Peter was happy he got Karen back, though she had vocally told him to avoid Taylor, he was certain his spider-sense categorized her to be not a danger. He was aware of ‘Mind Control’ powers.
While he was new to this world, it didn’t mean he was wholly ignorant of a lot of things.
Parahuman Online helped him a great deal in understanding this world.
Though he still had misgivings about his situation and was far from moving on, he could deal with what he had. Taylor became his emotional support, and that was why she was important to him.
As he revved the motorcycle and felt her touch his waist, Peter realized how wrong this world was: a lack of heroes and an overflowing amount of villains. He had seen PHO, experienced the ABB, and he had seen Winslow High.
Peter droned on, offering words of comfort and reason to Taylor, until too abruptly, his spider-sense flared: the danger was coming from all directions.
Friday— April 15th, 2011.
TARGETTED.
12:50 PM.
It was too sudden. The motorcycle exploded, leaving him flying forward. At the last second, the nanites reacted and transformed into his Iron Spider suit thanks to Karen. Peter flipped mid-air, the suit taking the shade of black, and encasing him at once.
Peter was worried. What about Taylor? The danger was too sudden and fast that he was unable to react when it finally happened.
When he looked back, he saw not Taylor, but someone else—
“Scanning from internet resource: this is Sundancer, member of the Travelers. She possessed a level of pyrokinesis and could summon orbs of flames with temperatures of hundreds to thousands of degrees celsius. Be careful, Peter.” Karen informed him with an emotionless combat-ready voice as Sundancer summoned a miniature sun the size of beach balls and launched it at him. It was dangerously hot, and Peter could see it possibly tearing through his armor.
Sundancer wore a black bodysuit with red suns emblazoned on it, she summoned a dozen more blazing orbs, much less hotter than the first one she hurled. “Sorry,” she said while launching the orbs at him, each was powerful enough to leave marks on his armor.
“If you are sorry, then please stop.”
Peter acrobatically side-stepped, and flicked his webshooters attempting to get away from here. “Karen, where is Taylor?” He was panicked, but there was a forced calmness at the back of his mind. The orbs of flames homed at him, changing angles as he swung.
The second he felt the flare of danger amplifying, he launched a web downwards and pulled trying to lose the orbs of flames, and he succeeded. The miniature suns landed at the building causing concrete to melt and debris to fall.
The moment Peter landed ground-zero, a flying car came crashing at him with the speed of a bullet. Peter’s spider-sense snapped at him, making him aware of the danger. He caught the flying car, and felt its weight… The problem was, there was something more to it… an extra oomph.
Peter held his ground, causing small cracks to appear under him. He leveraged his weight, armor, and strength against the car used as a projectile.
But Peter was still sent flying as a secondary impact made itself known: a second car had been hurled at him. Seeing that there was no civilian inside the cars, Peter revved up his suit through the little neural link they shared, and from his back sprouted four spider legs. The two spider legs from below punctured the concrete floor to create more leverage, while the other two sliced the cars, only to see a third car flying right on his face with the speed of a bullet.
Peter was losing patience, so he punched, and tore right through the car. “Where is Taylor?”
Standing a few meters away from him was a man wearing a square mask and bulky, angular black armor with hard-edged pads. He touched a car adjacent to him, and with little effort, launched it at Peter.
“Analysis: this is Ballistic, another member of the Travelers. He can imbue any inorganic object he touches, from ball bearings to automobiles, with kinetic energy, causing it to go flying at a bullet-like speed in a direction of his choice, faster than sound.” Karen informs him of the new adversary.
Faster than sound? It wouldn’t matter, Peter could react faster than sound: he thwipped besides him, and then another, and zoomed at Ballistic. “Where is Taylor!?” He came rushing at him with incredible speeds.
Ballistic changed, no, it was more accurate to say he was swapped.
Sundancer stood in Ballistic’s place with a giant orb of fire the diameter of one meter long. Sundancer hefted it over her head with two palms, and with a single motion, she slammed it right at Peter.
Peter gritted his teeth: this flames were dangerous. Unlike with Lung where he quickly thought of a countermeasure by comparing him to a combination of an Extremis and a Hulk, Peter couldn’t quickly draw an inspiration against his adversaries. More than that, Peter’s mind was clouded.
