A Spider's Big Four

Chapter 06

Chimeras and Phantoms

Truth be told, Peter always did wonder how much that spider bite changed his biology. Cause he was pretty sure anyone else's blood would rush to their heads if they had been hanging upside down for the past 5 minutes like he has.

Maybe it was a spider thing, you know?

Man, it was kinda concerning how he only understood his quirk in the most basic levels now that he thought about it.

He'll watch a documentary on spiders later or something.

"Uh, Parker-Kun?" Hado's voice broke him out of his thoughts, he turned his head to the side and saw how she was right side up.

Wait, that wasn't right.

"Huh? What are you doing?" Behind his goggles, Peter raised his eyebrow slightly while he rolled his wrist.

"You've been hanging upside down and cupping your chin for the past couple of minutes! It got boring not talking so I tried to see how it felt like! Kinda woozy."

With a small laugh that didn't feel as happy as she normally is, the girl turned right side up in the air and landed on the ground.

Oh, he hadn't been talking, had he?

They should probably plan or something.

Before Peter could speak, Hado decided to cut him off.

"Hey, are you mad at me?"

Peter paused at that.

What?

She sounded... incredibly guilty.

The tone of her voice made Peter feel bad even if he hadn't done anything.

"Sometimes I uh, ask or say stuff without actually thinking and make people feel bad, you know? It's a bad habit and all." She sighed, sitting on the curb they were by. "Sorry if made you feel bad when I pointed out how you looked tired and all, I didn't mean it."

Frowning under the mask, Peter did a flip and landed next to his partner, quickly sitting down on the curb next to her.

He had never actually seen her look... anything but happy, not that he thought about it. In the few months they've known each other, she's normally being a ball of energy and enthusiasm.

It was weird seeing her like that, you know? He'd have to do something about it.

"It's fine, you didn't mean anything by it." Taking off his mask, Peter gave the frowning girl a small smile. "No one had ever pointed it out or anything, I guess I didn't even know I was self-conscious about it."

They sat in silence for a bit, Peter checking his phone to see they still had 3 minutes left of prep time.

"Trouble sleeping?" She asked, making Peter pocket the device and look at her.

"Say that again?"

"I asked if you had trouble sleeping and stuff, is that why you look so tired?"

His gloved hand unconsciously touched the bags under his eyes as he looked at the building across the street, he could see the occasional silhouette passing by the different floors.

Whoever it was must be moving around fast, he'd have to remember that.

"Remember how I told you about the stuff I used to do? When we met at the beach?" Hado nodded instantly. "That uh, kinda messed me up in a couple of ways I'm still trying to figure out how to fix; my sleep schedule is a huge mess, and I'm still trying to de-stress after all of that."

That felt like a good enough explanation, no need to get into the few nightmares he's been having lately.

Hado made a small hum as she cupped her chin before suddenly snapping her fingers.

"I know! I'll help you out!" Cheerily, she beamed a smile at him while Peter looked at her in confusion.

"Help me with what?"

"You said you had trouble getting rest cause of how stressed you still are over your vigilante thing, right? And how you're still trying to figure out how to deal with it messing up your sleep schedule?" She asked, Peter gave a small nod and let her go on.

What was she getting it?

Also, how could someone smile so brightly like that? Can people just do that?

"I'll help you relax the best I can! We could try to go hang out and have fun so you're not like, sulking and brooding all day, you know? It's the least I can do for making you feel bad earlier, anyway."

Peter blinked at her for a couple of seconds.

He had never really had friends growing up, given how he was quirkless and liked to stick by himself. By the time he did get his quirk, being Spider-Man took up most of his time so he didn't try to socialize even though he easily could.

So you can understand why he was so confused right now.

Having someone so eager to help you out when you need it and that wanted to hang out with you was... unfamiliar.

A smile began to spread itself across his lips, his eyes softening as he looked at the girl.

It wasn't that bad though.

"I'd... like that, actually." The girl smiled wider and pumped her fist in the air, shooting off the ground and doing a quick loop before coming back down.

When she landed, she looked at him with an expression filled with positivity and happiness as she grinned in accomplishment.

