Hotshot
Peter Vulcan sat in his History class, bored as usual. The teacher, Mr. McCalic, was ranting about something that happened in the past; that was about all Peter had picked up before he let his mind slip into atrophy. He looked to his right. His best friend, Gary Earthenbom, looked about as bored as he was. At least he wasn't alone in the classroom that time forgot.
Peter was the stereotypical slacker. He skateboarded too much, he played video games too much, and he studied too little. Gary was on the football team. He had tremendous brute strength, but the attention span of a lab rat. The two of them had been best friends since they were kids, so despite their differences in physical recreation preference, they got along phenomenally.
Somehow, at that moment, the teacher's lecture was able to creep back into Peter's brain, by forces unknown to him.
"The ancient Greeks did not know about the periodic table of elements like we do today," stated Mr. McCalic. "They didn't know that matter is made of carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, and all the other elements. Instead, they believed everything was composed of a combination of four elements, called the Four Elements of the Ancient World. They were fire, earth, water, and air."
The mention of the word "fire" caught Peter's attention. Recently, he had developed a strong interest in the concept of pyrotechnics. He wasn't exactly a pyromaniac though. About four months ago, Peter noticed that he could make things get really hot if he concentrated on them. If he focused hard enough, he could even make them catch on fire! He didn't know where this power came from, or why for that matter, but he thought it was kind of cool, albeit a little unsettling. After watching a special on TV, he began to think he might be one of those "mutants" everyone kept talking about. This worried him, because he thought people would throw him in some sort of mutant concentration camp if they ever found out, but that could also be attributed to his overactive imagination. At the same time, they made him feel ecstatic because he was special; he could do something no other person could.
It was at this moment that Peter noticed that Gary had the same look on his face that he did, which made him wonder why. Could Gary have been thinking the same thing that he was? Was Gary a mutant too? Nah, it couldn't be. Whatever. Peter pushed all of those thoughts from his mind for the time being; they were far too complicated for his taste. He just decided to find out a little more about what the Greeks knew about the powers of fire and let the future just play itself out. Peter always did like that X-factor in his life. It always made things more interesting.