Chapter 7: Capture the Flag! Part 1
September 20th 20XX, 20 minutes before Heroics class.
Narrator's POV
Peter Parker sat at his desk, leaning his head in his hand as the exhaustion of the week started to kick in. He would never admit it, but the week he just went through left him pretty drained.
The first day was easy enough, nearly got injured twice, and got his ass kicked by Laura. He spent the second and third days working on web formulas and suit materials with Riri and Shuri, which may or may not have ended in an explosion.
The 4th day was a bit harder since Deadpool gave a total of 13 pages of homework, along with a pop quiz. he also found out that Wolverine was his history teacher, he needed a substitute for the start of the week apparently, and kept giving him death stares when he talked to Laura.
It was Friday now, he and his class were currently in homeroom waiting for a mystery pro hero to show up, a pro hero that would teach heroics class for the rest of the year.
Peter was thinking it'd be something like Nick Fury, he may be running a government organization but he was sure that man could multi-task.
"Hey, Peter" Pietro spoke from beside him "Who do you think that mystery teacher's gonna be? I bet it'll be an avenger! Oh wait, maybe an X-Men, Clayton thinks it'll be captain marvel or something." He rambled.
"I thought it would be like, wolverine but then he showed up as a history teacher, which is cool since hes 100 years old or something. By the way, doesn't he seem to... hate me?" Peter responded.
"Yeah, he keeps glaring at you, kinda how that helmet kid does" Clayton commented. The 3 boys collectively turned their heads to look to the other side of the room and found Samuel Alexander sending Peter death stares.
"I still don't know what I did! How could anyone even hate me?" The brunette said as he dropped his head to his desk.
"It probably has to do with how much you talk, you tend to not shut up," Laura said, looking back at the boys from her chair.
"Yeah, she's got a point!" Pietro said as he laughed.
Now that Peter thought about it, back when he was keeping his secret identity, he kept Spider-Man's personality separate from his own, but since he started at M.A, they've melded together. He didn't know what to think about it.
"Hey, you're wolverine's love child or something, right? Why does he hate Peter so much?" Clayton asked, turning to the girl
Laura thought for a moment as she brought her hand up to her chin, her eyes widening slightly, then squinting in an intimidating matter.
"...I'm not sure." She responded, her expression not changing.
'Oh, she knows something... maybe my wolverette theory is true!' Peter smiled to himself.
"Hey, Laura, who do you-" Peter was promptly cut off by the classroom door opening, and a red, white, and blue-clad man walking in.
The class stopped in their tracks, and all was silent. They could hear the patriotic music in their heads as the man stood in front of the class.
Captain America, the first avenger, looked the teens over as if they were at a Bootcamp.
"At attention, soldiers! Today will be the hardest day so far, for you will be doing..."
He paused and tapped a button on the desk, the words 'COMBAT TRAINING' appeared in front of the room.
"Combat training!" The avenger announced, sporting what might have been the most patriotic smile Peter had ever seen.
The silence was broken by multiple people cheering, expressing their excitement to start learning how to fight villains.
"Holy shit." Clayton quietly spoke, barely being heard over the cheers of his classmates.
Peter leaned over to Laura and asked "Isn't he a nazi or something? Or does no one remember that?"
"That was hydra... apparently. And yes, people tend to ignore it." She replied, not even looking at him.
The hero's expression seemed to fall for a moment, apparently having heard the exchange, but quickly recovered before he made a new announcement.
"But you cannot fight villains in school uniforms! For clothes make the hero, therefore you shall need..." He paused dramatically, as robots carrying suitcases with the student's names on them hovered into the room.
"Costumes!" He finished, earning even louder cheers and howls from the kids.
Peter, on the other hand, was a bit sad at the mention.
Since Shuri was now technically in charge of his support gear and costumes, she made Stark industries scrap his suit in favor of an upgraded one she designed.
She then told him 'I'm sorry, but a hero needs only the best! I made you a temporary suit, for now, so don't worry about that!' as a form of consolation.
The robots went down the aisle of desks, handing each student their designated suitcase that had their very own costume.
"Alright then! If you will, go get changed into your costumes and meet me in ground beta for training!" And with that, the man walked out of the room, the robots following after him.
Peter grabbed his suitcase and walked off to the changing rooms along with his class.
He had many things going through his mind, he trusted Shuri but he didn't know what type of costume she'd made, but it couldn't be that bad, right?
Peter stood in the changing room, most of his classmates were starting to freak out over their own suits, he has to admit some looked really cool.
The brunette took a deep breath, and the world seemed to stand still as he slowly unlocked his suitcase.
With a satisfying click, the suitcase opened, revealing Peter's new Spider-Man suit. He looked it over for a good second.
He let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding, and he smiled.
10 Minutes later, Ground Beta observation room.
In the observation room that overlooked the faux city known as ground beta, a man dressed in red, white, and blue stood waiting, with a shield at the ready.
A minute later, one could hear footsteps drawing closer, with voices being heard talking to each other as they approached the room.
A proud smile started to grow on his face.
