Caffeine Rush (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 21: An Unexpected Snow

There was a time way before I felt the thrill of saving people, before I could run so fast that my every step could caused chain reactions, before lightning had ever struck and raced through my blood, before all the heroics and enhancements. It was at that time that I dreamed of snow. I loved snow, snowmen, snow angels, snow sledding, catching snowflakes, snowball fights, all the things associated with snow. It was only after I became a speedster that I learned just how dangerous it could be.

The principle of particle theory involving heat transfer says that the faster a particle moves, the more kinetic energy it has, the more heat it emits, the more collisions occur, and the same was true for the opposite. No particles, ones forming biological or inanimate objects, were exempt from that rule, speedsters especially. If an enemy knew the basic laws of thermodynamics, they would know that the greatest enemy to speed was cold. Even light particles were slowed by cold. Both my father and Uncle T drilled that into me from the moment that I started manifesting my speed, the universe had a way of balancing out the good and the bad, the strong and the weak. For every strength, there is an equal and opposite vulnerability.

This came to mind on a sunny summer day when peak temperatures hit in the midst of a heat wave and I looked out the window to see that it had started snowing. It was not impossible, it had occurred naturally before after all. But to my surprise, it was Loki who noticed that something was amiss first. The frost giant in him could probably sense the change in atmospheric temperatures relative to his surroundings.

"Best stay inside today, Mrs. Sharpe." Loki cautioned as he flipped the page of his most recently acquired book. "You won't want to be outside when the blizzard hits." I nodded uncertainly and prepared a new kettle of tea for him.

It wasn't twenty minutes later that the Avenger alert went off and every single one of them was called into the conference room, sans Thor and Vision who weren't present. Not a minute later, a message was sent to my phone from FRIDAY, Assistance Requested by S. Rogers. A message for Rush, I didn't think it would come quite so soon after the London incident. I put my barista orders on hold and put out the sign that said I was away before dipping out of the compound to stay out of sight of cameras and people alike, activating my suit, and running back in, bypassing the security check as if it didn't exist at all.

"You called?" My voice vibrating to make it unrecognizable as I skidded into the conference room, sparks kicking up behind me.

Sam smirked and said, "you're smoking."

"Thanks but I'm taken." I was waiting for my little frost kitten.

He raised an eyebrow and laughed, "no, you're actually smoking." Looking down, my shoes were indeed smoking. I cursed and quickly stomped them out, CASS directing the nanomites to reinforce the lining around my feet before I could run through them again. Tony looked at the process with fascination, it looked like the entire suit was liquid for a moment before solidifying again as the nanomites moved.

I cleared my throat and asked again, somewhat more bashfully, "you called?"

"Let's get down to business," Steve stood and gestured to the head of the table where a projector was set up with video of the event. An indistinct image of the new creature flashing on the screen, a ghostly blue streak. "Another rift opened and released a different sort of creature than the ones we faced in London, they generate snow storms and cold wherever they go which has created enough atmospheric disturbance that a blizzard has taken over most of the northeastern region of the country and nearby Canadian territories. We've been tracking the weather patterns and the origin seems to be Providence, Rhode Island. It's 180 miles from here. Rush, we need you to run ahead and provide damage control and emergency services for us until we can get there. If we take the Quinjet, we'll get there in fifteen minutes if the storm doesn't delay us."

"That's my tech you're insulting, Rogers. We could fly through lightning, get struck a dozen times and still be on time with Barton at the helm. We'll make it. We just need a frontliner." Tony interjected.

I saluted the room, "I can buy you the time you need. Rush out."

Zipping out of the compound, I slowly sped up as I made my way to the coast, running across the water was easier and faster despite the detour. I knew I was running in the right direction when I felt the temperature plummet every twenty miles. When I arrived at the origin point, the whole city was covered in ice and I doubted that there was anyone left to rescue, or if there was, they would be so fragile from the cold that they would shatter like glass. I couldn't let it get any further than it had gotten already.

I paused to take count of the situation and that was when I got my first clear look at the creatures I would be dealing with. They were not corporeal creatures, but wraiths, half ghoulish, somewhat skeletal, with skulls that screamed like the winter wind and grasping phalanges that froze anything it touched, leaving behind ice anywhere it floated past in icy blue streaks reminiscent of a winter gale.

I recognized them instantly, they were winter wraiths, beings that belonged to another dimension and they would not be easy to deal with. But a second dimensional rift? First the creatures that attacked London, now these? Why were there so many holes between dimensions opening up? And why now? It made no sense. They didn't just happen on their own either, something was causing this, something or someone perhaps.

One problem at a time, I reminded myself, the more urgent of which was containing the winter wraiths and rescuing those who still stood a chance. There would be no help from regulars now, they would only be putting themselves in danger if they tried to intervene. It would be me, for fifteen minutes, alone, against an army of wraiths that radiated ice, running slow enough to rescue those that I could.

The law of heat transfer came to mind as I took my first step forward and was forced to pause. Doing this would probably injure me, a lot, I would freeze sooner or later and I would slow down, everything about me would slow down. Slower reflexes, slower running, slower healing. If one of those wraiths touched me, any injury I sustained would heal at a normal rate and speedsters were injured a lot on a general basis. If I tripped at fast enough speeds, I could splatter across the ice, break half of my body without my healing speed to make up for it. This was dangerous, beyond dangerous, it could be deadly for me.

That made me no different than an ordinary person, the average responder who jumped into the fray despite knowing they were not suited for enhanced combat. There were many differences between me and my father, but this was not one of them. I needed to help where no one else could.

I took a steadying breath, the spikes of my ice cleats breaking through the frozen ground as I ran into the heart of the snowstorm.