A small feeling of warmth spread across his chest as he looked at her, Peter decided to ignore it and stand up now that they had talked things out.

"Hey, let's talk about this stuff later, alright? We gotta go beat up Amajiki and Togata in a bit." He put the red mask over his face, quickly putting on the goggles and letting the lenses widen and squint to adjust

By his count, they should 1-2 more minutes before the exercise started.

It should be enough.

"Oh, right! Hey, do you have a plan? I can try to come up with that but I'm better on the fly and stuff." She bounced up to her feet, hopping from foot to foot next to Peter in excitement.

"Well, they're probably on the higher floors since that's where most hostages are kept, I'd say either the sixth or seventh floor." Peter cupped his chin, quickly hopping up to the lamppost and hanging upside down from it on a web.

Weirdly enough, it was easier to think that way sometimes.

"Amajiki said his quirk lets him manifest properties from the stuff he eats, so far I've only seen him do that with animal parts but it may go beyond that, and it most likely only lasts as long as it is in his system. You know how some transformation and emitter quirks change the body to better use the quirk and stuff?" Peter looked at Hado, who had hovered up to his level.

"My body is a bit more durable than normal since it's adapted to the recoil of my blasts, something like that?" The girl titled her head, Peter snapped his fingers and smiled under the mask.

"Yeah! So, maybe his stomach takes longer to digest or keeps stuff in his system for longer so he can manifest food more often, right? That means that waiting his quirk out is out of the picture."

Peter hummed and narrowed his eyes in thought before looking at Hado again.

"He only seems to be able to do one manifestation at a time from what I've seen even if he has multiple at his disposable, so the plan would be to try and overwhelm him to the point he can't switch fast enough and take him out, sound good?"

Amajiki probably had the most versatility out of all of them, but he could only do one thing at a time no matter what.

Peter was planning on exploiting that.

"Sound good! I can probably keep him at a range but he has those tentacles he can make, so maybe you'd be better suited for it. Wait, what do we do with Togata-Kun? Doesn't he have some sort of warping quirk? He didn't tell me what it was when we met at the exam." The girl asked him.

Peter thought about it for a moment, remembering how Togata had sunk into the ground the day before and how he said his costume was made out of his hair so it wouldn't fall off.

"It has to be some sort of phasing! Remember how he sunk into the ground during the race yesterday and popped up at the end of the track without clothes?"

The girl hovering quickly thought about it before nodding.

"I think he phased through matter, and gravity took effect on him and pulled him down since he still had mass! Sounds freaky." Peter deduced, earning a thoughtful look from Hado as she looked at the building.

"Then how did he pop back out?"

"Well, matter can't overlap, right?" Hado nodded at his question. "Well, in theory, if he were to materialize while in the ground, he would be repelled and shot outwards! But if he still has a major weakness."

"Wait! If he phases through his clothes and the ground, then he has to phase through everything!" Hado put her fist on her open palm.

Man, it was nice to plan with someone who could follow along for once.

Crawler was the most teamwork he has done, and the guy couldn't follow along too well.

"Yeah! That means he goes through stuff like sound, air, and light! It'll be like falling in an endless void! Woah, that sounds super scary now that I think about it."

"Yeah, but it's still cool! Wait, how do we counter him? We can't really know where he pops out from."

Peter couldn't help the smirk that appeared on his lips.

His spider-sense really was great.

"Remember when I told I had a sixth sense back at the beach?"

The boy grinned at seeing the girl's eyes widen in realization.

"Yeah! You could use it to predict when he comes from! Awesome!" The girl pumped her fist in the air before doing a barrel roll in excitement and landing back on the ground, with Peter doing the same with an elegant flip.

Peter reached into his belt and checked his phone, should be about a minute and a half before it starts.

"You go for Amajiki and I go for Togata, deal? Best case scenario we capture them both and if things get messy we can just grab the dummy and run." Peter held out his fist toward the shorter girl.

Almost immediately, she returned the gesture and smiled widely at him. "Deal! Let's do our best!"

Peter grinned back, ignoring the feeling of warmth that swirled in his chest at seeing her smile.

He'd figure that out later.

Probably.

"Let's do spectacular!"