Steve Rogers was most commonly thought to be the first pro hero, and when he was defrosted 10 years ago, he felt that it was his responsibility to teach the next generation of heroes.
From the entrance, class 1-A appeared, dawning their very first hero suits, a monumental moment in any hero's career.
He remembered his first costume, it was a great memory when he received it, even if it was in the middle of a world war. The shield was the thing he remembered more fondly.
Peter himself felt good in his new costume, he had to thank Shuri the next time he saw her.
He was wearing an updated, tactical version of his original homemade suit, minus the mask. It had built-in padding for protection and was made out of a durable material that was way better than the cloth he used to use. It could easily blend into a crowd since it looked like regular clothes.
The design hadn't changed much, the symbol was now white, and spanned most of the front of the hoodie, and his web-shooters were the new MK 4 design, it had a carousel system so he didn't have to reload as much and he had a utility belt with web cartridges under the hoodie.
"Hey! 1-B is here too! What are you guys doing here?!" Kamala asked aloud, making all the students of 1-A turn to face their sister class, dawning their own hero costumes.
Captain America laughed at the teen's surprise and decided to finally let the students know what type of exercise they'd be doing.
"Welcome, students! You all must be wondering what we will be doing! But fi-" The man was cut off by the room being flooded with questions.
"How much force can we use?"
"Will we be fighting robots again?"
"Is this for a grade?"
"Aren't you and black widow dating?"
"Alright! Relax, I don't have super hearing! yikes..." He started, making everyone stop talking and look at him with expectancy.
"Ok, one at a time." The avenger said, after seeing a hand raised, he decided to answer their question. "Yes, Miss Williams!"
Peter turned to Riri and was amazed at what her costume was. She was wearing a sleeker, toned-down version of the iron man armor, arc reactor and all.
"Hey, so I'm pretty sure this is one of those fake cities from the entrance exam, are we doing urban battles or something?" She asked.
The hero perked up at the girl and said "Very observant! As you know, most of the time a villain battle is televised it happens outside, correct?"
"Yeah" The class echoed.
"But statistically, most engagements with villains happen inside closed doors, things like hostage situations, backroom deals, and armed robberies. So today, we'll be working on combat indoors!"
The class gasped and cheered, showing their excitement for the exercise, making the hero smirk. they had a good batch this year.
"There are 30 of you today, you will be split into 6 teams of 5 and be assigned as a hero or a villain! Villains will be inside of the buildings protecting a dummy that will act as a hostage, heroes will have to go in, recover the hostage and take it to the safe zone outside." He announced, earning more cheers from the teens.
"Wait, how will the teams be assigned? is it randomly?" The kid with the tribal tattoos from 1-B asked.
"No, but as you know most of you barely know each other. You shall have to trust your judgment when making your team of five with people you trust. Heroes and Villains will be assigned randomly. You have 2 minutes, heroes don't get long to gauge someone's abilities, go!" He said, sending the class into a blitz.
Peter had to hide his excitement, while he had fought villains before, it was cool hed be able to team up with friends and fight other people in a controlled environment where he couldn't, you know, die and all.
"Peter" A voice called out, a voice bringing to none other than Laura. she had Pietro and who he thought was Clayton behind her.
Laura was wearing a black shirt that left her abdomen uncovered, while having a black jacket over it. She had black pants and a yellow belt that had a red X around a circle in the front. And to top it off she had black combat boots and gloves that reached up to her forearm.
Pietro was wearing a silver and blue tracksuit you'd see a professional runner wearing, along with a silver jacket and goggles. Seemed to be more practical than flashy.
Clayton was wearing a full-body black and white suit, it had a sonar design that branched out from his abdomen and had yellow lenses. He had a barely noticeable utility belt with what Peter assumed to be his support gear and pads in his palms.
"Oh, hey! what's up, guys? Wow, you guys look amazing!" He complimented his group of friends on their costumes.
Peter felt like his friends had some of the coolest costumes he'd ever seen, Pietro's Looked really practical, Clayton's went along with his sonar motif and laura's seemed exactly how he imagined her costume would look like.
'Although it doesn't leave a lot to the imagina- FOCUS PARKER!' He shook the thoughts away and turned back to his friends.
"Dude, your costume looks great! Even though I thought you'd use the one from the news." Pietro said.
"Yeah, the support student who said will make my costume better made the company scrap the whole thing for a new thing she designed, she gave me this one though!"
"It looks very practical, but we are here to ask you to be a team since we all know each other," Laura said with a stoic expression.
"Yeah, first thing Laura said was that we should team up with you, when'd you get all close like that?" Clayton said as he chuckled, only to be roughly elbowed by Laura who was looking away.
"Awww! I knew you cared! You're just a softie somewhere in there, hu-OW!" Peter tried to pat the shorter girl on the head, only for her to stomp on his foot and give off a growl.
Peter noticed she was slightly flushed, he didn't know why though.
'She can growl...?' The three teens thought simultaneously.
"Alright! Laura denying that she likes us aside!" Pietro started, using his quirk to avoid a jab to the gut by Laura, "We still need a fifth teammate, and most people are on teams now." He finished.
