Chapter 8 Thousand
'Damn I really wish Peter had finished making my costume already.' Cindy thought as she swung through the skyscrapers, heading towards Midtown High while covered in her own webs. 'But at least I finally get to have my first supervillain fight, unless he's overreacting. Though can someone with a spider sense really overreact?'
Thankfully there were no drones flying around this time that she had to deal with, so she was able to get to the school with no hassle. She stopped atop a street lamp across the street, eyeing who she had a pretty good feeling was the potential supervillain.
She jumped from one of the nearby buildings and landed on the roof, catching the attention of the guy in the cloak. "So, I'm guessing you're the swarm guy. What's your deal attacking a school dude?"
Swarm was surprised and took a step back. "Who the heck are you? You're not Spider-Man."
"Damn right, I'm Silk. And unless you want to be stuck in my web, you'll take your bugs and leave." She warned, taking a stance.
"You don't understand, I'm not the bad guy here. There's a creep named Carl King somewhere in this school and he's got control over hundreds of spiders. Maybe even a thousand. Everyone's in danger unless I flush him out into the open."
At that moment several doors flung open and many students and teachers came out, some trying to maintain order and some saying 'to hell with it' and just getting out of there.
"Looks to me like you're putting them in danger to do this." Silk noted, gesturing to the students.
"I'm not trying to. But there's no way to avoid it." Swarm justified.
"Well Swarm, I'm going to have to ask you and your… swarm… to leave, as right now you're the only danger I see." Silk said, pointing at him.
Swarm narrowed his eyes at her. "Or what? You're not Spider-Man, what can you do?"
Silk made a fist and tried not to smile. "Everything a Spider-Man can." She then shot off some webs at him, but Swarm blocked with his cloak, making the web hit the back. Silk pulled back but the cloth tore so he was unaffected.
"Good thing I kept some close by in case something went wrong." Swarm said to himself, releasing a few more bees and sending them at the webbed heroine.
Silk quickly fired some small bits of web that caught the bees and threw the web away. 'Bees at the hospital and now here?' She then lowered herself like a gymnast and shot more webs, this time aiming for his ankles. He jumped up and the webs connected to the ground. Thinking quickly, Silk jumped up as well, keeping ahold of the webs, and getting over Swarm, wrapping the webs around him as she passed overhead. She landed behind him and tugged at the webs, forcing him down and horizontal while she still stood.
'Heh, Peter acts like this is so hard.' Silk thought, feeling rather accomplished.
Inside the school the bees had collected together into a large swarm, and they were giving the spider swarm a good fight. The humanoid collection of arachnids fought back, throwing punches much like Sandman would do, and when the fist impacted some spiders broke off to continue attacking the bees directly. The bees would sting, but that put them at risk too.
"Where are you Michael?" The spider cluster said with Carl King's voice. The golem collapsed and moved like a wave on the floor, heading for the door. They crawled out from under it, thankfully no students were still there to see this. The bees tried to follow but they couldn't get through the same way, forcing them back into the vents.
Out in the hall the spider swarm recollected, looking like some kind of blob that wanted to do something but didn't know what that was. "Everyone must have gone outside, that's how I'll draw that dweeb out." The cluster then scooted over to the nearest exit. The doors were closed, but rather than crawl under the mass of arachnids threw itself against them. They lacked the weight and force needed to break through the doors though, so the spiders decided to crawl under after all.
Outside, the bees regathered but became immediately aware that Swarm was in danger. So naturally they came to his defense, spooking Silk who backed away defensively. She shot out more webs to try and restrain them but the swarm was too big. The entirety of the swarm that could move went to Swarm and tore him loose, despite many bees getting caught in the process.
"I don't want to fight you Spider-Girl." Swarm said as he got up. "But if you're going to be in my way I'll just have to take down two targets instead of one."
Silk frowned and improvised a stance. "The name is Silk." She came at him and threw a punch at his face, but the bees intercepted, swarming all over her fist. Silk panicked and pulled back, trying to swat the bees off her but that just spurred them to sting her more.
"Don't like bees do you?" Swarm taunted. "Maybe you just need to be closer." He sent the rest of his swarm at her, covering her like a scene in a horror movie. Silk freaked out and tried her hardest to get the bees away from her, but it wasn't working. Unwilling to take it anymore, she jumped away and webswinged to another building and another, with the swarm leaving her to stay close to Swarm.
