Title: Master of Illusion

Spider-Man swung through the cold air that had plagued New York after his fight with Carnage. "That fight with Kasady took a long time, I shouldpay more attention to the city for a little bit.", he thought to himself as he landed on a roof.

"I wonder if I got a little too close to Kasady at Ryker's. I mean, I kinda feel... weird...", Spider-Man looked down to see a red Ooze bleeding from his body. "Oh my god-! NO-! NOOO!", he screamed out in an attempt to remove it, but the bonding process was already halfway done.

"HELP ME! SOMEBODY! No! NO! NOOO-!" He screamed as the Symbiote wrapped around his face, slowly laughing as the costume fully formed. The suit had a much different look to how Cletus/Carnage looked. The body had a much more rough and skin-like appearance with sharp quills around his shoulders, baring a white spider on his face .. "YEESSSSS! I am reborn in BLOOD and AGONY! I am remade into the bringer of DEATH and DESTRUCTION! CHAOS is my only love, and CARNAGE is my name!", the newly dubbed Spider-Carnage exclaimed as his host screamed, before everything went black.

Patrick fell out of his bed, groaning to himself after the nightmare he had. "God that sucks." He said as he got up and examined the outside, there was a bit of a snowstorm... "Goddammit why did I have to make my costume in the Spring? Now I have to incorporate those expensive skintight thermals. Why didn't I do that before?"

Patrick walked to his kitchen and searched his refrigerator for anything edible. "Annnd food run. Add that to my to-do list." He sighed as he slammed his fridge shit. Slipping on his onesie and putting on some warm clothing, he immediately checked his phone to see his professor announced the classes were canceled due to the excessive snow.

"You know when you put your tongue at the side of a ship and it just sticks there?", a dock worker named Steve said holding a cup of coffee. His coworker looked at him confused. "What?"

"Yo! Steve, tell ESU the new hardware for the computer department arrived.", his coworker Kevin said joking up a clipboard before a cloud of green emerged with a man walking out of it.

The man wore a green latex body suit with a gold chests plate with red around his abdominals, along with golden gloves and boots with straps around his thighs and biceps. With a flowing crimson red cape and a large red collar that held a giant bowl. "Gentlemen, the names Mysterio. And I am going to save you from technology."

...

"Are we being punked?", Steve cocked his eyebrow in confusion.

"Be silent, you ignorant fool. Allow me to demonstrate you my power.", Mysterio said as he snapped his fingers, the three men dropping to their knees, exhausted and panting. "Such weak wills, even a dog would put more of a fight. But I can save you, technology has ripped your souls away.", he said as green fires formed around him, disappearing into thin air along with the hardware crates.

Patrick was sitting in a café, sipping a cup of coffee as he worked on assignments for his professor Curt Connors, who signed up to be a professor a year ago. The assignments weren't too much but weren't too little. Even then he finished them without a problem.

"I should set up a tinder bio.", Patrick sarcastically whispered to himself. Rubbing his temple annoyed, finished the rest of his coffee, packed up his stuff and left the café.

On Manhattan Bridge, the green cloud of dust emerged as Mysterio walked out of that cloud. "Such an unfortunate turn of events that the natural progress that banish old arts.", he said as he was in front of an armored vehicle.

"Hey how about we banish you?", Two New Yorker had got out of their car, one with a crowbar for some reason.

"Okay then.", Mysterio said as the green cloud engulfed him, a transparent dragon flew out and roared at the men. Who screamed and started running, anyone who wanted to go and bash his skull in immediately got back in their cars as the two men tripped, looking on in terror as the dragon vanished.

"Wow, cool trick. And I bet the cheesy magician act really goes well with the tourist.", Mysterio looked up to see Spider-Man hanging upside down.

"You dare call me a magician?", Mysterio sounded a bit offended as Spider-Man leapt from his perch and behind him, he turned and looked at him. "Fool. Mysterio is no magician playing parlor tricks, Mysterio is the master of the Archean Arts!", right as he said this, he summoned green lightening that looked out of place in the snow.

"And Mysterio is the master at talking about himself in the third person.", Spider-Man shot back unimpressed by him.

"Then we will find out!", Mysterio thrusted his hand out, causing Spider-Man to lose balance and get on his knees. With the former forming a sharpened blade, raising it above him before it was shot out of his hand by an impact web from Spider-Man. "Hmm. Impressive, you got a strong will kid. If you're ever interested in the spiritual, you would make an amazing foe. But right now?", he summoned his green cloud and shot electricity at him, sending Spider-Man flying back and into a taxi.