The two stood there and watched the building with determination, Hado hopping from foot to foot while her hair swirled at the movement while Peter double-checked his web-shooters and rolled his shoulder in preparation.

Instead of a siren telling them to begin, the next thing they knew a blur suddenly appeared before them in a cloud of dust.

All Might gave them a small smile as he shoved something into their hands. "These are communicators and capture tape! Use them accordingly and I apologize for forgetting to give them to you! Good luck!"

Peter and Hado stared at the earpiece and the roll of tape in their hand before All Might dashed into the building at blinding speeds, loudly telling the other two students the same thing and dashing back toward the control room.

They stood in silence simply staring at the objects in their hand before they simply put on the communicators and put away the tape.

"He's... not that good at teaching, is he?" Hado gave a small laugh, Peter only nodded in agreement.

"Did you see him reading that 'Teaching for dummies' book in the control room?"

"Wait, seriously? I thought that was a joke that Nezu made! D-"

"YOU MAY ALL BEGIN! GOOD LUCK STUDENTS!"

All Might's voice blared in their ears, making the two wince.

Without hesitation, the two teens headed toward the side of the building and started to go up to the windows in their own ways; Hado flying up at a pace Peter could keep up with while Peter crawled along the wall.

It'd be faster if he was running up the wall instead but he was still working on that.

Who knows? Maybe he'd have it down if scarf man had arrested him a month later.

Was he still a bit bitter about that? Maybe.

Peter and Hado went up the outside of the building until reaching a window on the sixth floor, boarded up with old wooden planks and rusted nails just like every other window that wasn't in the front .

Man, UA really went all out on making this look like a villain hideout!

"Uh, Hado?" Peter crawled next to the window, turning back to face his partner who was floating beside him with a determined expression. "How do we wanna go into the building? Stealthy or loud?"

Once she heard what he said, the girl cupped her chin for a couple of seconds while giving a small hum.

Peter couldn't help but think that she looked like a puppy trying to act serious.

"Loud! If this was a real thing then it'd be good to lure villains away from the hostage, right? And we wouldn't be at too much of a disadvantage if we announce our position since you got that sixth sense thingy going on!" She responded, backing up away from the window and thrusting her hands forward while smiling.

Peter thought about what she said for a second.

It was not that bad of a reason, they couldn't possibly kill the hostage given the fact that it was an exercise, and luring Togata and Amajiki to them to take them out would make it go by that much faster.

Crawling to the side and away from the window they were by, Peter watched as small spirals of golden energy appeared at Hado's palms before growing in size and shooting forward at the window, pushing the girl back a couple of feet and destroying the window.

Man, he wished he had a flashy quirk like that.

His partner gave him a grin and a thumbs-up, he nodded and started to crawl into the building with her close behind. The room they were in was grey and barren of any sort of decoration, Peter guessed it'd be like that for the rest of the building.

Kinda reminded him of the old warehouses he would crash drug deals in.

Ah, good times.

Except for those 3 or 4 times that he got shot.

Those weren't good times.

At least he wasn't gonna be getting shot in the exercise.

Hopefully.

Silently, they walked out of the empty room and into the grey hallway, the corridors seeming to stretch endlessly before turning a corner.

"Hey, did All Might give us a floorplan or a map anything?" Peter asked, already crawling down the corridor's ceiling while Hado floated slightly behind.

"I... don't think so? He kinda just showed up 2 minutes before we started, gave us the tape and the comms, and dashed off!"

Oh.

So they were just wandering around a maze of a 10 story building blindly while hoping to find the dummy?

Great.

Rolling his eyes, Peter simply continued crawling with Hado behind. "Guess we just have to wander around... At least I'm pretty sure they're on the 6th or 7th floor."

Two minutes passed by, the two had just finished searching the 6th floor and found absolutely nothing but more empty and grey rooms. The only thing good to come out of it was that they had found the stairs halfway through.

Peter had to admit.

This was kinda boring.

As the two went up the stairs that would lead them to the 7th floor, Peter couldn't help but feel slightly underwhelmed at the lack of actual combat going on, you know?

