<strong>Hero Points:</strong>2 (La Mariposa)<br/><br/>"Mark is certainly not off the hook, but that doesn't excuse your behavior," Mrs. Latham said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'll deal with the both of you after school."<br/><br/>'After school' being codeword for detention, which Mrs. Latham was also in charge of. Sweeping her ponytail back, the disciplinarian walked down the hall, the<em>clack clack clack</em>of her heels causing more than a few tardy students to vamoose.<br/><br/>"Hey, don't let her get to you," Violet said with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Hey, if Mark gave you a trick, we should give 'em a trick of our own after class."<br/><br/>"Tee-pee his house?" Marco asked, his beaming face a bit too close for personal space.<br/><br/>"Nah, too cliche, but I'll think of something..."<br/><br/><hr/><br/><div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: andale mono;">Chemistry Class</span></span></div><br/>Mr. Mazur was into the holiday spirit more than most, which likely explained the mysterious white fog drifting out of the school science lab. Glowing concoctions in beakers and faux Tesla coils and wall hangings of knobs and dials certiainly enhanced the otherwise drab interior of desks and glass tubing.<br/><br/>"Welcome...to my laboratory!" Mr. Mazur said to greet the class in a stereotypical white labcoat, which was not standard staff wear even for Chemistry. "Do you dare peer into the secrets of<em>mad science!"</em><br/><br/>"Uuuugh," groaned one of the female students next to Chica. "He wasn't so cringy when he was boring!"<br/><br/>Either blind to the apprehensive students or too caught up in the act to care, Mr. Mazur was already hard at work explaining the lesson before everyone took their seats. Each table contained a metallic, crate-like box upon it.<br/><br/>"Two centuries ago, newspapers warned of the dangers of electricity," Mr. Mazur began, hands spinning in a blur as he set up tubes and vials on his desk. "And two before that, the old kings and knights warned of the destructive nature of gunpowder."<br/><br/>"But today!" Mr. Mazur dramatically pointed a finger into the air. "Today we delve into the emerging new science of nanomachines!"<br/><br/>There was but silence.<br/><br/>Violet chuckled. "Is this the part where he takes out a SHADOW clone of himself?"<br/><br/>"I said...the new science of nanomachines!"<br/><br/>"Oh sorry," came a voice from the back. A student hurriedly got up and flipped the switch to a PowerPoint projector, displaying an image of microscopic machines in a bloodstream on the whiteboard:<br/><br/><div align="center">(https://i.imgur.com/H685s6t.jpg)</div><br/>"Untold billions capable of fitting in the tip of a human finger, nanomachines are the nuclear energy of the twenty-first century. Their applications still being tested today and in controlled environments, I the mad Dr. Mazur, am entrusting this radical new machinery in your hands...tonight! Open your boxes!"<br/><br/>The box on Chica's table contained three plastic bottles in a padded interior, along with a Grant Technologies Robot Whistle™ with clear instructions on the triggers for various frequencies and how hard to blow.<br/><br/>"Hey, can I go first?" Marco asked as he took a bottle and the Robot Whistle first. With a single sharp exhalation, a puddle of grey goop spewed out of the bottles onto the table, at first making a messy splash but gradually congealing together into a single fist-sized sphere.<br/><br/>"Hell yeah Mazur!" someone at an adjacent table exclaimed. "This is a cool project!"<br/><br/>Already various students were testing out commands, shaping the goo into small gray objects, making them stretch across the floor like rubber, or even carelessly tossing them around to see what would happen. But the results were predictably safe: the nano-objects dissolved into a softer form when hit or smashed against something, preventing injury.<br/><br/>"Hey stop it!" exclaimed Sheila, whose curly hair got coated in a copious amount of thrown goo. A pranksterish whistle caused the goo within to freeze her hair in a crescent moon shape.<br/><br/>Soon the whole lab was in chaos, and almost every table was aflutter with dueling whistles.<br/><br/>"You know what would be really cool?" Marco asked Chica. "If we combined all the nanomachines into some kind of...megamachine! What say you?"