Falling, Peter Parker

Danger

In shop class, Peter hits the weapon core with a hammer. The core emits purple light as it is partially freed from the metal casing. He starts to pull it apart. Ned joins him, "Hey, thanks for bailing on me."

"Yeah, well, something came up" Peter tells him.

Ned spots the glowing core, "Oh, what is that?"

Peter struggles to take the machine apart, "I don't know. Some guy tried to vaporize me with it."

"Seriously?" Ned questions.

"Yeah" Peter sighs.

"Awesome" Peter looks at Ned at the absurd reaction, "I mean, not awesome. Totally uncool of that guy. So scary."

Peter gives Ned a look and continues to work at the casing, "Well, Olivia thinks it's a power source."

"Olivia" Ned mutters with a eye roll, "it's connected to all these microprocessors. That's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush."

Ned points at a complex-looking charging mechanism connected to various wires, "Whoever's making these weapons is obviously combining alien tech with ours" Olivia tells them as she appears on the other side of the table.

The two boys jump when realising that the girl was there but invisible, "How long have you been stood there?"

"I don't know" she shrugs, "you do know that you won't be able to break that thing."

Peter rolls his eyes, He brings up a hammer and hits the core really hard. The core pops out from its place, glowing, "broke it."

Peter and Ned immediately look at the teacher, while Olivia examines the core. The teacher is reading a book, sitting in his chair. He does not even spare a glance at the commotion they are causing, "Keep your fingers clear of the blades."

Peter and Ned turn back and look at the girl who is staring at the core intensely, "what is it?" Peter asks, the girl doesn't answer, "Olivia?" She still ignores him, "Olivia?" Olivia places the core in her left hand and places two fingers on top of it, the core starts to glow brighter as Olivia's fingertips start to glow, "Olivia!"

The girl breaks out of her trance and places the rock down on the table rubbing her eyes before looking at the two boys who are looking back at her, "this thing has to go."

"We gotta figure out what this thing is and who makes it" Peter states.

"We'll go to the lab after class and run some tests" Ned plans.

"Let's do it" Peter says, Him and Ned share a complicated handshake.

"Let's not do that" Olivia says, the two look at her like she has three heads, "that thing is dangerous, okay? I can feel the power radiating off it and I'm resisting the urge to just grab it and consume all the power from it. It has to go."

"Wait that's what you were doing?" Ned asks, "taking its power?"

"Well what did it look like to you" Olivia shrugs.

•

Peter and Ned walk down the hallway, "First, I say we put the glowy thing in the mass spectrometer."

"First, we gotta come up with a better name than glowy thingy" Peter says.

"You're right" Ned sighs.

The two men from the night before walk in. Peter spots them and freezes instantly, "Crap" He throws himself behind a wall, "Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on."

Ned looks around, then shuffles across the corridor to join Peter by a classroom window.

Peter peers around the corner, "High schools creep me out. They got this funny smell, you know?"