How far was he willing to take it? Obviously he hadn't done enough the first time. He had to take more drastic measures, but not in his methods of saving the children. No, his methods worked, it was how he went about not getting found that had to change. He could not be found, could not allow himself to be caught again. He had such a place to accomplish this, and he would be there shortly. Yes, just a couple errands to run and his evening would be complete. He'd obtained a firearm, which of course was not needed now. Oh no, he had other ways of accomplishing what he was setting out to do, but he could not give those ways up yet. No one could know what they were dealing with. His thoughts were shattered by his cell phone going off.
"Hello, Doctor Smith, are you going to be back in soon?"
"Yes, I'm just out running an errand. I will be back at the lab shortly."
"Great, we think we've gotten a breakthrough that's huge and need you to review it."
Doctor Smith smirked. His work had been completed just before he was imprisoned, but it did not have the exact effect he was shooting for. It was genius of him to give all his lab assistants a strand of the chemical that was in its infant state, they had no clue all this time they were just buying him time and possibly making headway at another form of the chemical to boot. "This is great news, I will be back as soon as I can be." Smith hung up.
After a few more moments he arrived at his destination. He slowly got out of the car, clenching the handgun underneath a trench coat. Lucky for him it was well into the fall and the cool evening air gave such an article of clothing relevance, but either way he could have constructed a way to hide the weapon. It helped that the sun had just fallen below the horizon. In and out, just like old times.
Ding dong.
He could hear the door bell inside when he pressed the button. The house was quaint, but he did not let that detail distract him from the monstrous activities that went on inside. Such things brought uncontrollable rage to Doctor Smith, rage he could not contain. A friendly smile came across his shadowed face as a man answered the door. "Hello sir, how may we help you?"
Pow.
The man's face was consumed in fear as he fell to the ground. "Phillip?" a woman's voice called from another room. She came running around a corner and into Smith's sight.
Pow.
Smith had drawn the gun out from inside his coat and landed a bullet into the woman's skull. She fell to the ground like a rock.
"Now for what I came for," Smith mumbled as he stepped into the house. He gave the inside a good long look before listening intently. He could hear it, the quiet sobs of a child. It was close, maybe a room or two away. He quickly stepped over the man's body and turned into a living area. In the far corner was a young girl dressed in pajamas crouching in a ball and burying her face in her folded arms.
"There there," Smith said as he approached her. "They won't hurt you anymore."
...
Two weeks. Well, almost two weeks, but for simplicity's sake two weeks. Yep, two weeks since he'd avoided certain death and became a national heroic phenomenon. Spider-Man littered front page news papers and captured news station headlines nationally and internationally for his actions in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. People magazine came out publically requesting Spidey himself to contact them so he could be interviewed for a headlining article about what happened in his rumbles with the now imprisoned Curtis and his aspirations. If Brent ever had a chance to share said aspirations with anyone he would tell them he'd rather be in a nice cozy lead enforced cell like Curtis rather than freezing his buns off on top of a power pole while he waited for something to happen that needed superhuman intervention.
"That's the catch I suppose," Brent muttered to himself. "When you live in a nearly crime-free area superhuman intervention is minimal." Brent was right, Cumming wasn't exactly a criminal haven in Georgia and certainly could be kept under control by the already established law enforcement. Had anyone even noticed him up there? A guy in a black spider costume had to stick out like a sore thumb, even if he was quite a few yards off the ground. Maybe because the sun had just set he wasn't easily visible?
"This bites." He was getting ready to jump off and head home after yet another uneventful evening out when he was hit with a feeling he hadn't felt since right before his family and he plummeted down a mountainside. What was causing it? He checked his footing, the pole itself, the transformer on the pole, everything checked out. Then the car came by.
"That car, something about that car... could it have freaked my senses out that bad?" The black car was going rather quickly for the street it was on. Brent decided to follow it. His sense of adventure and the thought of the unknown was getting to him. He was willing to lose a few hours of sleep to find out what was going on, especially if it was exciting.
He jumped down onto the side of the street and quickly ran up beside the car. He had to do this right or he'd get the driver's attention, which would probably not end well. Brent could see the headlines now, "Spider-Man botches strange car investigation by being caught trying to follow it." With total concentration on getting himself on the back of the car he jumped to the side, letting the car go by as he scurried across the pavement and launched himself gently right onto the back end of the trunk. Satisfied with his efforts Brent held on for the ride, hoping his assumption wasn't wrong and that he was hitching a ride on the back of a car for something.
...
The car had driven out of town, which was surprisingly empty, and down a side road not too far from Brent's church. As the car turned onto a gravel road that led to a gate ahead Brent's suspicions flared. "We're close to the church, which is where the accident happened." He began to wonder if he'd been led to this car because it might hold answers he was still seeking. Could his whatever it was sense do that? More questions to ask someone as soon as he could find them. So much was unexplained, but that feeling he gets was a huge one he wanted answered. Having a warning indicator was good and all, but what the heck was going on inside him and how did his body know when danger was present?
Brent bailed on his ride and fled into the woods surrounding the road. Giving himself away wasn't what he had in mind, not yet anyway. He climbed up a tree and started jumping across the branches, feeling not too different from a monkey and having memories flood him of Tennessee and the tree jumping he'd done there. Was it just him or did his tree jumping adventures always end badly?
The car passed through the gate, which was closed promptly behind it by armed guards. Great, armed guards, no wonder the super danger sense thingy went crazy. Brent continued through the trees in pursuit of the vehicle, which was now approaching a warehouse. "Creepy warehouses in the middle of the woods, nothing seems out of place here," Brent mumbled as he aimed himself towards it. He spotted what looked like the garage area and jumped out of the tree line onto the top of it. The car passed into a huge door leading into the area Brent was standing on. Perfect. What was more perfect was the roof access door that seemed to lead down into the garage area the car Brent was interested in had just pulled in to. Ah heaven, could being a superhero be any easier?