There was this ‘connection’ he shared with Taylor, it was vague, but his spider-sense had tapped to this ‘thread’ more than once, and he could feel it. Taylor was in danger. Peter restructured his nanites to be nearly amorphous, trying his best to avoid damage.
“Where is… Taylor!?” Peter flickered to the sides, using his every muscle to move in tandem with his armor. He was fast, just like when he was fighting Thanos with the Avengers. And he wasn’t holding back. He zoomed at Sundancer’s flank with speed, aiming to tackle her.
“Get away, Peter, we’ve been locked up… There is a precision magnet besides—” Karen’s voice was cut-off as Peter felt himself being pulled. It was magnet, he realized. But he pushed through, trying to get Sundancer as she was too bad a match-up for him.
But then again, Sundancer was swapped as if by magic. Standing in her place was a mannequin with wires strapped all over its body. Peter’s spider-sense went up to 11 if he was using the expression right.
“Recalibrating electromagnetic pulse,” Karen acted on the suit with an electric pulse washing over Peter, changing the polarization of his suit, and avoiding being flung to the magnet. But it was futile.
The mannequin strapped with what Peter presumed to be a bomb exploded. It wasn’t ‘just’ a bomb. It was EMP. It was built in a way where Karen wouldn’t be able to change the polarization of the armor anytime soon. The electromagnetic pulse shook Peter’s nanites as it spread in a ripple.
Peter while in his Iron Spider suit was flung sideways with the vehicles and all sorts of metal— he was being targeted; the sporadic bursts of his spider sense that he had discounted as something manageable had accumulated, all leading to this.
“Peter,” Karen cried to him, “Escape. Be safe. And. Good luck.” It was filled with pain, and hope. It sounded human, and was not one bit artificial. And just like that, Karen stripped the nanites and the Iron Spider suit from Peter, freeing him from the magnetic pull.
Peter watched as the suit crashed on the glass windows of a tailoring shop, and behind it must be the ‘precision magnet’ that had been set-up beforehand.
Yes, this was a set-up, done in magnitudes that Peter hadn’t foreseen.
Instincts carried Peter as he maneuvered and slung from the flying metal debris: vehicles, lamp post, and everything… He still had his original web-shooters in him, the one he built himself. Thankfully, he had not let his nanites cannibalize the web-shooters. Because it was a 3D printed construct and mostly made of plastic, it wasn’t pulled by the magnet.
“I…” Peter stood at the now empty street, both sides of the roads had been devastated badly.
He came out unscathed from all of that, yet he felt less, not without the suit, but without Karen. Tony Stark had taught him he was still Spiderman without the suit, but losing Karen whom he just retrieved recently had hurt him. And then he lost Taylor.
Where is Taylor?? What is Peter going to do now? He could go in the wreckage and turn off the magnet, but he denied that option as surely, someone would be waiting there in ambush. Objectives. Objectives. Peter needed objectives, but he couldn’t think of any.
His clothes straight from the lost and found was still intact. Standing just a measure away from him was Sundancer. She summoned an orb of fire, and the slightest touch from it would render Peter severely injured.
“Is it worth it?” Peter had a defiant look in his eyes, and hidden beneath them was desperation. And he knew desperation— he didn’t like it, and he didn’t want to be forced in the same position again. “I don’t know your intentions, but I understand you don’t care about the unwritten rules anymore. Do I get that right?”
The direct attack at Peter in Taylor while in civilian identity— it was bad enough for people to expose a cape’s identity, but for them to be attacked like this? It was terrible development.
Sundancer regarded Peter with a mix of regret and pity. The flames from her orb danced dangerously close, casting flickering shadows across the ruined street. "Yeah, we attacked you while you are under your civilian identity," she replied, her voice carrying a hint of bitterness. "Just know that your death won’t be meaningless."
Peter's jaw tensed as he watched her warily, his mind racing for a way out of this situation. He knew he had to tread carefully, especially without the protection of his Iron Spider suit or Karen's guidance.
“You are wrong," he negated her words, his voice was steady despite the turmoil within. "Don’t give meaning to my death, because I won’t indulge it. You came here with the intention to kill, and you forced my hand."
