Jessica

Expectations Part Five

Beneath Hell's Kitchen, a subway station found brand new visitors years after it was abandoned. Now loud music bounced off of the once quiet walls and the space that used to be occupied by vehicles was free for the kids to play games of all kinds.

When they were not playing games, electronic or otherwise, they surrendered to addiction of a brand new kind. While their parents and grandparents would be enslaved by nicotine and alcohol, for them the chain was power. Something they could gain only if they were trusted and had the means to pay for it. The Serpent Skulls created a system where you traded power for power.

One of the many girls in the crib wanted that power, the one she was neither born with nor stumbled upon. She wanted it all and she paid to get it without any of the downsides. Just like everyone else, a needle pierced her in the upper arm while she looked the other way.

She felt a surge of strength but it wasn't an illusion of the psyche, it was real power, the kind that made everyone in that station equal and yet unique.

"I feel... great! I could conquer the whole world!" she exclaimed

"And you don't mind that you're blue, now?" asked a girl with a black scarf after hearing the exaggerated boasting

"No, I don— wait, what?!"

Before she could get confirmation that her words were true, everyone heard a group of voices calling for their attention as, on a higher level, a young woman with pink hair appeared in the company of the gang's commanders.

"Serpent Skulls!" she shouted and everyone cheered, "The past weeks have been good to us! We ate well! We gave you the power and you made our dominion grow more than we could ever imagine! Soon, no one will stand in our way! Soon, we may not even be Serpent Skulls anymore... we'll be a Serpent Society!"

The cheering and the clapping continued even after the leader left. That enthusiasm, all that ambition, was the result of finally finding a home when the outside world rejected them. It was the ecstasy of becoming the weapons that would create a new nation.

In their separate room, the commanders could unite in silence, not like Death Adder could ever disrupt said silence after he acquired his gills. While King Cobra stretched on a sofa in inhuman, unnerving ways, Sidewinder disappeared and returned with a pack of cold ones. Only Black Racer didn't seem in the mood to celebrate.

"Rachel—" she tried to say

"Diamondback." corrected the other

"...Diamondback, can we talk about business, like, seriously?"

"I think that my speech was good enough. No other gang can stand up to us." she said, as she sat behind her desk

"Maybe not a gang but something else has been bothering us lately."

"Oh... oh yeah, now I remember. Those idiots that caught a couple of our guys. How many of them are there? Like, six?"

"More or less. They've been at our throats for more than a week." she said, taking off her black scarf

"They're annoying, I'll give them that. They think they're The Ultimates or something."

"That's actually what they call themselves." she replied, smirking

"Oh...! Now that's just sad..." scoffed Diamondback as she started toying with one of her gems on her desk

Ariana turned away and her smirk disappeared when she informed Rachel of the latest intel. "I heard Spider-Woman's with them..."

Just like that, Rachel stopped playing with her tiny pink diamond and the two of them stayed quiet though the boys' demeanour didn't change at all. After all, they wouldn't know about anything that happened in the Cube.