Mysterio walked up to the man in the vehicle. "You have one chance to leave and abandon your cargo."

"Uhhhh... no?", the driver said as he wasn't willing to leave and get electrocuted.

"Have it your way.", Mysterio sighed as he lifted the truck and lifted it above the cold waters. "Hands slipped.", he grinned under his bowl head and dropped the truck into the water.

Spider-Man regained his posture and leapt after the truck, swan diving into the water and immediately screeched internally. "Cold! Cold! Cold! Okay. That woke me up!", he screamed as he swam after the truck, ripping off the door and swimming up with the man in his hands.

The two managed to make it to the surface, still freezing cold and could maybe get frost bite. Spider-Man just sneezed twice in two seconds.

Patrick was back in his apartment, his heater up to the max while he was wearing a sweater. He was simply watching tutorials about magic tricks to see what's it all about. "Misdirection, huh... what'dya know?", he said as he sneezed again.

He switched to the tabs about the recent attack at Manhattan bridge. "How do you blame it all on Spider-Man in the first place?", Patrick exhaled as Jameson had a habit of basically twisting the truth in 50 different ways.

Donald Menken put his phone back in his pocket. "Mister Osborn is coming, let's deal with him.", Menken said to a security guard as he cocked his gun.

The two broke into one of the special weaponry rooms, seeing the green smoke slithering around the room as Mysterio looked at them, appearing menacing as a skull formed. "Sleep.", he whispered, the two men fell to the ground as he turned back. Snapping his fingers, the weapon behind him exploded into green fire and bursted through the roof.

Mysterio looked back as three more security guards ran in, before being swarmed by flying serpents, shooting at them but they simply phased straight through them. "You can't kill Serpents like them, they're above any thing mortals like you can produce.", he turned around as soon as he heard a sneeze.

"Don't mind me, it's freezing out there.", Spider-Man playfully waved at him, sneezing again as Mysterio attempted to blast him, in which he leapt away skillfully. "So what did I miss? Besides getting tagged with one of your will weakening spells?"

"Nothing much. Besides, I saved the best for last.", Mysterio said as he conjured purple gremlins out of green energy, the swarm flew at him.

Spider-Man put up his arms as they started to slice at his costume. "Hey! Watch the threads I'm cold enough!", he yelped as he saw one of the bats bite his ankle. "You little-", he kicked it off and was carried by the others, lifting him around before one was kicked away and disappeared into green gas. "That's some retirement plan."

Spider-Man grinned as he managed to free himself, using his impact webbing to destroy four of them. Swinging around as he did threw some into others as green fire started to grow where Mysterio had been standing. "Ooookay.", he exhaled as he trapped all of them in webbing.

One of them looked down and got grabbed by a web strand. "Oh come on!", it shrieked as it was dragged into Spider-Man's palm.

Spider-Man looked at the gremlin in his hand as it was letting off a slight bit of electricity. "Oh you hypocrite.", he chuckled at the sheer irony. Throwing it into the others that had escaped. "Now to take care of your manager.", he said as he leapt off, the gremlins grabbing him before he could shoot a web.

"My work is done.", Mysterio claimed as he waved him goodbye, vanishing into a green cloud. The gremlins and serpents vanished along with him.

"Let's see if I'm wrong here, if not, well at least I go out warm.", Spider-Man dove into the green fire as it and the weapon was taken, along with him.

Mysterio's cloud of green smoke flew into an abandoned theater. Vanishing as the weapon he stole was being carried by a large drone with the use of a cable he stole from Oscorp. He stood on it as it gently lowered him down onto the stage.

Mysterio jumped off and walked to the backstage, taking off his helmet. "And for my next trick.", he muttered to himself as he popped his neck.

Spider-Man leapt off the weapon that was stolen, looking around as he shook his head. "Oh you sick sick man.", he said as he walked to backstage, sneezing which blew away his cover. A smoke bomb exploded as Mysterio cackled.

"Say, do you think I should add Latin into my shtick?", Mysterio asked him as he was in his ship. He said as a mechanical arm grabbed him and threw him into an active fan. In which was backfired as Spider-Man broke free from the cable and threw it inside the fan. Leaping away as the hovercraft was yanked into the fan.

Spider-Man simply crossed his arms as a train went straight through him. "Nice try, I know you use this smoke to create illusions.", he said with a snicker.

"Yeah. But what is illusion and what is reality?", Mysterio asked as boxing gloves flew past him. Spider-Man got punched twice but managed to destroy the gloves. But in response was trapped into a ring of green fire, a tiger and dragon circled him. "There are many threats to life and limb... but which one is real?"