Swarm felt proud of himself and looked over the school, seeing the gathered students standing around like it was a fire drill. All had been staring in the direction of Silk's escape, then little by little they turned to the roof she had fled from, where they could see him standing there as the bees gathered back to him.
"Do not fear me everyone, the real monster is inside this school." He announced.
"You just brought a swarm of bees here and made us evacuate the school!" Peter called out.
"Peter don't draw attention to yourself." Mary Jane warned, putting her hand on his arm.
Swarm looked down at Peter. "You know what, I think I need something to lure my prey out. You, go inside the school. Draw out my target, and I'll get rid of him."
"There's no way Peter's going to do that!" Gwen protested.
Swarm held out an arm and his swarm flew to hover just above the students. Many yelled out in fear and crouched or knelt down, while the bees just stayed over them.
"Do it." He ordered.
"Fine, I'll go inside." Peter replied.
"Peter, don't." Mary Jane pleaded.
"I'll be okay. I'm good at getting out of trouble." He assured.
"Not as good as you are at getting into trouble." Flash quipped.
"Seriously man, now is not the time." Harry chided.
Peter stood back up and the bees parted to allow him. He took a deep breath and walked back inside the building. Once inside he ran until he found a restroom and got inside, moving quickly to change into his superhero outfit. He went back out into the empty hall, crawling on the ceiling.
'Okay, this guy says there's something worse inside the school. In the chance he's not wrong, I should check that out, but frankly he's the main threat so I need to take him down first.'
Swarm came down and entered the school too, and right away he saw Spider-Man on the ceiling. "How did you get here so fast?"
"Oh I got here when my apprentice did, you just didn't notice." He quipped. "We spiders like to set up traps for bugs like bees you know."
Spider-Man jumped at him and spun in the air, tackling Swarm to the floor. The bees covered him and stung, but Spider-Man withstood it due to having a more protective costume than Silk had, and webbed Swarm's hands and legs to the floor.
"Don't do this me. You'll only give Carl King a chance to get me."
"Carl King?" Spider-Man repeated. As a regular bully victim he was quite familiar with the thug. But he had to play ignorant to keep his identity secret. "Who's that?"
"A terrible bully that no one here liked. Not even the other bullies. He disappeared, but now he's back, and he can command spiders like I do bees. I came here to get rid of him. Who knows what that creep can do with that kind of power?"
Spider-Man looked concerned but not supportive. "Yet you're the one using your power to put everyone in danger."
"I haven't hurt anyone. Except you and the spider girl and that's only because you're trying to stop me." Swarm objected.
Screams could be heard outside, making both bug-themed costumed teens look to the doors but neither could see anything.
"I bet you anything that's him." Swarm commented.
Outside the school the students were scared and confused. A good majority were glad that just like with fire drills, the New York school district started doing supervillain drills now, but unlike with fire drills in those events the students were allowed to vacate the grounds if the threat was deemed serious enough. And so far the faculty was preventing them from leaving, claiming that the danger would pass.
"Do you think Peter's in danger Harry?" Gwen asked.
Right then, Mary Jane tensed up. She wasn't sure why, but it was like her brain suddenly started shivering inside her skull. Her eyes darted around, looking for some kind of trigger, but she couldn't see anything.
Out of one of the other doors to the school emerged the giant blob of spiders, making students scream and run off regardless of what the teachers were saying. Several of the teachers ran as well. Those that remained backed away and huddled together, seeing the spider blob gather and look bigger in size.
"Right now I'm more worried about us." Harry noted, wanting to run off but there were too many in the way. Plus he didn't want to be accused of abandoning his girlfriend.
The spider mass formed a pillar that arched, almost making it look like a serpent. Then it lashed at the remaining students, exactly like a serpent.
Everyone ran off this time, but in the process many tripped over themselves or others and fell down. Fortunately none of them were trampled. Gwen was one of them who fell, but Harry didn't notice and kept running.
"I got you." Mary Jane said, having noticed and gone back for her. The spiders came at them both since they were easy targets and they froze in fear.
Then webs came from the side and expected to create a sheet of webbing that wrapped around the spiders, stopping those that got caught. The free ones backed away while the trapped ones tried to escape to no avail.
"What the heck?" Carl's voice could be heard, but he still could not be seen.
Spider-Man came into view landing in front of Mary Jane and Gwen, taking a protective stance. "You two get away." He ordered, the others who tripped getting up and running off as well. Several students including Flash remained just outside the school grounds, wanting to see Spider-Man fight the present villain.
"Carl King, wherever you are, come out and face me yourself." Spider-Man demanded while the two girls moved away behind him.
