Chapter 47 : Tempus fugit (Falling out/Spinning a web)

 

Midtown High’s hallway, Midtown High, Queens, New York, 2th of February, 16:03, in Flash Thompson’s mind

 

As he was putting back the last of his textbooks for the day, Flash was contemplating the fact that his first school week in a long while hadn’t been that bad.

 

At first, he had been feeling awkward around his old schoolmates. Despite himself, flashes of his time in the Astral kept coming back and when he was in class or Aria wasn’t around he had to spend a few minutes catching his breath despite not needing to center himself.

 

That would have made things difficult if he hadn’t been able to cruise each class with ease. Having parts of your brain acting like a hard drive that record everything that you either read or heard was convenient like that. When needed, the information was just subconsciously pulled at the forefront of his mind and he just naturally knew what was happening.

 

So, it had been a very huge boon to his capacity to study as well as an immense relief to him.

 

Flash had never really been the studious type, even going as far as being secretly envious of those around him that were smarter than him.

 

Closing his locker, he absentmindedly realized that he still hadn’t properly apologized to Parker.

 

Flash got pulled out of his thoughts as a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder.

 

“Hey Flash, we didn't really talk to each other this week, how is it going?” Jason asked, grinning.

 

A quick scan of his surroundings showed the sycophantic figure of his ‘old friend’ Tiny being next to his other ‘old friend’.

 

His biomechanical brain pulling at the forefront of his mind all of the ‘mischiefs’ he had done with the two, only the perfect control he had on his facial muscles allowed Flash to repress his wince.

 

Flash would have won a golden medal at the olympics of euphemism if he had said that he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of talking to his old posse, Liz’ being the sole exception for multiple reasons and chief among them that she was hanging around with his ‘twin’ and their mutual friends more often than not. 

 

He had managed to avoid most of his ‘old friends’ just fine but those two had been sniffing at his heels like bloodhounds for the better part of five days.

 

“You know how it is,” Flash answered as he reinitialized his padlock, “Classes take a lot of my time and I have to do better since I flunked my exams last term.”

 

True to her words, Aria had indeed fashioned him grades similar to what he had racked so far.

 

The results had been less than stellar but it was a convenient excuse to justify the fact that he was trying to get more studious.

 

“Oh, come on, who cares about that?” Jason groaned, “We haven’t hung out in ages.”

 

More than you think, ‘bud’.

 

“Well,” Flash answered as he brushed Jason’s hand from his shoulder while turning around, locking his locker in the motion, “I do.”

 

The human weapon shaped as a teenager leveled an even look toward his ‘old friends’.

 

Jason was still a tall and lanky guy with a semi-permanent tan, his dark hair swept back in the Italian fashion and his mouth almost always frozen in a shit-eating grin.

 

‘Tiny’, with his short stature, slightly bulging belly, red hair and shifty eyes that betrayed his lack of self-esteem, was looking at him with an almost expectant look as if waiting for some validation that would never come again.

 

‘Other Rachel’, as Flash had dubbed the copy of Aria’s personality he had spent months with dialoguing in the Astral Plane, had dubbed them Mafioso and Weasel when she talked about them.

 

He had thought it harsh and demeaning, but now that he was paying the both of them a closer look, he couldn’t unsee it.

 

The fact that they acted most of the time like their monikers only reinforced the fact.

 

Jason looked at him in confusion.

 

“Why? It’s fucking lame.” The dark haired boy said while gesturing around him, “Highschool is for getting girls and having fun, not screwing up your eyesight on textbooks to play the know-it-all in class.”

 

As the teenage boy spewed that with a straight face while the other nodded along like it was the word of law, Flash had to repress a wince from twisting his mouth.

 

In another world, he could have been the one to say that.

 

And now he was just massively annoyed by such simple mindedness and lack of foresight.

 

“Now, it is not.” Flash exhaled, slightly shaking his head, “But you do you I guess.”

 

Shrugging his shoulder in front of the perplexed expressions on Jason and Tiny’s face, he carried on.

 

“Plus, you’re not the one who lives under the same roof as his overachieving twin.” Flash added, “And I don’t really want to start flipping burgers for a living when she goes for a degree.”