"Only one way to find out.", Spider-Man said as he created a blindfold from his webbing, wrapping it around his eyes. "Let my Spider sense and awareness guide me.", he exhaled as he ignored the roar of the tiger, it jumping right past him as Spider-Man dodged a flying axe. His Spider sense and environmental awareness alerted him of something else. And using this, he leapt into a robotic bear and ripped off its head, throwing it away and laughing.

"To the non-blindfolded, I'm sure this looks entertaining.", Spider-Man's spider-sense triggered. He dodged explosive darts coming from a multitude of tiki heads. "Effective? Not so much.", he said as he shut the mouths of the tiki heads with impact webbing. Landing on his feet and ripping away the blindfold. "Okay, let's finish this."

"As you wish.", Mysterio said as multiple Mysterio's formed, surrounding him.

"Didn't we just go over that your illusions won't work on me anymore?", Spider-Man shook his head.

"So we did!", the Mysterio's started charging at him, Spider-Man in response dodged and countered their attacks with. He shot a web strand and swung away, but one of them grabbed him by the ankle, changing his direction to a parlor that was just... there.

Kicking the Mysterio clone away, Spider-Man jumped into the chandelier and into the wooden beams, web swinging as he kicked a Mysterio's head off. "Robots... cool.", he said as he fended off against the Mysterio-Bots, ripping their limbs away effortlessly, but he was smacked by a glass bottle and was kicked back not an alien stage.

The last three Mysterio-Bots walked up to him. "Always wanted to fight robots.", Spider-Man chuckled as he grabbed one of them and swung them into the others, throughly destroying all but one. Which just lacked its right arm, head and legs. "What're you gonna do bite my ankles? Oh wait! You can't!", his eyes traveled up to the stage as the real Mysterio was walking back stage. "Ohhh, that's rude.", he chuckled as he threw the broken bot into the air, jumping up after it and swing kicking it into the backstage, which exploded into green gas.

Mysterio had leapt out of the way with blueprints in hand. Spider-Man hung upside down in front of him. "You little-!" He was about to cast his spell, in which had his glove ripped away.

"Magic spell in the form of a colorless, odorless gas that send me to my knees? Anyways, I'm good.", Spider-Man chuckled as he looked at the palm. "Nice, built in remote control.", Mysterio-Bots started to walk towards him, before the remote control was destroyed. "Well, I'm done."

"Fine, you win.", Mysterio said as he took off his helmet and tossed it off somewhere else. He was Caucasian, had brown hair and a full beard with green eyes. "Now you know, it's Quintin Beck."

Spider-Man cocked his head. "... who?"

"Quintin Beck. Y'know the guy who did the CGI for the Marc Webb Amazing Ricochet duology?" Quintin explained as Spider-Man nodded.

"Oh wow, I gotta say they're pretty awesome. Second movie was... okay, I guess?", Spider-Man said as he webbed up Quintin's wrist together. Sneezing again.

Patrick hung up his suit as he plopped down on his mattress, yawning as he got a call. "Oh c'mon.", he sat up as it was from... Tony Stark. He answered it and held it to his ear.

[Mister Parker, I apologize for the sudden call. So, how are you doing these days?]

"I'm fine Doctor Connors, whats sup?"

[As you know, I'm a professor for ESU and am currently occupying their lab. And I was wondering if you'd be interested in an internship.]

"What?", Patrick asked shocked.

[Well, you managed to crack the GR-3313 formula when your uncle and a I couldn't. I want you to put that genius besides something like that and your current situation.]

Patrick thought on it, if he took the job then that means he could use the labs more freely with someone whose aware of his identity, but then again it Connors does relapse, he'll be in trouble. "Okay, when are we meeting?"

A very hefty man in his late thirties walked into the theater. Looking around for anymore cops. "Alright, they're gone."

Quintin crawled out of a hatch in the wooden floor, wearing just casual clothing. Stretching his back and letting out a yawn.

"The hell man? Why make the Android look exactly like you?", the Tinkerer asked his partner in crime.

"Cuz I wanted to take credit as Mysterio. Duh.", Quintin said with a little chuckle. "I'm an actor, gotta do something."

"Asshole.", Tinkerer rolled his eyes as he called in his boss. "Alright doc, the Spider has come and gone along with the cops. They didn't discover jack shit, so the stuff Mysterio stolen is still here."

[Excellent, everything proceeds according to the plan.]

/End/