From what he knew of Amajiki, the guy probably wouldn't seek out a straight confrontation with them; Togata seemed like he would try to play it smart and sneak up on them.

"Hey, do you think they'll show up?" Hado asked, the girl idly floating by his side as they stepped foot on the 7th floor.

"To be honest? I don't even know. U was hoping they w-" As Pete turned to face her, a buzzing in the back of his skull stopped him mid-sentence.

Spinning back around, Peter's lenses narrowed at seeing a form phase through one of the walls and charge at them.

Flipping off of the ground, Peter stuck to the ceiling and used it as a springboard to charge at Togata, the boy panicking and phasing through the floor while letting Peter crash to the ground.

Alright.

That was... something.

Remember that plan where Peter could counter Togata with his spider-sense?

Yeah, he didn't account for the fact he physically could not hit him.

Guess he's figuring out that small detail on the fly.

"Woah! You alright?" Hado flew over to him and pulled him up to his feet, Peter shaking his head and rolling the shoulder he landed on.

Man, did he need to work on landing overall.

"Yeah, kinda didn't account for Tintin to go ghost mid-fight when planning, that's my bad," Peter said, completely ignoring the fact that his teammate didn't get his reference and started to look around.

Even with a strong quirk like that, Togata didn't seem like the kind of guy to just rush into the enemy alone.

That means...

Closing his eyes, Peter tapped into his spider-sense and tried to map out the area.

Down the hall from them and standing behind the corner stood someone, and Peter guessed it wasn't Togata

"Hado!" The masked teen pointed down the corridor, "Flush out the hallway!"

Hearing this, Hado thrust one hand forwards and shot a spiral of golden energy that enveloped the hall, creating a small explosion once it hit the end of the hall and filled it with smoke.

All there was left to do was wait to see who made the next move

Suddenly, his spider-sense rung just in time for him to pull Hado out of the way of a tentacle that burst through the smoke before it drew itself back into cover.

As the smoke cleared, Hado and Peter saw Amajiki standing there with his left hand transformed into a writhing pink tentacle and right hand a huge clamshell.

Two manifestations?

Man, Peter just keeps miscalculating today, doesn't he?

"Uh, Hado?"

"Yeah?"

Neither of them took their eyes off of Amajiki, the boy originally had a strong face but began to look more and more anxious the more they looked at him.

Peter dropped into a low crouch, fingers flexing and finding themselves hovering over the triggers of his web-shooters.

Oddly enough, he was getting a sense of nostalgia.

"Change of plans! Blast him but keep them small enough to not hit me!"

Hopping up and running on the wall of the wide corridor, Peter grinned at the panicking expression that Amajiki adopted at the fact that he was now in a 2-1 situation.

Peter flipped up to the ceiling and shot two web lines at his opponent, the boy rolling out of the way and beginning to charge at Hado with a look of hesitation.

Wait.

Was he getting... ignored?

Peter dropped the fighting stance and simply stood normally on the roof, watching as Hado kept her distance while shooting energy waves that kept in mind the small space while Amajiki used the clamshell as a shield and the tentacle as a whip, occasionally changing the tentacle into a pincer for quick jabs that were dodged.

No way.

He was getting ignored!

That hurt him more than any gunshot.

"Talk above looking down on someone, am I right?"

Peter turned to the side to find Togata's face popping out of the roof he was standing on while wearing a goofy grin.

"I know, right? Wonder how the fight looks like right side up."

The two simply watched the fight for a couple more seconds before Peter decided to break the silence.

"So, wanna tell me where Rachel is? Or do I have to beat you up to know?"

Togata looked at him confused for a second, Peter frowned, already knowing why.

"Who's Rachel?"

"You never watched The Dark Knight? One of the best 2000s movies?" Togata shook his head through the floor. "Just forget it..."

What was he expecting when he referenced 100-year-old movies?

Sighing, Peter dug his hand through the spot of the ceiling he was standing on and grabbed Togata's cape, roughly pulling the boy through the weak floor and throwing him onto the floor.

So he can't phase to avoid things he can't react to, huh?

That's useful.

"Oh, was that too hard? My bad, kinda need a lot of force to pull you through the floor and all." Apologizing, Peter hopped down and stuck to the wall by his hands and feet, lenses squinting at the smiling Togata getting up the ground.