Sundancer's gaze hardened, as she grappled with the fiery orb imbuing it with more power. "Force your hand?" she scoffed, and her tone was laced with disdain. "I don’t know anything about you, but I know enough this would weigh on my conscience."
With force, she squeezed the orb in her palms and it launched forward with incredible speeds.
Because it was in a straight line, it was easy for Peter to dodge, he simply side-stepped as he shifted his weight, and went for a run. Peter wouldn’t know what the endgame here was, but he was being targeted with the intent to eliminate him— this was all he needed to know.
His shoes were torn apart as he ran his hardest, becoming a blur as he reappeared beside Sundancer.
Sundancer was replaced by a mannequin as quickly as Peter arrived. As expected, the mannequin was strapped with bombs. Peter kicked the mannequin by the chin, and it flew upwards. The mannequin exploded into a ball of flames.
He saw it. Peter saw via his ridiculous peripheral vision combined with his spider-sense a man who was looking on his way, wearing a ‘cape-attire’, and had quickly hidden himself the exact moment Sundancer was replaced.
It was from a yet-to-be-completed building.
There was someone: a teleporter who could switch people and objects. Peter thwipped and ascended, eagerly rushing to a small building where a man wearing a black costume with a red mask and a top hat was standing side by side with Sundancer.
“Trickster,” Peter muttered the villain’s name. He had made a quick skimming of Travelers’ roster since the first instance Karen had told him who was he up against. “Where is Taylor?”
He landed right on the railings on his feet and threateningly glared at the duo. He acted as menacing as he imaginably could. “Where. Is. Taylor?”
Trickster pressed on his ear, he was in communication with someone. “I see… Half-way there, huh? Your preference is for us to kill him, but it would be fine if we could just stall him. That’s good news…”
Hearing Trickster, Sundancer visibly relaxed, she was averse to killing, that much Peter understood. With a theatrical flourish, Trickster took out a tablet from under his tuxedo. “Lookie, lookie, who do we have here?”
Peter tensed. On the tablet's screen was a live video footage of another Trickster who had Taylor at gunpoint right on a rooftop. Taylor was facing away from Trickster, she was standing by the edge of the rooftop, unable to see her hostage-taker.
Trickster went on his villainous monologue, something not done out of style but substance, the purpose was to get the message across. “Okay, I understand you are a new cape, so I’ll be nice and provide you with context. We, the Travelers, could clone ourselves to a limited extent… It doesn’t matter if the Trickster in the tablet is the original or the clone. Just know that he will kill Taylor Hebert if you don’t cooperate.”
“So, a hostage situation.” Peter was at an immense disadvantage, and he was drawing a blank.
“Indeed,” Trickster continued on his explanation. “For some reason, our client desperately wanted you dead. I managed to negotiate to stopping you and containing you for a short period of time instead. You see, the Travelers, my friends specifically found it distasteful to kill. Hmmm… I am different.”
As if to prove his point, Trickster slyly drew a small revolver hidden from his sleeve. He shot Peter, but he dodged it easily by tilting his head.
“See? I shot you, I don’t mind killing you, but it will be too much of a hassle, but that at least proved the point I would kill Taylor if you don’t cooperate. I hope you wouldn’t think of me as soft for pleading to my client to ‘not kill’ you. Eh~ my point is, while we might seem to disregard the unwritten rules, we do care about it. No need to draw blood, right?”
“You are so kind,” sarcastically replied Peter.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place. This was Peter’s situation in a nutshell. He wanted to retaliate, fight back. He wanted to punch Trickster’s face with all he got. For the second time in his life, he had wanted to hurt someone. In the past like a few weeks before coming in this world, he kind of ‘killed’ Ebony Maw with his ‘planning’, but the first time he wanted to hurt and kill someone badly was Thanos.
Peter was motivated by the ‘kill half the universe’ ambition of Thanos, but he was still fighting with the subconscious intent to hold back. Even now. Despite thoughts of wanting to rip Trickster apart, Peter held himself back.
Why? Was it the fear of murdering someone? Peter believed that wasn’t the case.
