the cheerleaders, were practising as well as a group of boys-not cheer leading but performing tackles in the field.

"Wow, she's pretty good, though!" Cassie added while watching Bianca perform a flip after being tossed by two girls, wearing a short black skirt and black sleeveless top with a white collar and white large letters, NAHS emblazoned on it.

The Pixie uniform.

"You sure you don't wanna join?"

"What is with you guys? I hate cheerleading!" Natasha responded defensively.

"You'd be great!"

"Oh yeah, then why don't you sign up, then?"

"Ha! Have you ever seen me workin' out?"

"Well, no. But you're still in great shape just as I am!"

"You go on morning runs like everyday!"

"So?"

"So, I'm saying you've got what it takes to be a Pixie and maybe letting out that pretty face of yours instead of hiding it behind books everytime!"

"Hey! I thought that was Henry!"

"Yeah well, we just don't say it to your face that much unlike Henry!"

"Wow, Cassie!"

Cassie laughed.

"What?"

"And..."

"Nat, look out!" Cassie was pulling her back as a huge football ball came hurtling down towards her.

It didn't hit her. Instead, a hand had caught it as Natasha traced the arm with her eyes to the person it belonged to.

"Oh, nice catch, Lucas!" Cassie was the one who spoke.

Natasha surprisingly found herself unable to form words upon realising it was the artist boy.

Still struggling to let something out through her lips, Natasha realised that this was the first time Lucas had spoken to him, at least directly. For a moment, she found herself staring at his tall semi-athletic body until she stopped at his thick brown hair that curled towards his forehead.

"...Better watch where you're going."

Lucas's words brought Natasha's mind back to her head.

"Oh...sure," was all she could say as Lucas brushed past them and Natasha was sure she noticed him smile as he walked past.

"Yo!" called a boy from the field.

Lucas had almost forgot that he still had the ball which he lifted up and threw with his left arm. The ball soared through the air so high that the other boy was unable to catch it the first time.

"Nice toss, kid!" the boy yelled back and approached Lucas from the field in his football slacks and helmet.

"Never seen you play before," the football kid was saying.

"Oh no, not really. I'm just a sophomore," Lucas shrugged.

"I'm Scott," he introduced himself, African-American and was about two inches taller than Lucas with a built body; clearly a football player-Lucas figured.

"Lucas."

"You know, we've been having some trouble in the field and you might just be what we need."

"It was just a throw..."

"Oh, I know skill when I see it and you got it, kid!"

Lucas sighed. For one, he was thrilled. A sophomore being asked to try out for the school's football team! Second...well, he decided to keep that to himself.

"Alright, I guess."

"Great!" Scott smacked him on the shoulder with his arm and Lucas had to stop himself from cringing.

"We're having a try out game tomorrow. Just ask for the captain when you meet the coach!"

With that, Scott rushed back to the court and met with a group of cheerleaders who appeared to be head over heels for the guy, with none other than 'Queen B' in the lead.

"Okay, what was that?" Cassie began, jabbing Natasha in the arm.

"What?"

"You freaking out in front of Lucas King!"

"The artist?"

"Oh, no. The fisherman who happens to have really cool hair!"

Natasha gave her an annoyed look.

"Nothing. I was just a little dazed from the football that was coming right at my face."

"Yeah, sure," Cassie added, rolling her eyeballs.

"How do I still put up with you?"

"Duuh...I'm your bff and in case you hadn't noticed, the last 'f' is for forever !" Cassie responded with her high spirited tone, "besides, where else are you gonna find an awesome friend like me?"

Natasha grinned, giving up.

★★★

About six thousand miles away from Atlanta and probably a different time period, a skyscraper in Hong Kong was fuming with thick clouds of smoke and people from the ground could see the large yellow flames eat away the top of the building.

Sirens were blaring madly as the fire department got to the scene. They quickly worked their way around fixing the water hose and erecting ladders as well as evacuating people from the building.

At one point, there was a loud explosion followed by a huge chunk of debris bursting out from one part of the building and crushed to the ground fast, straight to where the fire fighters were positioned. The impact would have killed them had it not been for the sudden flash of orange light that zoomed past the debris, clearing the fire fighters out of range.

One of the fighters turned and spotted a man standing next to the building, wearing a dark red, or maroon kind of attire. He had large goggles over his eyes and some kind of orange electrical sparks were forming all around his body.

The man then suddenly burst into a flash of lightning before disappearing into the building.

Once he had reached the top, at the epicenter of the fire, which seemed to have been caused by some kind of electrical explosion, he began to hurtle around the area that was blazing.

He was using super speed to try and create a vacuum around the room and cut off oxygen supply ergo putting the fire out.

It was working. The inferno was dying out.

Another explosion followed, disrupting the speedster's motion as he hit a wall and fell to the floor.

Struggling to get up, he noticed something. Someone appear from the point of the explosion where a large section of a wall was missing.

He watched the high-heeled boots make their way through the wall and then the rest of the body, which was unclear to make out because the person's face was concealed though the body appeared to be female, thanks to the design of clothing she had on.

The person approached him and the speedster instinctively reacted by charging. He was about to strike the unknown adversary when she suddenly took out some sort of weapon that resembled a grenade launcher but instead of grenades coming out of it, a white beam of light shot out from it and blasted the speedster.

The speedster wailed and hit the wall again with his back but did not fall to the floor. His body remained plastered against the wall while the strange woman held the weapon at him, still emitting the beam of light.

Almost immediately, electrical sparks began to flow out of the speedster's body and into the weapon. He cried out, trying in vain to free himself from the wall.

Electricity then stopped coming out of him and the woman put down her weapon. The speedster fell, looking up at the woman.

He mumbled something in Chinese, which must have been translated to:

"Who are you?"

The woman did not answer but moved closer to the speedster. She looked down at him all the while ignoring the little flames of fire that were still dancing around in the room and then, without warning, she took out a pistol and pulled the trigger, hitting the speedster right between his eyes.

The bullet cut through his head and lodged itself onto the wall behind him which was splattered with blood.

The woman sat on her haunches and seemed to be staring at the dead speedster though nobody could see her face.

She grabbed at the goggles the speedster was wearing and slid them off of, revealing wide open lifeless eyes and a small line of red dripping down towards the bridge of his nose.

She stood and left the way she had come, together with the goggles.

"For Anna..."