Chapter 2- Discoveries
Brushing off his hands after he finished webbing up his last criminal of the night, Peter left his trademark calling card in plain sight for the cop they sent from Karen's phone call into the station. This evening had turned out to be far more convoluted than Peter had been planning on when he heard the alarms from the nearby convenience store ring during his nightly patrol. Not only did the thief bust a bag of confetti glitter he had stolen all over Peter's face when he swung near, but the fact that this guy had used a tiny pink and blue Frozen bicycle as his getaway vehicle really grinded Peter's gears. He knew he may have used a bit of excess force when he tackled the thug off some poor little child's bike into the bushes near the small park, but Peter wasn't in the mood to care. Between thinking about returning the tiny bedazzled bike and figuring out how to get all the excess glitter out of his mask, he already wasn't in the best mood when he then glanced at the display in his suit showing the time.
"Aww crap, May's gonna kill me!" Quickly jumping onto the roof of the nearest building Peter raced back to his Queens apartment as fast as his web shooters would sling him. The irritation from the night was the least of his problems, as it was now way past the curfew he had agreed upon with his Aunt for waking up the next morning to take his SAT's. If he didn't get good scores, not even his late association with Mr. Stark would guarantee him getting into a good college. Lost in his thoughts, panicking to come up with excuses to tell May, Peter didn't notice when he web slinged directly through a bright blue light between intersections until the flip flop of the time of day hit him squarely in the eyes.
Wincing his eyes shut in automatic response to being blinded by the mid afternoon sun coupled with a sudden case of dizziness, Peter slightly let go of the grip on his last web. Before he had time to react and shoot another web to the nearest building Peter felt himself jolted then cradled by a brick wall. Winking his eyes to get rid of the many circles of light that clouded his vision from looking directly into the sun, he felt himself being set down on the sidewalk by a tall black haired boy. Quickly holding himself up on his own, embarrassed to be caught by what looked like an ordinary citizen Peter was caught off guard by what he heard next.
"Spider-Man?" The other boy asked questioningly. It was odd to not be immediately recognized around the city because by this point in time Peter knew his alter ego was pretty much a household name. To see a fellow teenager unsure about who he was, was even stranger because his fan demographic tended to skew younger.
"Uh yeah man, that's me." Peter was trying his best to hold in his embarrassment, but the nervous laugh he let out wasn't too convincing. "Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, yada yada yada. Thanks for the grab but I gotta get going, you know kittens to kiss and babies to save." Peter was about to shoot a web towards the top of the nearest office building when his arm was grabbed by the taller boy.
"What are you doing here? Um, not that you're not welcome, but I thought you were from that New York place?" The dark haired boy laughed letting go of Peter's hand to move it to nervously rub the back of his head. Suddenly it hit Peter where he saw that nervous habit before. Grabbing the other boys' wrist he quickly dragged him to the nearby deserted alleyway.
"Great Saiyaman?" Peter hissed quietly, aware that if he was going to out a fellow superhero he would be kind enough to do it privately. Peter saw the other boy quickly glance down at his orange pants and long sleeve white shirt tucked under a black vest. A pretty nerdy looking getup in Peter's opinion, but his own science pun t-shirts didn't give him much of a leg to stand on in the fashion department.
"Oh crap, I forgot I didn't change outfits!" The boy Peter confirmed to be the Great Saiyaman squeaked. "Please don't tell anyone it's me, oh man, I can't believe I already blew my cover!"
"Hey man, don't worry. Look I don't even know who you are anyway so there's not much to tell. Plus as I'm sure you noticed I'm not keen on letting anyone know my secret identity either, so you can chill." Peter tried to ease the freakout his saw building in the other boy's face.
"Thanks Spider-Man, I really owe you one."
"Dude, no problem, us masked vigilantes have gotta stick together ya know. And if you had anything like the night I've had, I know you'd do the same." Peter sighed when he caught sight of another speck of silver glitter clouding his vision.
Before either boy could say anything else a familiar bright blue light encapsulated Peter and he was returned to his night time swing. Peter checked the time in his suit hopefully when he realized he was suddenly back in New York.
"Dang it! I was really hoping I was thrown back in time."Peter sighed to himself and continued his swing back to an angry Aunt and a morning full of tests.
"Goten, Trunks, come back here right now!" Gohan bellowed red cape fluttering behind him as he chased after the two youngest half-saiyan's who were currently holding his Saiyaman helmet hostage. Rounding a corner on the east end of the Capsule Corp. property Gohan ran head first into the sudden appearance of the bright blue light.
