My note: The characters belong to their respective owners. I make no profit by this. I had intended to update last week, but it was so freaking hot out that I couldn't stand to even turn my computer on... Sorry. There's a bit of swearing in this chapter, be aware of that.


New York Ninja 2

Part 2

Twenty-eight months ago...

A scream echoed through the First National Bank, drawing Ben Urich's attention. Like everyone else, he turned to the source of the scream, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Don't anybody move!" Spider-man said. Ben recognised the red and blue spandex stretched from head to toe across a wiry frame, just like anyone else in the bank. Spider-man was holding a security guard, webbed up, his face swollen from an obvious beating. "You hear me? This is a robbery! You want to get out of here in one piece, you do what I say!"

Spider-man looked around to make sure he had everyone's attention. Ben glanced around. There weren't any heroes here, no-one who looked like they'd do the stupid thing.

"Now I want everyone - everyone - to lie down on their bellies with their hands behind their heads!" Spider-man shouted. He stalked further into the bank, looking around to make sure everyone was doing what he said. People were hesitant.

Ben still couldn't believe that this was really Spider-man. Ben knew - he knew that Spider-man was a hero. There was something off about this guy. Except for the webbing, which could have been faked too, he hadn't shown any actual super-powers. Then again, people weren't exactly lining up to give him the chance to.

"Who is the bank manager?" Spider-man demanded.

"Me," said an average looking guy, coming around from behind the counter. "I-I am."

Some of the bank customers started to look up, to watch this spectacle. "Hey!" Spider-man shouted angrily, looking around at the one or two patrons who were looking up. His expression was hidden by his mask, but his body language screamed violence. "What did I say? I said: down on the ground with your hands over your fucking heads!"

Spider-man turned back to the bank manager. "What's your name, bank manager?" He asked.

"D-David Rosenberg," the man replied, his voice quivering nervously.

"Nice to meet you, David Rosenberg," Spider-man said. Then he hit the manager across the face. Spider-man stopped the man from falling in surprise, only to hit him again. And again. And again. This wasn't Spider-man, Ben thought.

"Oh no, please stop it!" One of the tellers shouted anxiously. "Leave him alone!"

Spider-man picked up the manager, holding him over his head. "I want every one of you useless broads to fill a money bag up with the big bills... and I know what a paint can looks like!"

When the tellers didn't respond right away, he threw the bank manager through the plate glass of one of the teller's windows. The poor woman scrambled out of the way, but she was still caught with a shower of broken glass. Spider-man shot a web-line and swung himself inside. "You people get moving or one of you is next! Nobody else gets hurt if everyone behaves!"

"And I was going to ask you for super-hero tips."

Ben turned, surprised, like a number of other bank patrons. There was someone not on the floor. He could have sworn that this new guy hadn't been there a moment ago. He sounded young, but Ben couldn't tell for sure. He was short though, probably still just a kid. He wore a hooded coat, the sleeves and hood orange, while the rest of it was navy blue, over skin-tight orange leggings of the same colour and navy blue sandal-like shoes. His hood was pulled up and he wore a navy blue mask over the lower half of his face. Ben couldn't see the kid's face at all, the upper half shrouded by his hood.

"What the-" Spider-man started, spinning around to face the kid. "Didn't you fucking hear me you little twerp? I said down on the ground!"

Spider-man advanced on the new guy, who didn't seem too concerned. Ben only caught the slight tensing of the kid's leg muscles because the kid was just a few feet away. "Ever been beat up by a teenager?" The new guy asked. Ben could hear the grin in the question and knew this kid was enjoying himself.

Spider-man threw an angry punch, somehow clumsier than Ben expected. The new guy twisted out of the way, grabbed Spider-man's wrist and pulled him forward, knocking him off balance. He landed a vicious elbow to Spider-man's ribs, swept his legs out from under him, then followed that up with a hard right cross. Ben could have sworn that he heard bone breaking. Spider-man flew backwards through the air, landing in a heap twelve feet away. That must've been some punch...

Spider-man groaned, tried to get up, then slumped down, unconscious. The whole fight, if it could be called that, was over in less than thirty seconds. "Wow!" The new guy crowed. "I must be even better than I thought!"

