Weapon Seven

Part VII

The next school week crept by slowly, she saw Mark in the hallway once, on Wednesday, his nose was still bruised and swollen. People talked about how he supposedly got into a huge fight with a local gang and had to "fight for his life,". Rylee got to skip PE because she claimed she needed "study help" in physics when really it was because of the stab wound. But that really couldn't be shared with the public. Peter, MJ, and Ned all knew about what had happened. Ned thought that she was super badass, Rylee didn't feel compelled to tell him she had been through worse.

After decathlon practice on Friday, Ab, one of the more experienced kids, stopped everyone. "Hey, there's a new ice cream parlor that opened up in downtown Manhattan, we should go!"

Everyone seemed very excited and several people offered to drive. Rylee didn't speak up, she didn't want to go, her side hurt, and had things she wanted to get done. It might just be schoolwork but it still needed to get done.

Flash strolled up to cause nothing but annoyance, "Hey you should come, it'll be like a date," He wanted to bug her because he thought he could. Flash wasn't the type of boy to take "no" for an answer.

Her eyes stared into his cocky soul, some manna energy flowed to them to make them turn a darker, scarier color of gray instead of the normal blue, "I'd rather rip off my fingers one by one then spend any of my time on a date with you," he stepped back, his eyes questioning her sanity and composure. He was taken back, "What's wrong with her eyes?" he thought. He thought it might have been his imagination, she couldn't be that weird, right?

MJ noticed something was wrong, she came over to free Rylee from the situation, "Hey, you don't have to sit next to him. Peter, Ned and I are going and we need a ride, it'll be less boring than this lame-a-thon," She stepped down from her threatening stance and turned around, grabbing her backpack and leaving Flash standing uneasily. She was pissed off with Flashes behavior, he couldn't take a hint and it was close to costing him his life.

The group arrived at SuperHero IceCream & Dessert Parlor a couple of minutes later. By the time they had arrived, most of the class was there and standing in line waiting to order or glancing at the superfluous amount of ice cream flavors. The noise of the parlor was deafening, children were running around chasing one another while screaming, couples were loudly laughing or discussing their day, families were conversing noisily and Ned was rambling to Peter about the ice cream flavors way too close to Rylees's left ear.

Rylee noticed she began to feel hot, hot and sweaty. Her palms were like little steamy coals. She felt breathing became heavier and more sparse. It took more effort to pull air into her lungs but the air wasn't coming into them. It would vanish on the journey to her chest. Her body felt intangible and her feet felt like cement. She could feel her own heartbeat in her head and she realized what was happening. Overstimulation.

She could feel the manna radiating off of her body, it dripped out of her pores and filled her brain making her brain feel inflated like a balloon. This same event had happened in the past, the scientists at Hydra realized it was because she was not born with the power. Because they had taken alien substances and sciences and put them into her human body which was altered to begin with, the chemicals don't always react well. When there are too many chemicals that are human and too many chemicals that aren't human mix, or her cells produce the energy wrong, her body either shuts down or attempts to catch herself up to speed. Sometimes it does both.

"Hey, Ry?" Peter looked at her, he was immediately caught off guard by her appearance. He had never seen someone's face look so pale. Her body was shivering but she was also visibly sweating, something she barely did. Her eyes looked sunken in and the color of them was only describable as a bright magenta. If someone touched her she would probably break apart like a ceramic vase.