Squinting the dizziness out of his eyes Gohan realized he was now standing on the corner of a busy intersection instead of looking at the vast lawn of Capsule Corp.'s East wing. Looking upwards, Gohan's eyes trailed up a tall building on the opposite end of the busy avenue, the top featuring a huge 'A' next to an outdoor balcony. Realizing he had never seen such a building in West City, Gohan let out a large sigh.
"Crap, not again." Gohan spoke, realizing the blue light must have sent him to the strange parallel dimension again.
"Yo, Saiyaman! Sick of that weird helmet, or just going for a new look? Your hair's a bit too dark to pull off the whole Thor look though dude." Gohan heard a familiar voice and looked up behind him. Clinging to the top of the light pole above his head was the red and blue clad Spider-Man. Gohan's hands reached up automatically to confirm that his spiky black hair was not covered by his helmet. Said helmet which currently must still be in Goten and Trunks' possession in another dimension, was far removed from helping him conceal his identity.
Thinking quickly Gohan leapt to the sky in a flash appearing at the top of one of the huge skyscrapers which littered the downtown. Taking in a few deep breaths Gohan thought about his situation, coming to the conclusion that hopefully that crazy blue light would return him home soon. A moment later Gohan jumped in surprise when he heard another voice again.
"Woah dude, you really are fast huh!" Spider-Man spoke slumped over in half regaining his breath from the fast climb up the skyscraper. "So, what's happening? Gotta say, no offence or anything, but the costume without the helmet is a much better look." Gohan looked to his fellow masked hero who had now recovered from his speedy chase.
"Guess there's really no point wearing the rest of this without the helmet now." Gohan sighed pressing the button on his watch to dematerialize the rest of his outfit.
"Woah, that's sick dude! Man, I wish my outfit did that, Mr. Stark's tech wasn't even that smooth." Spider-Man gushed staring at the small watch. "Did you invent that?"
"Uh no, my friend Bulma made it for me, she's a genius when it comes to tech." Gohan admitted looking down to the shorter hero whose eyes only grew wider at that admission.
"That's awesome, your friend sounds a lot like Mr. Stark! He made me this suit, but I designed my web shooters." Spider-Man grinned obviously proud of himself.
"That's cool, I bet Bulma and this Stark guy would get along pretty well." Gohan said thinking out loud not noticing the excited demeanor of the other hero falter at his words. After a long pause, Gohan voiced his train of thought. "You know... I was thinking the other day about how we must be from parallel world's or something because I did research and there definitely is no place called New York City where I come from." Gohan admitted to his dimension travelling companion.
"Huh, that actually makes a lot of sense." Spider-Man rubbed his chin before raising his right hand in the air in exclamation. " Oh! Actually, yeah this Doctor Strange guy talked about that sort of stuff happening. And ever since Mr. Stark and the Avengers messed with time everything has been kinda weird." Spider-Man admitted shoulders slumping at the end of his sentence.
Gohan was too distracted by the words his fellow hero had said to start unpacking why the other guy was upset.
"Woah, did they time travel or something?" Gohan asked intrigued.
"Yeah something like that, they had to go back to grab these super powerful stones from different times so they could bring us all back to life." Spider-Man responded, Gohan could tell he was holding back on some details but that wasn't what bothered him. He knew there was only one way people could be brought back from the dead in his world, so he had to ask.
"Did you say you were brought back to life? Do you guys have Dragon Balls too?"
Spider-Man narrowed his eyes in confusion but before he could ask the question on his mask covered lips, a flash of blue light consumed the other teenager leaving Peter sitting on top of the skyscraper alone thinking what the heck his other dimension friend could be doing with a dragon's balls. Before subsequently jumping up realizing how cool it must be that dragons existed in another universe!
Gohan was deposited back at Capsule Corp. right in front of the two mischief makers themselves.
"Woah Gohan, where'd you come from?" Goten shouted in surprise at his big brother. Gohan saw his brother's lavender haired friend shift the bulky helmet they had stolen to try and hide it behind his back.
Gohan grinned to himself before launching himself at the two small thieves, easily recovering his property when Trunks dropped the item in question out of fright. Patting his helmet in satisfaction he thought, seems like this blue light isn't all bad after all.
Uh oh, half of the duo has been unmasked, what could happen next?! Thanks for reading, let me know what you think! :)