 

At Aria’s mention, Jason’s expression grew slightly perverted and Tiny started to flush.

 

Flash mentally repressed a groan.

 

One consequence of having to put up with Aria’s twin scheme had been the rediscovery of an ugly truth that he had long forgotten with the loss of his hormones due to his ‘out-of-body’ experience and subsequent rebirth as something more machine than human.

 

Teenagers male were thinking with their lower brains more often than not and got really stupid when they saw someone ‘hot’.

 

And his sister was extremely ‘hot’, a fact of life that invited a lot of stupidity in her vicinity.

 

She wasn’t caring one bit about it of course, but it started to bug Flash to no end after five days of enduring remarks about it.

 

It wasn’t totally rational and Flash knew it. That should not be his problem since she was perfectly able to lay down anyone that got handsy or vulgar with her.

 

But he was also deeply respectful of the woman by now and she was his sister in the eyes of the world, so it pissed him off when someone loudly complimented her rear when she walked by.

 

Aria had too much to think about and was still grieving, she shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of bullshit.

 

“Say, your birthday is getting closer Flash.” Jason commented offhandedly as he side-laid on a nearby locker, “Think you can convince her to do something in common with you for once, so I could get to know her?”

 

Flash snorted loudly in contempt, a fact that Jason somehow missed.

 

“Even if I did so, hell would freeze over before she gave you a look, Jay’.” Flash deadpanned.

 

Jason’s eyebrow twitched at that and his expression grew disdainful.

 

“I assume you’re talking about the fact that she and Gwen apparently fancy each other, yes?” The dark haired boy drawled while his sycophant friend nodded along as usual, “Bah, once they’ll get a taste of a real man, they…”

 

Flash didn’t let him finish his answer, whirling on him instantly to slam him on the locker as his mind grew cold.

 

Neglectfully pushing aside Tiny as he tried to help Jason, Flash stared at the dark haired boy dead in his eyes, watching with a certain amount of satisfaction the rising panic in the boy’s eyes as he tried to pull off his arm without results.

 

Flash noted absentmindedly that a crowd had started to form around them, the silence permeating the hallway suddenly heavy.

 

“You’re not going to finish that sentence.” Flash explained, his voice grim, “You’re going to pull off those stupid ideas out of the void that lies between your ears and shove them where the sun doesn’t fucking shine because if I hear you utter such bullshit ever again I’m going to cave your teeth in.”

 

Under his arm immobilizing him in a deadlock, Flash felt Jason Adam's apple bobbing as the teenager swallowed.

 

“Did I make myself fucking clear?” Flash asked, his tone chilling.

 

“Crystal, Flash.” Jason answered weakly.

 

After staring at the other boy for a while longer, Flash pulled back.

 

“You don’t get to call me that.” The survivor from the Astral Plane decisively said as he started to turn around, “Only my friends and my family can, and a disgusting excuse of a human being like you is certainly no friend of mine.”

 

Catching Aria and the girl’s figure on the edges of the crowd, Flash beelined in their directions, gnashing his teeth under the sum of the attention.

 

“You okay Flashy?” The golden girl in disguise asked hesitantly when he finally neared them.

 

“No, I am not.” He growled a little, “Let’s go to the training grounds, I need to hit something.”

 

As the scenery blurred around the group on their way to their house for the perspective of the sweet release of his pent up aggression, Flash decided that while Aria wouldn’t be bothered by what the others could think of her, not having to put up with it in the first place would be more optimal.

 

So, until the end of Highschool, he would play the part of the serious and overprotective brother that he should have always been with Jessie and apply it to his ‘twin’ as well.

 

He never regretted his decision nor the loss of his ‘friends’.

 

***

The Sanctum Sanctorum’s library, the Sanctum Sanctorum, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York, 10th of February, 15:23, in Jessie Thompson’s mind.

 

Jessie was excited.

 

Today was the day when she would be attempting to form her matrix along with Cindy and Gwen who, despite their advantages at feeling their inner magic, still hadn’t succeeded in a week’s time.

 

It had taken the girl what had seemed to her like ages to get it right but the nice Master Vodoo had apparently been really surprised when she got it after a handful of days trying.

