"Stop laughing!"
Mr. Harrington rushed to Thompson's side, struggling to haul the two-hundred-pound quarterback upright.
He tried once.
Twice.
Thompson slid back down like overcooked pasta, groaning miserably while clutching both his crotch and lower back.
Harrington's face flushed crimson.
At this moment, he felt his dignity as an educator lay mixed among the broken chair fragments on the floor, being trampled into dust by the entire class.
This class was the worst he had ever taught.
"Self-study!"
"Turn to page seventeen!"
"I'll check when I get back!"
He shouted the orders without waiting to see if anyone obeyed.
He immediately conscripted two large students to help drag the groaning Thompson toward the infirmary.
The classroom door slammed shut behind them.
Freedom exploded.
The room transformed into a sea of laughter.
One boy ran to the front and perfectly reenacted Thompson's backward lean, the shock on his face, and the catastrophic collapse beneath him.
The class erupted again.
Amid the chaos, one student remained still.
Peter Parker.
A thin boy with black-rimmed glasses and a shirt buttoned neatly to the collar.
He didn't laugh.
From the instant the chair collapsed, his brow had been furrowed.
He adjusted his glasses.
His eyes remained fixed on the wreckage.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Inside Peter's mind, gears spun at terrifying speed.
Midtown High used reinforced oak classroom chairs.
Each joint secured by four M8 hex bolts.
Load tolerance: over 350 pounds.
Specifically designed to survive football players.
Thompson was heavy.
He was not a rhinoceros.
The inertial force from leaning backward could not cause instantaneous structural disintegration.
This didn't obey Newtonian mechanics.
It resembled a precisely targeted destructive force.
A micro-impact.
Peter ran through every physical model he knew.
All conclusions led to one word:
Impossible.
Unless an external force intervened.
When the noise softened slightly, Peter rose quietly.
He crouched beside the wreckage like a squirrel stealing nuts.
The wood fibers showed fresh shear fractures.
No decay.
No stress fatigue.
He picked up a bolt.
Intact.
Threads undamaged.
No tool marks.
If it were sabotage, there would be evidence.
A pry bar leaves compression marks.
A drill leaves scoring.
A wrench leaves scratches.
There were none.
Before class, Thompson had been rocking the chair without issue.
Peter's reasoning chain collapsed.
No known conditions produced this result.
He looked up.
His gaze swept through the noisy classroom—
—and stopped on the last row.
Joren Joestar.
Leaning by the window.
Relaxed.
A thick book, Introduction to Marine Biology, obscured most of his face.
Sunlight gilded him, isolating him from the classroom chaos.
Just as Peter focused—
Joren lowered the book slightly.
Emerald eyes met Peter's gaze with surgical precision.
Peter's heart skipped.
It felt like being scanned by a supercomputer.
Joren pulled his hat lower.
This bespectacled boy radiated rational curiosity — observant, analytical.
The exact opposite of Thompson's single-cell brute mentality.
Troublesome.
Being targeted by this type was the worst.
Joren returned his attention to the honest, peaceful illustration of a dugong.
Graduating quietly from Midtown High might prove far more difficult than expected.
The final bell rang.
Students flooded into the hallway.
Joren, hat low and backpack slung over one shoulder, blended into the crowd.
Behind him, Peter hastily stuffed books into his bag and rushed out.
This was not stalking.
This was continuous observation of an anomalous physical event.
Yes.
That shattered chair had been reconstructed in his mind at least ten times.
Each simulation strengthened the same conclusion:
Not an accident.
The only variable was twenty meters ahead.
Peter hurried after him, heart pounding — half anxiety, half the exhilaration of a scientist discovering a new continent.
The Queens afternoon was quiet.
Sensing footsteps behind him, Joren turned into a narrow side street lined with aging red-brick apartments.
He liked places like this.
Old.
Quiet.
Predictable.
As he reached the corner, he stopped.
Ahead, near a small grocery storefront, a tall man in a filthy hoodie was cornering an elderly woman.
A fruit knife trembled in his hand.
"Wallet! Hurry! Don't make me kill you!"
The woman trembled violently.
A net bag of oranges slipped from her hand.
One dropped and rolled across the pavement.
Joren frowned beneath his hat.
Robbery.
The lowest form of trouble.
His first instinct was to turn away.
Trouble stuck harder than chewing gum.
Police.
Statements.
Crowds.
Headaches.
The robber lost patience.
He shoved the woman aside and snatched her handbag.
She stumbled, and the net bag spilled.
Oranges scattered across the pavement.
One rolled… and tapped gently against Joren's shoe.
He stopped.
Looked down.
Then up.
The robber sprinted toward him, eyes blazing with triumph.
Joren remained still, hands in his pockets.
The man's foot struck a manhole cover.
In that instant—
A golden blur flashed past Joren's feet and vanished beneath the cover.
Star Platinum struck.
Silent.
Precise.
Invisible.
A pinpoint blow transmitted force through the metal disk.
BOOM—!
The cast-iron cover blasted upward.
The robber never saw it coming.
Momentum betrayed him.
His body twisted mid-air before slamming face-first onto the pavement.
The stolen wallet flew free.
He twitched twice… and went still.
Joren bent down calmly.
He picked up the orange.
Picked up the wallet.
He handed the wallet back to the trembling woman.
Then he gathered the scattered oranges and returned the net bag to her.
Without waiting for thanks, he walked past.
"W-wait!"
Peter snapped out of his shock.
He rushed from behind a telephone pole and blocked Joren's path.
"It was you! You did that, didn't you?!"
He was breathless, voice shaking with excitement.
Joren stopped.
The shadow of his hat concealed his eyes, leaving only a sharp chin visible.
"The manhole cover!" Peter gestured frantically.
"I saw a golden streak! Then it launched upward! That's physically impossible! The impulse required to vertically displace that mass is enormous!"
"Unless a subterranean explosion occurred — but there's no displacement pattern! The force application was too precise!"
"How did you—"
"You're noisy."
Peter's words were cut off.
Joren didn't slow.
He walked past him.
Their shoulders brushed.
Peter felt as if he had been struck by a heavyweight punch. An irresistible force sent him stumbling backward five steps before he fell.
By the time he scrambled up—
Joren was already far down the street.
Peter stood frozen.
His mind was in complete chaos.