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The city hadn’t had villains or heroes originally. Growing up the closest thing he had heard to a villain was a small gang that ran through the neighboring town. He grew up with the normal city stuff, or at least he assumed it was. He had never really interacted with anything. His Mom raised him in a safe town, and took care of any dangers before Parker even knew they existed. He was in high school before he had really sent he effects of crime, or even been in a dangerous situation.
The first dangerous situation he had ever experienced wasn’t even that crime related.
Branzy had been in Parker’s physics class for half a year before they ever interacted. He had heard Branzy talk in class. He was by far one of the smartest kids in the class. But Parker hadn’t really cared, he wasn’t the kind of kid to cheat off someone else, Boosfer already did that enough for the whole class. Instead he stared at the teacher and attempted to listen to them talk.
“Janice jumped into Jupiter. How long did it take her to reach terminal velocity?”
Parker checked his watch. Twelve more minutes… he just had to survive twelve more minutes. He dropped his head onto his desk. Jupiter’s gravity was 24.79. m/s^2. Parker scratched the number on the edge of his paper.
“Oh she would be so dead, so fast.” Parker looked up at Branzy who was scribbling away smirking at his paper.
“Why is that?” Parker asked.
Branzy froze looking up at Parker. His face flushed. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“Your good I’m just curious.”
“I guess I can show you, come’er.” Branzy motioned to the empty seat next to him. Parker quickly collected his stuff and walked over sitting beside him.
“Ok, so there are a lot of reasons why that would kill her. First off there is no oxygen on Jupiter so she would first suffocate.”
Parker nodded. “What if she had a space suit.”
“The next thing that would kill her would be the radiation.” Branzy said matter of factly.
Made sense to Parker. He looked back down at his assignment. What was the air resistance again? He stared at the page. Branzy started working quietly beside him.
Parker started again. “Ok… Lets say I give her magical radiation resistance magic.”
Branzy rose an eyebrow at Parker’s magical intervention. “Well, then it depends on if she has any forward momentum. If she starts spinning or flips upside down for any reason all the blood would go to her head or be spun out from her heart and she dies.”
“She is dropped perfectly straight down, and has perfect posture.”
“Goodness save some skill for the rest of us Janice.”
Parker laughed.
“She’s still dead though.”
Branzy turned back to his work, though he was smiling while working on it this time. “The pressure and temperature would both end up rising to the point where she dies, and before you decide to use divine intervention again, if you remove the pressure the planet will loose gravity and without gravity Jupiter doesn’t exist.”
Parker raised his hands up in front of him. “Fair enough, you win.”
Parker turned back to his work. The teacher gave several other problems. Parker finished them at what he felt was a decent speed. That was until he looked at Branzy who had already finished all the new ones.
Branzy, grunted softly, flipping the pencil and erasing an entire problem. He had gotten the same answer as Parker had. He had felt confident with his answer previously, now he wasn’t sure.
“What was wrong with—“ He gestured at the question.
Branzy looked up, glancing several directions before recognizing Parker as the one who asked the question. “Oh, I realized that I can’t actually answer that question. its not possible we aren’t given enough information.”
Parker cocked his head, “But you had an answer earlier?”
“Right, The question had asked about terminal velocity, but because Jupiter is a gas giant the air resistance changes based on where you fall. Which means I can’t give an accurate answer unless I know where Janice is falling from.”
Huh.
That made sense.
“So you plan to leave the question empty then?”
Branzy nodded. “I figured it was a trick question.”
Parker looked up at the teacher droning on in the front of the class, then back down at Branzy’s paper. “I’m gonna be honest I don’t think our teacher is clever enough for a trick question. I think they just meant from the surface of Jupiter.”
Branzy frowned at the space where his answer used to be. “Thats…frustrating, but your probably right. No one in this school is actually interesting.”
Parker frowned. “Sorry.”
Branzy rewrote the problem and turned it in.
Briiiiingg
Finally. Parker practically skipped out the door.