“Let Taylor go,” Peter warned Trickster for one last time. “If you don’t let her go, I might do something irreversible to you.”
Outnumbered. Outgunned. And desperate. Peter knew desperate.
“Are you sure you want to go this way? I mean, my professional advice is you cut your losses while still early. Run. Go. Escape. You can still spring back up in another city, you know? Just cooperate, and we'll be spick and span after say... a few minutes? Hours? Play ball, Spider, just play ball.” Trickster amiably smiled, deceptively and mockingly concerned for Peter.
Sundancer walked behind Trickster, attempting to position herself in a way she could obscure her hand movements and her limping. Peter deduced she might have dislocated her foot at some point. Trickster just smiled fearlessly. “Go on, surely you know. This is a checkmate, a game-over, for you.”
“You talk too much, what are you, a charlatan?” Peter frowned while he dropped on the concrete floor. He made his foot stick to the floor, the traction given by his spider-biology allowed him to stick to walls and provide grip from skin contact.
As ‘Spiderman’, Peter possessed levels of super-adhesiveness in his fingers, palms, soles of his foot, and possibly all over his skin. “Last warning, let her go, and we can still play nice.”
The over-protectiveness, the desperation, and the sensation brought by his spider-sense all accumulated dangerously teetering on the edge of something truly irreversible… Peter would do anything for Taylor, he realized that now… His spider-sense in particular was telling him to go save Taylor.
It was important. Too important that his ‘spider-sense’ informed him the loss of one life was worth it if it could keep Taylor safe. It was the first time Peter’s spider-sense had shown so much awareness and had expressed so much will.
The ‘spider-sense’ was a power related to precognition about ‘imminent danger’, it was a preternatural sixth sense that could vaguely touch the unquantifiable. Peter trusted his spider-sense, so he moved.
Peter launched himself forward, leaving dust and cracks in his wake. The very floor he stood was torn apart as he reappeared right on Trickster’s face. There was a resounding crunch combined with a bloody squelch. Peter’s fist had already punctured right through his chest.
“W-what?” The color of shock appeared in Tricskter’s eyes. Sundancer who was standing right behind Trickster was shocked and speechless as the splatter of blood drenched her.
But Peter was not done yet, his palm reached to Sundancer’s throat with speed. He grabbed her throat with unimaginable grip strength. Sundancer struggled, but she couldn’t. Peter’s adhesive fingers stuck to her disregarding the wet sloppy blood of Trickster.
Sundancer attempted to conjure her miniature suns, but at the immediate signs of this, Peter simply tightened his grip on her neck threatening to break it. Sundancer understood the message, and helplessly clawed at Peter’s arm.
At this point, the light of life had left Trickster’s eyes.
Peter decided that he was right to trust his ‘spider-sense’ regardless of the sickening feeling of killing someone. He wouldn’t know if the Trickster he killed was a clone or the original, but in the end, he still killed a person.
“Ballistics, I know you are watching this… what I have here is a hostage of my own. So what’s next?” He calmly called to the air, waiting patiently for a response.
When there was no response, he picked up the tablet that was still in the dead Trickster’s hand: in there was the Taylor and another Trickster who was now looking at Peter, or context-wise, at the camera.
“You fucking killed my clone,” Trickster frowned as he pressed the earbud on his ear. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Coil. It is either you lied to set us up, or you miserably fucked up. Guarantee? For a Thinker, you screwed up big-time. We are going to need a hard-talking, Coil.”
Ballistic appeared on Peter’s six o’clock, his hands were raised in a surrendering manner. “It looks like we lost. We are going to let Taylor go first as a sign of goodwill. But promise us you will let Sundancer go next, or we will do worse. Trust me, the ‘Travelers’ can do worse, but we won’t because our ‘worse’ is terrible.”
“Any possible goodwill between us has been broken, the Travelers had attacked me and Taylor in our civilian identities, unprovoked.” Peter wouldn’t easily let go of the unwritten rules being broken.
Yes, Peter was new to this world, but that didn’t mean he was a pushover.
Ballistic diplomatically provided Peter with a target of his ire, “This was all Coil. We will give you everything we know about Coil if you let Sundancer go. Make the right choice, the first blood was yet to truly drop.”