Peter looked around the room, Kamala was in a team with Amadeus, that squirrel girl, bucket head, and... was that Wanda?
Flash was in a team with Liz, Danny, Luke, and Gwen. Wait, did Gwen have guns and a sword?
And Riri was in a team with bobby, Kitty, a girl wearing a white jumpsuit, and a guy with a cloak.
"Damn, everyone I know is in a team already..." Clayton said with a sigh.
But Peter knew how these things work.
"Alright, according to good old Parker luck, someone we don't know should show up and join us. That's wha-"
"Hey, guys!" Someone called out over the room's chatter.
The group collectively turned around to see a girl, an inch shorter than Laura with shoulder-length black hair wearing black pants, a black belt with pouches, combat boots, and gloves, and a purple jacket and shirt, black vest, aviator glasses, and forearm guards jogging towards them.
When she got closer they saw that she had a purple quilt full of arrows on her back, a purple bow over her shoulder, and a sword with a black hilt on her hip.
"What's up? I saw you guys were missing a teammate and decided to drop by, sorry if I didn't bring a resume. Kate Bishop, at your service!" She said with an extended hand towards the group and a confident grin.
The teens looked at her for a second, before Peter shrugged and shook her hand.
"Welcome aboard! What brings you here, by the way?" Peter asked as he shook her hand.
"You guys seemed cool, and im pretty sure all of you placed high on the exam, right? So I decided to join your little group, you guys got T-Shirts?"
"I'm still making our logo, branding can be annoying you kn-OW!" The brunette was cut off mid joke by an elbow to the side and a stomp to the foot from Laura.
Kate chuckled at the exchange, "Oh, you guys are so cute together!" This earned a confused look from Peter and a slightly flushed expression from Laura.
Before their conversation could go on, a timer sounded off, making everyone look towards the front of the room where Captain America stood with a satisfied smile.
"Good job on choosing your teammates, soldiers! A lot of your quirks seem to synergize well with each other. Let's look at the teams!" He pressed a promote in his hand, and a holographic screen appeared in front of them.
Team #1: Kamala Khan, Amadeus Cho, Samuel Alexander, Wanda Maximoff, and Doreen Green.
Team #2: Robbie Reyes, Sol Hee, Azari T'challa, Ava Ayala, and Nico Minoru.
Team #3: Peter Parker, Laura Kinney, Pietro Maximoff, Clayton Cole, and Katherine Bishop.
Team #4: Bobby Drake, Kitty Pryde, Riri Williams, Randy Bowen, and Tyrone Johnson.
Team #5: Liz Allen, Eugene Thompson, Gwendolyn Poole, Luke Cage, and Daniel Rand.
Team #6: Glob Herman, Kei Kawade, Cassie Lang, David Alleyne, and Illyana Rasputina.
Some people hyped themselves up at the mention of their teams, and others decided to stake out the competition.
Peter himself was joking around with his group, trying to get himself relaxed so he'd fight better when it was time, and Kate joined him in messing around.
"You never know who will be a villain when you meet them, so let's see which team will play what role!" He pressed the button again, and the scoreboard started to change while it randomized the matchups.
Heroes Team #2 VS. Villains Team #5
Heroes Team #3 VS. Villains Team #1
Heroes Team #4 VS. Villains Team #6
Peter felt his spider-sense go off slightly, alerting him to something behind him. He turned around to see Sam staring at him while he made a throat-slitting gesture with a smirk.
"Hey, what's his problem?" Kate asked as she noticed Sam.
"He kinda just does that to Peter, we still don't know why," Clayton said as he shrugged.
"You guys at 1-A sure are a wacky bunch, hug?" She said in a joking tone.
"Eh, most of us are normal. How're things like over at 1-B?" Peter asked with a slight chuckle
"It's cool, they're pretty normal. The most interesting ones are that one weird short kid who draws a lot and that Wanda girl, I've tried to talk to her before but she seems super uncomfortable so I just leave her alone." Kate responded.
The group all noticed how Pietro's expression fell, as if a sense of guilt washed over him. Peter would make sure to ask about that later.
"Teams #2 and #5, Please report down to the testing grounds! The villain team will have 5 minutes to prepare their defenses of the hostage and a map of the building layout, both teams will have earpieces for communication with both me and their teammates! Move out!" Captain America announced, making the teams for the first match exit the observation room.
"For those still here, we'll be able to watch the match as it happens through cameras in the building, please pay attention for you can learn many things from watching your peers in action!"
The holographic screen disappeared and a large TV screen on the wall turned on, showing a live feed of the match.
5 minutes passed with the classes talking to each other about how they thought the matches would go until a blaring horn signaling the end of the prep time rung out.
Captain America grabbed a microphone that was sitting in a control panel in front of the screen and started the exercise.
"BATTLE TRIAL NUMBER 1, BEGIN!"
(Hey! We finally made it to the battle trial arc! I was thinking of just doing the 2v2 from the original anime but decided to change it up a bit, and give some of the 1-B characters a chance to shine! I was gonna just skip the first trial but I think I'll write that one to flesh out the characters. Let me know what you wanna see next!)