"Stupid little spider, I already have." Carl was heard saying, but Spider-Man still couldn't see him.
The spiders managed to gather together despite the web sheet and soon gathered together to stand in the shape of a person. This collection of arachnids stood and nearly matched Spider-Man in height and build. Nearly in that it looked buffer than Peter Parker but not as buff as Flash Thompson.
"Here I am." The group of spiders said, Carl's voice coming right from the mass.
'Oh crap, a spider version of Sandman.' Spider-Man thought. "What do you want?"
"The only thing I've ever wanted. To have fun."
The spider construct lifted its right arm and fired out countless spiders at Spider-Man exactly how Sandman would attack the aforementioned hero. Spider-Man jumped out of the way and in midair he fired web after web after web at Carl, trying to cover him from spidery head to spidery toe.
"This is your idea of fun? Terrorizing innocent people?" Spider-Man asked.
"Hey if they didn't want to be picked on they should have been tough enough to fight back like me!" Carl argued, collapsing and dispersing before reforming. Numerous spiders were still caught in the webs but much more were free.
"That's your justification?" Spider-Man protested, doing a swing kick just to see what would happen. The results were as expected, the spider pile splattered but reformed, but there were signs of dead spiders on Spider-Man's shoe. "They deserved to suffer because they couldn't stop you from hurting them?"
"If an antelope gets eaten by a lion then isn't it the antelope's own fault for not being fast enough to get away?" Carl insisted, regathering.
A cloud of bees came back into view, swarming over the spider horde and attacking them. Spider-Man saw Swarm himself come outside holding a fire extinguisher. He came up to the clash of arthropods and made the bees back off, giving a clear shot at shooting the extinguisher at the spider mass. Spider-Man and the closest students could hear screams of agony.
"Hey stop!" Spider-Man yelled, coming up to Swarm who ignored him. "We stop villains, we don't torture them!"
"This guy has made people miserable for years! It's time he got a taste of his own medicine!"
Spider-Man webbed the extinguisher, preventing the human hive from using it anymore. "Let him suffer for his crimes the legal way. Torment and abuse him simply because you can, and you're no better than he is."
"Do you think the system will have any effect on him?" Swarm argued. "I've heard of the breakouts at Rykers. There's no prison that can hold this guy. He needs to be eliminated now."
"And what gives you the right to make that decision?" Spider-Man challenged, trying to get Swarm to see reason. "Don't become the bad guy Swarm, you can do good with your power if you try."
"And I'll start by getting rid of him." Swarm insisted, sending his bees back at the spider horde.
Spider-Man reacted by shooting more webs at the bees, but all of a sudden the web shooters went dry. Naturally he tested, and yep they were indeed empty.
"Ah, out of webs?" Swarm taunted, smirking. "So how you going to stop me now?"
"Or me?" Carl asked, gathering what remained of his spiders into a humanoid form, looking ready to cause more harm.
Spider-Man looked from one to the other and back again, then smiled. "Oh I've got one more trick up my sleeve. And here it comes."
Before either opponent could react, webs came from behind them both, ensnaring both of them. They couldn't see it, but Silk showed up behind them.
"About time you came back." Spider-Man remarked.
"Maybe next time you can fight hundreds of bees while essentially naked and see how long you last." She replied.
Swarm struggled but Carl had no trouble. He collapsed, many spiders still trapped, and those free tried to regroup. Spider-Man began stepping on them all, as much as he could, while refilling his web shooters with spare cartridges, and Silk decided to do the same while webbing up those she didn't step on.
"Oh, so you can kill him but I can't?" Swarm asked, bitter. "Maybe Jameson was right about you."
"Okay, I think we've got them all." Silk said, looking at the squirming net of webbing filled with who knows how many spiders.
Spider-Man looked right at Swarm. "I had to kill some spiders, but I was never going to kill him completely. He's contained and that's enough for me. Is that enough for you?"
"He'll get free, and mark my words you'll regret it." Swarm proclaimed.
Spider-Man shrugged. "Maybe, but not as much as I would if I let you kill him."
Police sirens could be heard approaching. Spider-Man used some webbing to make Swarm hang from a tree, making it harder for his bees to free him, and Silk did the same with the net containing what was left of Carl King.
"Make sure the police know what they can do." Spider-Man called out to the remaining students. Mary Jane, Gwen, Harry, and Flash all nodded.
Spider-Man and Silk then got into the air and swung away, disappearing from view as the cops showed up.