 

Jessie had even caught him muttering something about a ‘gift’ but she had been so excited that she hadn’t really paid attention to what he had said exactly.

 

Unfortunately for her, she was now forced to read a book on the practical aspects of forming her matrix to channel the various magical energies she would be able to tap into later on.

 

She had giggled when the man had handed her his own English copy of “Mundo’s Memorandum on Matrixes’ Magical Manipulation” by an author named Melania Morgana Mundo.

 

It was such a silly name for a book that it ended up being funny.

 

So here she was in a comfy seat with a little notepad next to her as she was perusing the ins and outs of how to craft her own matrix while the two spider powered girls were trying to do just that, having already parsed through the same text the previous saturday.

 

Jessie got pulled out of her attentive reading by a groan and a thumping sound.

 

Her eyes snapping upwards, she started to pout at the source of the interruption but halted herself midway.

 

To her growing confusion, Cindy was hitting the back of her head repeatedly against her own backseat.

 

“This. Is. Not. Working.” The dark haired girl grounded out in frustration under Gwen’s worried look and Jessie confused one.

 

“Mr. Drumm said it could take a while, Cindy.” Gwen reminded the girl soothingly, “What we’re trying to achieve has never been done before.”

 

“I know that.” Cindy huffed, arms folding across her chest, “That doesn’t make it less frustrating. We’re both stuck at the same step because we cannot seem to find the proper shape for our matrix-thingamajig.”

 

“Maybe we made a mistake at some point and messed up one of the examples?” Gwen offered.

 

“We did not!” Cindy snapped, “We double-checked each time we tried to do so, going as far as trying three times when it was needlessly complicated because you insisted on it.”

 

“I know Cindy, I was there too.” Gwen deadpanned as she rubbed one of her temples.

 

“I know that.” Cindy answered back while rolling her eyes, “The fact remains that it doesn’t work. Vitruvian matrices did nothing, elemental ones did jack squat, the zodiac ones were just a flop and it’s all the same for all the others.”

 

“What do you want us to do?” Gwen asked, tone annoyed.

 

“I don’t know, I’m not the nerd here. The only thing I know is that I could be web slinging right about now instead of trying to do something that doesn’t work.” Cindy answered harshly.

 

As Gwen blinked and started to gear up for a retort, Jessie decided that she had enough.

 

“The both of you don’t get it.” The younger girl answered while closing her book with a little more force than necessary.

 

Once she was satisfied that she got the attention of the two older girls, albeit a reluctant and annoyed one, she carried on before they could talk back.

 

“Sorceress Mundo established something in the prologue,” She started, leafing through her notepad to get the citation right, “‘A matrix is a personal representation of the sorcerer’s magic that speak to his inner mind and its connection to the magical entities of our universe’ she said.”

 

“We know, we’ve read the damn book. Twice.” Cindy answered, not even bothering to hide the fact that she was clearly fed up with the exercise.

 

“But you missed the point.” Jessie carried on, a little annoyed, “The both of you are connected to a spider deity and nothing else.” She pointed out.

 

“And?” Gwen asked, not really seeing her point.

 

“Have you tried to picture a web?” Jessie answered.

 

Gwen blinked before proceeding to close her eyes, Cindy reluctantly following suit shortly afterward.

 

Satisfied with herself, Jessie opened her book once more.

 

A few minutes later, she was again pulled out of her reading as a slew of expectives that would have made a sailor proud flew out of Cindy’s mouth.

 

“I can’t believe it was that easy!” The dark haired girl exclaimed while scowling all the while, arms akimbo.

 

Next to her, Gwen was throwing Cindy a look with a slightly constipated expression.

 

The blond sighed after a while, throwing Jessie an apologetic look.

 

“You were right Jessie, it worked.” Gwen conceded to the younger girl, “And please don’t repeat what Cindy said in front of your parents. Or ever.”

 

“You’re welcome.” Jessie answered with a smile, “Now could you please leave the library so I can focus? The both of you are distracting.”

 

Once they left shortly after to find Master Vodoo to try out the next step, Jessie sighed contentedly as she finally got to enjoy the wonders of magic in peace once more.

 

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