Then End 11- Clueless
Everything was set. All she had to do was walk away and watch hundreds of people's lives change in a single instant. It was satisfying to hear the explosion behind her as the heat coursed through the air and clouds of fiery smoke and ash drifted towards the scorched ground. The worst part was the smell of burning flesh, that part bothered Hilary the most. The explosion however, she decided was worth it.
She shrugged it off though; her mind was idly carefree despite the fact that she had just blown a building in sunny California to bits. In fact, she even smiled thinking about how much she enjoyed the feel of panic in the air and the fear of pain in people's hearts.
Perhaps she wasn't in her right mind, criminally insane, one might say. But to Hilary Dunn it was the most exciting and intoxicating feeling in the world.
"Next target… I think I'll go more East Coast," she said to herself, pulling out a pair of black sunglasses and proceeding to put them on her face.
"I was starting to get bored."
The man behind Maxine that offered his help was most definitely attractive, with a strong build and the most gorgeous green eyes Max had ever saw. Instead of arguing with the man behind the counter any more she turned around to face the mysterious hunk. Max began to explain her problem to him.
"He says there's nothing wrong with this and that I can't get it cleaned," she said, leaning against the sales desk and holding her camera in one hand.
"I know a place down the street that will clean it for half the price of this place," he supplied helpfully.
Max smiled back, "Finally someone who understands me!" she said gratefully in relief.
"You need a ride?" he asked in true Good Samaritan spirit.
"Yeah, I do. My name's Maxine, or Max for short."
The man reached for his car keys. "I'm Alex"
"Cool," Max said as they headed out the door.
"This can absolutely not be true!" Beth hollered in frustration. The rumor was that her faithful camerawoman Max had been seen with her rival Channel 7's cameraman. Channel 5 did not need this sort of publicity. "Talk about your modern day Romeo and Juliet," she mumbled.
And besides, the cameraman worked for Brian Redford, head of Channel 7 and the person Beth happened to hate most in the world. She blamed him for just about every missed opportunity in her life, and for the fact Channel 7 was currently getting higher ratings than them.
Beth scowled; this was not at all her day.
"Alex, is that his name?" she questioned to the co-worker nearest her.
"You mean that guy from Channel 7?"
"Yes, him" Beth answered, still not able to understand if Max liked him or was just spying on him. She gave another glance at her co-worker.
"You know, Max and I, we're like this." Beth said, crossing her two fingers together.
The man rolled his eyes. "Cry a river, build a bridge and get over it."
As soon as he turned around and left, Beth gave him the finger. "That idiot…" she muttered to herself.
Piper found herself sitting at a bench outside her apartment later the next day. She was studying for an upcoming exam that she had no interest in taking, but had to anyway for the sake of her GPA.
'It's almost over,' she reminded herself.
"Hey, come on, give that back!" Piper heard a voice nearby. She knew that voice all too well. He was the freshman, who had a locker next to hers that she had to help open every morning, when even the mightiest of janitors couldn't do it. So when Piper missed school he couldn't get into his locker. The teenage girl felt really bad.
Right now his math book was being kicked around on the grass by two taller upperclassmen.
Piper had had enough of that.
"Knock it off you jerks," she said, standing up.
"Oh yeah?" one of them responded, casually picking up the grassy math book. "What're you gonna do about it?"
It took a split second for Piper to approach the kid holding the textbook and rip it out of his hands. Then, in a fit of rage she whacked the two goons over the head with the book before handing it back to the poor boy. They were so stunned at her act that the two students took off in a huff after seeing Piper's livid face.
"They have no lives," she decided aloud. "They'll be losers when they grow up."
"Thanks…" the 'freshman' mumbled almost inaudibly, he looked up at Piper "For always helping me."
"Hey you deserve it." Piper smiled kindly, the boy smiled as well.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," he replied and headed off towards the school's bus stop.
"That was nice of you, Piper." Peter Parker stepped up to the blonde teenager.
"Where did you come from?" she asked, turning quickly.
"Just around, I picked up your habit of popping up randomly."
"Ha, ha" Piper rolled her eyes.
"How's your back?" Peter asked, watching Piper sit back down on the bench and pick up a heavy looking book.
"Not too bad, it's healing pretty well. Can't say it won't leave one hell of a mark," Piper returned, organizing her notes from an overstuffed binder and flipping through a couple of pages in her book.