The handle of the roof access door wouldn't budge, but then again if it did it would have been too easy for Brent's comfort. With minimal effort Brent snapped the handle off the door, completely freeing it. He took a peek inside to make sure no one had heard or was watching, then climbed up to the ceiling to get a good look at the whole place. The room was barely lit and had a dozen or so vehicles in it. The car Brent had followed was parked not far from the door it had entered and the driver was nowhere to be found. Brent did note a door into the rest of the facility, however.
Before exploring the rest of the building Brent decided to see if anything was left in the car that might have triggered the feeling. He dropped down the thirty something feet to the floor gracefully, landing on all fours to minimize the shock, which was minimal anyway. Brent reached up and opened the driver door, instantly realizing this mistake when the car alarm began to blare. The oh crap moment was furthered by a little face in the back seat, a small blonde young girl who was still strapped in. Confused wouldn't have began to describe Brent's mental state, nor the mental state of the guards that entered the room.
Brent put his hands over his head, not wanting to test his reflexes against bullets and also not wanting to put the girl in danger. So much for the whole superhero thing. Good job Brent, you get busted on your first investigation gig because you overlook commonly used technology like car alarms. Brilliant. Next time you should scream "here I am" at the top of your lungs while trying to be stealthy.
A new man walked into the room, but this one wasn't holding a gun. He was wearing a lab coat, which was a very different contrast to the black shirts and pants and bullet proof vests. "Ah gentlemen we have a guest." The new man spoke loudly but calmly. He seemed confident. "Please welcome the great bioengineering miracle, Spider-Man!"
"Who are you?" Brent called out to the man.
"None of your business, but I would like to ask you to step away from the vehicles so my friends here can begin firing at you since you should not be here."
"Now why would you want me to step away from the vehicle? Oh wait, does it have to do with your little daughter you've drug out here?" Brent had no clue whether or not this girl was even related to the man, but he had to buy himself some time to think. He wasn't going to make it back to the roof and lighting up the room with all the cars wasn't going to be good, but he had a feeling the only thing keeping them from doing that was the girl.
The guards started looking at Bill Nye the science guy questioning him on Brent's inquiry. The man was a little disgruntled, maybe he had been the driver of the car. "Just move in close and take him out, careful of the cars!"
"That's my queue," Brent mumbled as he ducked down underneath a van. He was assessing the situation the best he could. How many guards had there been? What were his chances of taking them down before they could get a shot off? Who were they? No, who cares who they were, how does someone survive this?
Brent could see a set of feet closing in. He scooted to the other side of the van and decided to act. It was either die trying or die crying and he figured trying would probably look better. The wall was not too far from him, so he planted his feet on the van, bent his knees and launched himself at it. Mid way to it Brent flipped himself over so he'd land on his feet on the wall and be ready in case his hope that the wall would give in didn't work. Of course the wall took the hit no problem, so Brent used it as his next launching pad. As soon as he pushed off again the world around him slowed to a near standstill. As he gazed ahead he could see a dozen guards firing at him. To his surprise the bullets weren't going so fast that he wouldn't be able to avoid them, but the trick to it was the fact that the weapons were fully automatic and all the guards had to do was get their stream of bullets on him and he'd be done.
Spidey flipped through the air, landing on a car directly behind the guard that had been the closest to him. He fired a web line and caught the man in the upper back, then slung up and back on the web line. As the man launched off the ground and followed a circular path at the end of the webbing Brent fell back beside the car, avoiding the other guards' lines of fire. He let go of the web line, confident the launch would take that guard out of the fight, and landed on his back on the hard concrete floor. As he turned onto his stomach to get up he noticed the man in the lab coat running along the edge of the room with what looked like a double sized computer. Suddenly Brent's attention was more on this man and less on the guards shooting at him.
Brent could hear a couple guards getting too close for comfort, so he quickly turned and popped up over the car. They were on the other side of the next car, which presented Brent a perfect opportunity. Without hesitating Brent placed a foot on the side of the car and gave it a good hard push, sending it sliding towards the two guards before ducking back down to avoid more gunfire from the guards that were farther away. The two targets had to leap to the side to avoid being painfully pinned between the sliding car and the car parked next to it.
Brent was quickly moving between cars towards the science guy, who had apparently placed the computer object into the van Brent had just used and was getting the girl loaded as Brent approached. The man shut the door and was running around to the passenger side of the van when Brent slung himself over the van's hood and positioned himself next to the driver's door. "I don't know who you are, but trying to kill me isn't appreciated."
"The name's Benet Smith, I suggest you learn it." Smith's words were dry and his confidence high. Brent took a single step and was suddenly stopped in his place. He couldn't explain it if he tried, he was simply stuck. A high pitched, constant, growing sound started ringing in his ears. Before he could open his mouth to ask what was going on he was suddenly lifted off the ground by some invisible force and violently hurled up at a one hundred and forty degree angle. First the far wall, then another wall, then the roof met Brent's back as he was hurled through the air and out of the building to meet a resting point in a tree in the woods.
When he opened his eyes he could see the headlights of the van speeding away from the warehouse. Before the van had made it to the gates the warehouse exploded, throwing debris everywhere. Brent dropped out of the tree, having to momentarily forget the pain in his body to make sure he didn't get hit by fiery flying chunks of concrete building. Once the air was clear he plopped down on his backside on the ground, letting out a sigh. "Ouch Mr. Smith. Ouch."