The other customers were starting to get up. If this kid could beat the web-slinger, then surely they could too. He was just one guy, after all, and not even that impressive.

Someone must've hit a silent alarm. The sound of sirens drew steadily closer. The new guy seemed to notice. "Uh-oh. Time to go!" He said, heading for the door. Ben heard a nervous laugh in the new guy's voice this time. "Uh. Forgot I had to tie them up after the fight..." He glanced up at the customers. "Hey, you guys can watch him until the cops come, right?"

"Wait!" Ben started, pulling himself up. He hurried out the door after the orange hero. The reporter in him had to know. "What's your name?"

"I go by Ninja," the kid said. And again, there was a grin in his voice. He gave Ben a thumbs up. "Remember the name! I'm going to be the greatest super-hero in the world one day!"

Ben watched the orange hero, Ninja, disappear into an alley. Moments later, he soared overhead, leaping from building to building, putting some space between himself and the scene of the crime.


Naruto grinned at himself in the mirror, then took off the big orange-and-blue coat that he was wearing. It wasn't an ANBU robe or anything, though he had thought about that look. He would just look kind of weird wearing that. Besides, he didn't want to cling to the past.

The big coat was just what he needed. It was formless enough that he could hide all sorts of stuff in his pockets and on his person and it allowed him to move freely enough to not impede his ass kicking skills. Plus, winter was coming up. He didn't know how Spider-man and those other guys could do without the insulation. He didn't want to have to wear skin-tight stuff anyway, if he didn't have to; he'd had enough of that with Weapon X.

This afternoon had gone great! His first adventure as a super-hero... He'd learned a bunch. For starters, he needed to bring something to tie the bad guys up after he beat them, or he'd have to really hurt them to get them to stay down. Naruto wasn't sure, but he thought that was probably not the right way to make a good impression.

He'd need to find some cool way to get around too. Jumping from building to building was fine and all, but it lacked style. Spider-man's web-slinging was really cool. Too bad Naruto's mutant power wasn't spinning webs. Jean could fly using her telekinesis and that was kind of cool, but again, Naruto's mutant power wasn't the ability to move stuff with his mind. He'd have to think about it some.

Naruto hung up his coat. He'd been hiding out in an old abandoned warehouse. There were dozens of them near the waterfront, just waiting for someone to move right in. Naruto had made sure that this one wasn't scheduled for demolition any time soon. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it'd be okay until he could find himself an affordable place to live.

He kicked his sandals off, settling himself down in the back corner of the large building. He'd checked his traps, made sure no-one would stumble onto his hiding spot while he was asleep. Not that Naruto really felt much like sleeping. He was too excited...


Peter Parker was having a bad day. Hell it had been a bad week for him. First, he'd failed to stop the Rhino from causing mayhem downtown yesterday. He'd been held up at school by one incident after another. It was lucky that Ironman had been around to deal with the rampage.

Then some freaking imposter had robbed a bank! Or tried to. Peter had been at work at the Daily Bugle when Ben Urich had come in with a fantastic story about Spider-man - Spider-man! - robbing the First National Bank. Peter knew right away the guy was a fake, of course, but it wasn't like he could clue Jonah in to that without blurting out the fact that he, Peter Parker, was actually Spider-man.

According to mister Urich, some new, orange guy had beaten up the fake Spider-man. So why was he out tonight? Apparently, the guy got bail or something... Peter almost sighed in annoyance. He was going to settle this once and for all.

Which was why Spider-man was swinging out over a whole precinct of trigger-happy police officers, on his way to deal with this fake. Maybe this sort of situation called for some form of reassurance. "Please, guys, allow me! I am dying to have a talk with this guy myself," Spider-man said. "I know you guys have a job to do but I really think I can take care of this in two shakes of a-"

"Get your hands on your head!" One of the cops yelled. A whole bunch of guns trained on him almost immediately. A whole bunch of media cameras too. Great. Spider-man's week was going about as good as Peter Parker's...

"Oh come on!" Spider-man almost-yelled in exasperation. "You are talking to the actual Spider-man now - hence I am not robbing anything in there and talking to you out here."