In her balancing act of holding up a huge pile of papers, pens and one large textbook, Piper ultimately dropped her entire binder on the ground and had to rush to pick up her valuable work.
And Peter of course, being the good person that he was, offered to help. Rather, he automatically bent down to help Piper.
One paper in particular caught his eye.
"Senior Prom! Buy Tickets Now!" he read aloud and glanced at the other information on the sheet.
"Hey!" Piper said slightly offended as he read it out. "You can keep it," she muttered. "I'm not going."
"I didn't go to mine either, if that makes you feel better," Peter supplied helpfully.
"Thanks, Peter, that just comforts me oh-so-much" Piper hauled her books up refusing to look Peter in the eyes.
"Where are you going?" he questioned.
"Away from you!"
"What did I do?" he asked, following the teenage girl. Piper didn't answer Peter because she walked into the apartment lobby and slammed the door right in front of him.
Peter Parker was ultimately confused. Girls!
"I think she was mad, but I wasn't sure, however when she slammed the door in my face that was a dead give away. I didn't even do anything!" Peter explained it to Mary Jane while picking up his laundry to take to the Laundromat. Usually on the weekends Peter Parker was stuck at home in his apartment cleaning up the mess he always seemed to make and never had to time to pick up during the week.
Mary Jane rolled her eyes. She knew it; Piper had a crush on Peter Parker and yet did not show any signs of her affections. Why she didn't, Mary Jane didn't know but she had an itching feeling in the back of her mind.
"Peter, did you come up with the idea for that dinner cruise?" she wondered aloud.
"No, Piper suggested it," Peter answered and blinked. He wondered what MJ was getting at.
This made much more sense to Mary Jane. Piper had obviously found out that Peter liked MJ and had only tried to help, which was very kind of her.
'In fact,' MJ mentally began, 'I bet that Piper encouraged Peter to show his true feelings'
MJ found Piper's helpfulness as a wonderfully heroic notion, to help the person she liked try to get together with another girl.
"Peter?" Mary Jane questioned.
"Hm?" He looked up from his pile of laundry.
"Did you go to your prom?"
"No, I didn't. Why do you ask?"
"Piper's doesn't seem exactly like the Miss Popularity type in her new school; I think she should have at least one fond memory of it. After all, didn't you regret not going to your prom?" MJ subtly hinted.
"No, not at all, in fact I helped my uncle install a new TV that night" he stated plainly.
Mary Jane made an indescribable face. "Well, wouldn't you be sad if you had left high school with no good memories?"
"I'm not sad now, am I?" Peter answered, still not getting what Mary Jane was hinting at.
Mary Jane decided that called for desperate measures.
"I," she said, pointing her thumb at herself. "Want." She paused so Peter could fully take in the meaning of her words. "You." She pointed at Peter. "To." MJ held up two fingers. "Take." The redhead made a gesture that looked like she was pulling at the air. "Piper." She pretended to play an invisible pipe. "To." She held up two fingers again. "The." The girl paused again for good measure. "Prom." And she spun around gracefully as if she were in a prom dress.
"Why?" Peter asked confused.
Mary Jane could have crashed to the floor at that comment. Or beat Peter over the head with a laundry basket.
"Do you want her to remember high school as the time she wore spandex and webbed around the streets to stop crime? Or would you let her at least have one normal memory of a social life!" she explained, exasperated.
"Social life? Well...uh…how?" Peter asked somewhat stupidly, as he caught on to why Mary Jane had to use caveman language to get to him to understand. He felt rather embarrassed.
MJ was still feeling a little creative.
She took two socks from Peter's hamper and put one on each of her hands. "Hi!" she said holding up her left hand "I'm Piper!" and using a much deeper voice for her right-hand sock puppet she said, "I'm Peter Parker"
"My voice isn't that deep," Peter commented, slightly offended.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Mary Jane replied in her normal voice. "How's this? HI! I'M PETER PARKER," she said in a tone that rivaled that of a chipmunk on helium.
"I think I like the other one better." Peter scratched at his head.
"Then please don't complain." Mary Jane said smiling and continued on. "Oh, hi, Peter!" the Piper sock puppet said as MJ imitated Piper's voice surprisingly well.
"Hello, Piper!" Her right hand that was currently Peter Parker answered the sock puppet Piper.
"Say, do you want to go to your prom with me?" it continued. "I would love to!" the Piper sock puppet answered.