"Hey, no worries! Kinda rattled my teeth but it was cool! Sorry, but you're gonna have to fight me to get to the hostage!"

Sinking into the ground, Togata disappeared from Peter's view before being shot out of the roof, barely giving Peter time to react.

Over and over again, Peter flipped and bounced through the hall while trying to avoid the increasingly fast Togata.

"So this is what they meant by The Phantom Menace!" Leaning back, Peter shot his hand out just in time to grab Togata's materialized fist, startling the boy enough to make him go fully tangible, punching him in the face before grabbing him and throwing him to the ground.

Peter webbed his opponent to the ground, sighing as the sounds of the fight at the other end of the hallway raged on.

At least Hado seemed to be having a better time than him.

He already figured out how his main weakness was that Togata needed to be tangible to hit him since his quirk worked both ways.

Comes in handy, but doesn't make fighting someone you can't normally hit less frustrating.

"Phantom Menace? Oh, I like the sound of that! Thanks for the name!" Peter watched as Togata smiled a smile filled with both gratitude at the name idea and discomfort at being punched in the face before he sunk through the floor, leaving his webbing behind.

Groaning, Peter flipped through the air and avoiding Togata's fist coming through the ground at him.

This was gonna be so annoying.

The only way Peter could think to just knock him out was to vibrate his molecules fast enough to counteract Togata's molecules also vibrating.

And Peter couldn't do that.

"Hey, Hado!" Peter called from one end of the hall, turning his head to watch Hado's fight with Amajiki while doing his best to multitask dodging Togata.

"Yeah?" Hado turned around only to see Peter get sucker-punched in the face from a first on the wall, the boy simply groaning and tackling through the wall, destroying most of it.

"Try to phase through nothing, Casper!" Peter yelled, kicking down another wall and watched as Togata panicked and phased through the floor. "Uh, wanna switch opponents? I'm having a bit of a hard time over here and you can keep your distance better!"

Thinking about it for a moment, Hado let out one last blast that Amajiki quickly shielded and flew to the other side of the hallway before standing next to Peter.

"Sure thing!"

Oh, thank God.

Nodding, Peter ran toward the other end of the hallway and jumped in a dropkick, getting blocked by Amajiki's shell but making it crack slightly.

"Hey, can I guess that your life motto is you are what you eat?" Peter grinned as he used the shell as a springboard and flipped to the roof, shooting two webs at Amajiki's feet and pulling him to the ground.

With a laugh, Peter pointed down at him, the boy showing a mild look of annoyance and nervousness

"Ha! Your shoes are unt-" Looking closer, Peter frowned at the fact that Amajiki was barefoot. "Man, that really ruins my joke."

Silently, Amajiki turned his clam into a pincer and cut the webs binding him, transforming the pincer into an repaired clamshell.

Before Peter could listen to his spider-sense, a tentacle grabbed him by the foot and slammed him onto an adjacent wall before slamming him onto the opposite one, letting him slide to the ground.

Ow.

The vest was supposed to help with bullets but didn't make it less painful to get slammed into walls?

What a rip-off.

"Y-You know, were I a lesser man, I'd be making non-PG jokes." Peter laughed, trying to hide the general pain he was in as he got up the ground, quickly grinning at Amajiki's flustered state.

"W-What!?"

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Peter shot two webs at the end of the hall behind Amajiki and let himself be slingshotted into the teen, kicking him in the torso and taking the air out of him.

As he got up, Peter quickly took a deep breath, turning away from his opponent to see Hado keeping Togata at bay, most surrounding surfaces having been destroyed as to not give him anything to phase and hide into.

His spider-sense rung just in time for Peter to look down at Amajiki, the brunette quickly getting hit with a blunt object directly in the face, the impact cracking his right lens and throwing him to the ground.

Shaking off the hit, Peter looked to see Amajiki sitting up on the ground with his left arm still outstretched after the blow. A closer look at the boy's arm revealed that his hand was transformed into a... coconut?

"Is... is that a coconut?"