“Then let Taylor go,” Peter demanded.
From the tablet, Peter saw Trickster talking to Taylor. The audio was now mute, perhaps Trickster had a remote control that allowed him to turn it on and off. There were a few seconds of tense silence. Trickster brought his gun down, while Taylor turned to face him. Trickster threw the remote control at Taylor, and teleported away, leaving a mannequin in his place.
Taylor scrambled to the camera and fiddled with the remote. “Peter, are you okay? I cannot see you… wait…. I see you now…” She must be using her bugs, and evident to her mastery over her powers, lots of bugs had started to gather around them. It was quick and showed a level of awareness from Taylor.
Peter felt calm with Taylor’s eyes on him.
To some extent, Taylor could share her senses with her insects, and she was getting stronger and stronger recently. Ballistic uncomfortably shifted on his position at the sight of so many insects.
“Where is Trickster?” Peter asked.
And Taylor answered, “I think he is gone. I had my insects search for him, but he was gone. If he comes back and tries to take me hostage, he won’t be able to. He got the jump on me the first time, but never again… Peter, are you okay?”
Taylor must have seen what he looked like. There was not much damage to him except the missing shoes and the blood on his clothes. He must have looked bad if Taylor was purposely ignoring the dead Trickster-clone slumped on his shoulders.
“I will come for you, Taylor.” Peter calmed down, his spider-sense telling him everything was fine. “Stay there… Now, onto business. Tell me about Coil.” He let go of Sundancer, who fell on her knees, greedily breathing for air. Meanwhile, the dead clone of Trickster slid off his arm, his body dropping like lead.
Ballistic walked and helped Sundancer, rubbing her back in an attempt to let her know he was there and that she should take her time to breathe. He addressed Peter while focusing on Sundancer. “Coil hired us, tempted us with a solution for our problems. I… You don’t need to know about that part but know that he is very persuasive. He has a Thinker power, and it allows him to know lots of things. He knew which buttons to push, and one way or another, he convinced us to work for him. We don’t know the nature of his powers, but he is strong... and cunning.”
“What else?” Peter was unsatisfied, he needed a target. It was vindictive, but there was no way he’d let this pass. Even now, Peter was feeling cornered. “Tell me more.”
“Coil have mercenaries, effective mercenaries. They are supplied with tinker weapons, and each of them has militarized training. They are a threat, but the real threat is Coil’s hidden resources. We only learned this recently, but the Undersiders are on Coil’s pocket.” Ballistic propped Sundancer with one arm.
Peter had been rough on her, he might have broken her leg on top of her dislocated foot. “Undersiders, huh? Is that all?”
A monstrous dog appeared from the stairways. Ballistic helped Sundancer on it, and he followed, their weight easily carried by the beast. Sundancer looked at Peter for one last time. “That’s all that we have on Coil. I hope we don’t see each other again. It is hard to trust people, and Coil was untrustworthy. I had told my team repeatedly, but we were getting desperate. Everyone has their circumstances, Iron Spider. I hope we don’t see each other again. It was annoying to engage with capes who were ooh-so-ready to kill.”
“Ironic,” Peter spat, “And now you care about unwritten rules.”
“Having a body count meant a lot for capes, and I wanted to avoid that direction as much as possible.” Sundancer had a bitter look on her face, though she was wearing a mask, Peter could see it in her body language. "Coil was forceful in this job, he sincerely wanted you dead. Why? I don't know."
Ballistic supplemented, “We are at a ghosted block, everything in this streets was owned by Coil, each building was bought in erroneous identities… so not many witnesses here. Any surveillance equipment around here was rigged to play yesterday’s footage. Your… civilian identity should be safe.”
"Goodbye, and see you never," Sundancer added as she winced visibly from her hurt leg.
The dog turned away carrying the two of them, the surrounding insects remaining eerily still, waiting for a sudden upset. Sundancer warned for the last time, “Be careful with Coil… Powerful Thinkers like him have more leeway to break the unwritten rules.”
...
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#Travelers VS Iron Spider #Taylor as Hostage? #Coil getting screwed #OMG, Spidey killed a clone! #Spiderman doesn't kill, welp, not on this fanfic