"And viola! See, Piper is happy and it is very easy to do," she finished, taking off Peter's socks. "You should buy the prom tickets and give them to her!"
Peter nodded, resisting the urge to laugh at Mary Jane's antics.
"So," the girl continued. "What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to do my laundry, I told you"
"After that," MJ said grinding her teeth slightly.
"I'm going to fold my laundry."
Mary Jane made a noise of frustration. He was doing that on purpose now. "Did you not just understand what I just told you!"
"Oh, I knew. I just wanted to see your face, you're cute when you're angry." he grinned showing his sense of humor. Mary Jane was taken aback, was that Peter…flirting?
"Don't you ever, Peter Parker, make me resort to sock puppets AGAIN! Your socks smell terrible!"
Peter picked up one of the socks Mary Jane just used. "Hiya! I'm like Mary Jane! Like yeah!" he said in a surprisingly girly voice.
"No, Peter. No" Mary Jane said shaking her head. "If I was a sock, I would not be that dirty and smelly."
Peter took off the sock and picked up his hamper. "I have to get going now."
"Bye Tiger."
The End 12- Doors? Why Would Anyone Use Those?
Alex thought he could earn some major brownie points for what he was about to do. It was ingenious and perfect, enough to win over any girl. Especially Max.
"But soft, what light! Through wonder window breaks!" he shouted up and hurled a can up at the redheaded camerawoman's window.
Perhaps he had thrown the can a little too hard, as a small hole now resided in the window.
"What the hell!" Max said seeing a can fly through her bedroom window; without thinking she reached for the nearest blunt object, which happened to be a wooden Red Socks commemorative bat.
Cautiously she looked out the window, "Alex?" she questioned "What are you DOING?" currently the man was climbing up the ravine of the apartment buildings and up to Max's broken window.
Raising an eyebrow she helped him up into her apartment room, and waited for him to catch his breath.
"Couldn't you have used the door?" Maxine asked him as though he were crazy
Alex let out a small groan "I was trying to be…" he stuttered off abashedly,
"Romantic…"
"Ohhhh!" Maxine said a whole new light flooding her eyes "Like, Romeo and Juliet you mean? I so remember that movie!"
Alex resisted the urge to smack his forehead. "I can see Shakespeare rolling over in his grave."
"I dislike pre cal, I dislike pre cal, I IMMENSLY dislike pre cal!" Piper chanted over her pre calculus homework.
"Really?" a voice said from outside her window "I actually like it" Piper nearly had a heart attack. She would have too, if she didn't know that the voice belonged to Peter Parker.
"What…" she started to give him an inquisitive look as she opened the window letting a breath of the cool night air into her room. The curtains swayed slightly as Peter made his graceful landing in, quickly and ran his fingers through his plain brown hair making sure none of it was sticking up to wildly.
"You're losing the battle there, Pete." Piper said playfully watching Peter trying to fix his hair "You know there's this wonderful invention called gel, really it works too."
"I could do with out the sarcasm." Peter said removing his hand from his head. "And instead of a damsel in distress I get a comedian"
"Haha, very funny" The short blonde haired girl commented rolling her eyes. "Now what do you want so bad that you had to come into my room at-.." she paused expecting the digital clock to have an insanely late time of night on it but instead it read 8:16. "A time I thought was later but wasn't"
"It's actually about your prom." He told her truthfully
"You mean hell with streamers?" Piper said in a tone that expressed her exact opinion of the prom.
Peter winced briefly, this might be harder than MJ told him it would be, "Yeah, I was going to be there taking pictures of it for the paper and I wanted to know if you…if you were going." he lied quickly. Maybe she really didn't want to go after all.
"Well, no. I wasn't planning on it at least." She said mildly interested that Peter Parker was going to HER prom.
"Oh come on, I won't have anything to do there, and you'll just be at home not doing much." He argued.
"I suppose you're right…why don't you just go with me in the first place" Piper said expressing her idea "Then you can wear a tux, how cute!" she smiled rather girlishly.
Peter thought about blushing but quickly decided against it. "So you're going?"
Piper decided to indirectly answer this, quickly she pointed to a banner that had been hung up across two poles near the apartment building that was clearly visible from her window.
The banner had a picture on it of a cartoon like pig with wings saying "Flying Pigs' Deli and Sandwich Shoppe, tastes heavenly!"
"When pig's fly Peter, when pig's fly" was Piper's only answer.