"You have til' the count of three!"

"Guys! I- Hello! I am not robbing anything!" Spider-man started. What was it with these cops? He couldn't be in two places at once, could he? "I don't even have any pockets! I am here to help!"

"Take him down!"

Spider-man hardly had any time to react as the police opened fire on him. In the hail of bullets, one caught him through the shoulder. He lost his grip on the wall in surprise and fell to the pavement below in a shower of class and broken mortar. The police were on him in moments, though Spider-man couldn't move for the shock.

"Stay down! Stay down!"

"Don't you move!"

"Don't move a muscle or I will blow your head off!"

What followed was a confusing jumble of people shouting at him. Two cops pinned Spider-man to the ground while a third twisted his arms behind his back and handcuffed his wrists together. All while the cameras were clicking away, recording everything. "My shoulder!" Spider-man gasped in pain. "Don't-"

"You are under arrest!" They wrenched him up by his arms, drawing another pained scream, then pushed him up against a nearby police car to search him.

"My shoulder!" Spider-man shouted again. No-one seemed to care that he'd been shot or anything.

"You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used-" The officer that had handcuffed him started.

Another cop reached for his mask. "Grab the mask! Let's end this stupid-"

"No!" Spider-man yelled. "Stop it!" He kicked out, catching the cop trying to take his mask off. The man went flying back several yards. Spiderman jumped up, landing on top of the police car. "I didn't do anything!"

There were a bunch of shouts, indistinguishable from each other. Spider-man knew they were aiming their guns on him again. He wasn't caught by surprise this time. He leapt up, jumped off another cop car, and ran right up the side of the nearest building, dodging bullets the whole way up. He collapsed, moaning in pain, on the rooftop once he was sure they couldn't shoot him anymore. He'd never been shot before...

Suddenly, he was grabbed and pulled into the shadows of a commercial air conditioning unit. Spider-man struggled, but stopped when, a moment later, the rooftop lit up with a searchlight. There was a police helicopter overhead.

"Shh!"

The other guy was dressed in orange. He had to be the guy that beat up the fake Spider-man before, Peter realised. After a couple of minutes, the helicopter moved on to the next rooftop. The orange guy turned back to Spider-man.

"So, I'm guessing you're the real one then?" He asked. He turned Spider-man around. Spider-man felt him messing around with his handcuffs, and a moment later the orange guy had unlocked them. Spider-man heard the grin in the other guy's voice when he said, "too easy." The handcuffs disappeared into one of his coat pockets.

"Who the hell are-" Spider-man stopped, when he accidentally put pressure on his shoulder. He hissed in pain.

"I go by Ninja," the orange guy said. "That other Spider-man wasn't able to run up walls or anything. I don't know why they thought you were him... Or why they let him out either..."

"Listen, uh, Ninja, I appreciate the help and all but-" Spider-man started. The rooftop door opened and about a dozen cops came out. They weren't alarmed or anything, but they still had their weapons out.

"Crap," Ninja muttered. He glanced back at Spider-man, then at Spider-man's shoulder. "You need to get to a hospital. I'll deal with this."

"Wait-" Spider-man started.

Ninja's hands did something funny, almost too quickly for Spider-man to follow. There was an explosion, or something, a cloud of white smoke which quickly disappeared. Ninja had transformed into a copy of Spider-man. "I'll distract them. You get your shoulder fixed. Got it?"

Spider-man nodded mutely. So now there were three Spider-men around. Great. As if this couldn't get any more confusing.

Ninja-Spider-man jumped up onto the air conditioner they were hiding behind. "Hey guys! Looking for me?" Again, Spider-man could hear the grin in his doppelganger's voice. The fake Spider-man leapt out of the way as the police opened fire. He jumped right over them, hit the rooftop running, and leapt to the next building, turning mid-air to wave cheekily. He was good, Spider-man had to admit. Really good. Ninja-Spider-man disappeared in a sprint as the police helicopter came back.

Spider-man waited for the police to leave the roof before he climbed down himself. He'd need medical attention. God, his shoulder hurt...