A few seconds of silence passed as the two stared at each other on the ground, the only sound being Hado and Togata fighting in the background.

"Y-Yes?"

Peter narrowed his lenses.

"I hate them coconuts..."

Shooting a web at his hand, Peter pulled on it so that the coconut would hit Amajiki in the head but the boy transformed it into a tentacle before it made contact.

Jumping back, Peter tried to quickly think of a plan to slow down Amajiki's reaction speed so he could just capture him quickly.

That's when an idea hit him.

Looking past him, Peter widened his lenses as much as he could before covering them with his arm.

"Woah, Togata! I thought your costume phased with you, man! Put your pants back on!"

On cue, Amajiki blushed and immediately turned away to look behind him.

Alright, Peter was starting to doubt more and more that those guys' relationship was purely platonic.

Peter shot a web at his back, pulling him close and hopping up to the roof, quickly starting to spin him into a makeshift cocoon of silk to the point where the boy looked noticeably dizzy from the sudden motions.

Man, Peter loved doing that move.

Made him look like a real spider and all!

Hanging him to the roof by a strand, Peter hopped down to the floor and grabbed the roll of capture tape from his belt, lazily wrapping it around Amajiki's head.

"Tamaki Amajiki has been captured!"

Peter faced Amajiki and gave him a small apologetic smile behind the mask, the boy looking down at the ground and avoiding eye contact.

Well, that's that!

All he had to do was go help Hado capt-

"Mirio Togata has been captured! The hero team wins via capture! Please report to the observation room!"

Suddenly, Hado came flying in while carrying Togata by a strand of the capture tape that was wrapped around his torso.

"Hey, guys! Good match!" Togata laughed, walking over to Amajiki once Hado had placed him on the ground. "We did our best, Tamaki! We just have to get better!"

Amajiki looked up from the ground for a second a muttered a quiet"Y-Yeah."

Flying over to him, Hado suddenly enveloped Peter in a hug while laughing, the teen suddenly locking up at the sudden contact and getting his face shoved onto her hair.

That same warm feeling in his chest from earlier came back when he realized she smelled exactly like apples.

"Woah! You're like, all muscle!" The girl let go and started to aimlessly float by.

Yeah, Peter was just gonna try to ignore how hot his face felt.

He was also gonna ignore what was poking him in the chest earlier.

Yep, he was gonna ignore all of that.

"I... work out? G-Good job, by the way." He would've gone for a high five but he guessed a hug was a step above that.

Feeling someone tapping him on the shoulder, Peter turned to see one of Amajiki's tentacles somehow managed to slip out of the webbing.

The tentacle drew itself back and pointed at the cocoon.

"C-Could you please g-get me out of this?"

Peter stared at him for a couple of seconds before finally realized what he said, the boy quickly apologized and started to dig into his backpack for the bottle of web dissolvent.

Man, he sure hoped he brought it cause ripping that stuff off of someone was not fun.

And another chapter! Here we get to see the last part of the battle trial, Peter and Nejire fight Mirio and Amajiki while developing Peter and Nejire's relationship!

Also, I quickly wanna point out that this Peter is severely nerfed. As in, not as fast, strong, or experienced as other versions given how he's 15 and needs to not look overpowered next to other characters and all.

Just wanted to say that.

Anyway, Mirio/Tamaki is probably one of those few ships that I feel like completely make sense in canon, so I decided to include it as a background type thing! It won't really affect the story but it'll be there!

I loved writing Peter's dialogue, and even managed to throw both an Adventure Time reference and a Dark Knight reference in there, 'cause it's fun to reference stuff like that, you know?

We'll probably be getting more chapters later on about the four of them or Peter and Nejire simply hanging out and doing regular things to develop their relationships like having sleepovers or going to the beach, so I hope you guys are looking forward to that!

Oh, when writing Nejire I wanted to show her become self-conscious about how she makes others feel with what she says cause that's the real thing that would happen, I thought it was a small way to flesh out her character in this which is something I want to do since I really enjoy writing her cheerful and enthusiastic personality.

Anyway, that's it from me! Next chapter will be either them being normal teens or going to USJ without having to fight for their lives!

Like always, thanks for reading, and see ya next time!