After the first day Branzy started to talk to Parker more. It was interesting, Parker hadn’t meant to start talking with Branzy more. It was like a new side of Branzy suddenly appeared. Instead of the focused, super smart, teachers pet, Branzy started making more subtle comments. He started whispering about dumb issues with the questions, or complaining about the number 87 showing up as an answer three times on a single paper. Which was something Parker also complained about. He would never understand why assignments repeated numbers so many times. Sometimes it felt like he thought it was a new problem only to realize after he solved it that it was just a copy of the first question labeled differently.
Hearing Branzy complain about it though, Parker wasn’t expecting that. The strangest part was how he did it. Parker was used to people chatting about the problems, he sat next to several kids who did the same thing. The difference was Branzy was funny. Funny and clever enough to keep it subtle.
“A rocket shoots into the air at seven meters per second, At twenty feet it explodes. the particles are shot horizontally at a rate of three meters per second. Graph the slope of the particles movement.”
“I miss fireworks.”
Parker looked over at Branzy. Parker pulled out a note scribbling onto it. I made some if you want to try them. He passed it too Branzy.
Branzy lazily looked at the note. His head shot up staring into Parker’s soul. He flipped the note speed scribbling onto the back.
YES!? YOU MAKE FIREWORKS?
Parker Smiled pulling out another note.
Yeah! It’s fun! I’ll bring them to use after school tomorrow.
He passed the note back to Branzy. The moment it slipped in front of of Branzy he greedily read it. The note slid back to Parker.
That sounds awesome. I’m excited.
Branzy was waiting anxiously outside the back school door the moment the next school day ended.
“So, how does this stuff work?” BRanzy looked back at Parker’s bag, almost daring the fireworks to come out.
Parker Shrugged. “Not sure. I just know what to mix together. I’m sure if we took chemistry they would be able to explain it. All I know is the safety stuff and obviously how to make it. Speaking of safety, we need to make sure we aren’t around anything flammable.”
Branzy nodded. “Ok, How about the tennis courts.”
“yeah, that works.” Parker tossed his backpack to Branzy. “Take your pick.”
Branzy’s jaw dropped looking through the rockets carefully packaged inside the bag. They arrived at the tennis courts without issues.
Branzy had picked a cylinder with the words cyan creeper written on the side of cardboard in crayon. Parker carefully placed it down, sliding it into a cardboard cup holder that looked like he probably saved from a fast food place. out from the side was a small piece of twine that was slick with oil.
“Do you want to do the honors?”
Branzy’s grin reached from ear to ear.
The flame licked its way up the twine as Parker and Branzy ran out of the court and behind the chainlink fence.
The court was silent. A screech sounded from behind the fence. Parker pulled Branzy around pointing up ward. “watch”
The Sky erupted. Sparks and flames scattered above them, neons and golds glittered down from the sky falling into the rough shape of a creeper. The moment the creeper appeared it exploded again flinging bright cyan lights outward like rain.
Parker looked over at Branzy. His mouth was agape, staring directly upward into the sky.
“It’s so beautiful.”
Parker smiled looking back at the sky. the cyan glittered downward shimmering into a golden hue as it fell. It had been a good one. He had been practicing this specific combination for a few months.
“lets do another one!”
Three more went off before they ran out. Each time Branzy responded the same. Each time he wanted to do more.
When it finally ended Parker cleaned everything up putting it all back into his bag.
“That was amazing.”
Parker nodded. “That half the reason I make them. Feels more special that way.”
Branzy nodded enthusiastically. “You’ll have to teach me how to make my own some day.”
“Sure!”
Branzy glanced down at his watch seemingly realizing how long they had been going. “Shoot, my parents are going to be wondering where I am, see you tomorrow Parker.”
Parker waved as Branzy ran off into the distance. Turned out Branzy was a lot more fun that Parker had originally thought.
His mom was probably waiting for him too. Hopefully she had seen them. Parker spun walking back toward the school.
Turned out it wasn’t only his mom who was waiting for him.
Right, he forgot, fireworks were illegal. Too bad he wouldn’t actually see Branzy the next day.
Stupid suspension.
At least he now would have some extra time to make fireworks.