Peter looked confused for a moment "So, that's a yes?"
The brown-eyed girl gave him a small smile "I don't know. Why don't you ask me again tomorrow? How about at my school? Good? I'll meet you at 3:30! Outside at the bench!" Piper grinned evilly.
Peter's face faulted.
Piper hummed to herself at her locker that morning, she was going to the prom with a pretty male, a very pretty genetically enhanced superhero male.
"Agggg I have to stop that! My brain is meting!"
Unconsciously she reached over to help the poor 'freshman' open his locker once more. He gave her his always-grateful smile
"Besides," She thought "he's got MJ anyway he's just being nice…urgg MJ there's a name to ruin anyone's day"
"Um Piper?" the 'freshman' asked her.
"Hm?" she asked snapping out of her day dream.
"My name is Kris; I don't think I ever got to tell you that before. I'm also a senior" he told her, she had been helping him out for awhile now, he had wanted to talk to her...
Piper stopped for a moment. She had made the same mistake that Mary Jane made on her. "Oh," she paused a moment "Well…umm…it's nice to meet you? Hahh, not that I don't see you everyday." She never really even looked at him. He was a bit taller than her, but she was kind of short, he had blonde hair and regular blue eyes.
He was a typical high school student. "So," she continued "Are you going to the senior prom?" the topic came to her in a sudden thought as a good idea for conversation. She felt kinda bad about not ever talking to him before. "Because I am!" she grinned. Just as she said so the first bell went off, "I'll see you tomorrow Kris! Bye!" and she dashed off.
Piper heard the second bell ring and grabbed a few books from her own locker as she muttered under her breath "Ye, noise? Then I'll be brief. O, happy dagger…this is thy sheath." She looked over at her back pack "There rust, and let me die…I have pre cal first period and I didn't finish my homework…damn you Peter Parker"
Kris stared as she dashed off. He began to talk out loud to himself.
"Because you know I am too, and I bought these two tickets. I was wondering if you would go with me…"
He held the two pink tickets in his hand and looked down at them. Maybe he would get another chance later. Maybe if he jammed his locker again, maybe she would talk to him again….
"I'm proud of you Peter." Mary Jane smiled as he told her of what he did. "She'll really enjoy it."
"Heh…" Peter neglected to add he had to ask her again today, but he had other things on his mind. "On the other hand, I'm getting slightly worried, all over the country they're been a few recent bombings" he told her creasing his eyebrows "I'm worried it's a serial bombing."
"How could it be?" Mary Jane asked remembering what she had watched from the news last night "All the media said they've been complete accidents and there was no evidence that someone could have done something like that," she paused "You're just worrying too much."
"I hope so, for all our sakes…I just have a bad feeling about this."
At 3:30 Peter Parker was standing next to the promised bench waiting for Piper. He wondered what she was up to. Whatever it was Peter was sure he was prepared to handle it, he'd dealt with a lot of bad things, criminals and what not; after all what could a teenage girl possibly do?
However, as prepared as Peter was, he was not ready for what he saw. He saw Piper coming toward him, what he didn't expect was a hoard of her fellow classmates behind her. Not even a small amount, maybe even fifty of them! Peter gulped. She had probably gathered them by spreading the news that he was going to ask her to the prom outside after school. Most of the people in attendance were female who probably wanted to see a gushy display of affection.
"So Peter," Piper said grinning from ear to ear "What did you have to ask me?"
The crowd of people around her grinned, apparently she was going to make a spectacle of this.
"I want to know…would you…" he trailed off, goddamn this! Why was he so nervous?
"What was that you said Peter?" she asked smiling sweetly. Peter resisted the urge to swear in front of everybody.
He decided to be daringly dramatic; I'll show her… he got down on his knee in front of her, and held up two of the paper pink prom tickets. "I wanted to ask, if you Piper Checker, in all of your beauty and charm, would accompany my humble self to your senior prom?"
He didn't believe it, he made her blush! She blushed really hard. He nearly laughed out loud.
"Of course!" she said once she regained her composure, "I would love to!"
Peter got up from off his knee, the crowd of high school student around them cheered happily, and Piper blushed again once more. You're really surprising Peter Parker.
Not far away from the scene, Kris stood as he saw what happened. He knew Piper often went out to that bench to do homework, but when he had got there and saw what happened…He held the pink tickets tightly in his hand and crumpled them.
"I should have known…a girl like that would never give a second look at me…"