In shop class Seren's least favorite class of the day, he hits the weapon core casing with a hammer. The core emits purple light as it is partially freed from the metal casing.
"Ohhhhh." He awed at and looked directly into the light.
He starts pulling it apart. Peter and Ned joins him.
"Hey, thanks for bailing on me you two."
"Yeah, well, something came up that the both of us needed to be there."
Ned spots the glowing core.
"Oh, what's that?"
Seren struggles to take the machine apart.
"I don't know. Some guy tried killing Peter with it."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"Awesome." Ned was awed by the glowing cube.
Peter looks at Ned at the absurd reaction.
"I mean, not awesome. Totally uncool of that guy. So scary."
Seren gives Ned a look and continues to work at the casing.
"Well, look, I think it's a power source." Peter said while pulling a chair over to sit on the other side of Seren.
"Yeah, but it's connected to all these microprocessors. That's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush."
Ned points at a complex-looking charging mechanism connected to various wires.
"Whoever's making these weapons is obviously combining alien tech with ours."
"That is literally the coolest sentence anyone has ever said. I just want to thank you for letting me be part of your journey into this amazing-."
Seren is not listening to a word he's saying, but he does hear Peter smack him on his shoulder. He brings up a hammer and hits the core hard. The core pops out from its place, glowing. Peter and Ned immediately look at the teacher. The teacher is reading a book, sitting in his chair. He does not even spare a glance at the commotion they are causing.
"Keep your fingers clear of the sawblades."
Peter and Ned turn back and look at the core which popped out.
"We gotta figure out what this thing is and who makes it."
"We'll go to the lab after class."
We see the core glowing on the table.
"Let's do it."
Peter and Ned did their complicated secret handshake and Seren briskly walked to the lab.
Seren is walking down the hallway when he spots MJ leaning against a locker.
"Hey."
"You know for a teenager you're really shit at balancing party life and hero work."
He turns to her, and the look on her face explains it all. She's a bit bitter about the way he left.
"You're right. But I need to find out what the hell…"He holds up the photo of the purple core to her face."This thing is."
"We get it you like to rave." MJ joked.
Schultz and Randy walk in. Seren spots them and freezes instantly.
"Shitttt."
He throws himself behind a wall and pushes MJ lightly with his telekinesis into a indent in the wall where a classroom is.
"One of them were there last night selling the weapons. They're high-key dangerous."
MJ looks around, then shuffles across the corridor to join Seren by a classroom window. Behind them, the chess club is peacefully playing a game. Seren peers around the corner.
"High schools creep me out."
MJ also peers her head out so the both of them are looking. She obviously is towering over him.
"They got this funny smell, you know?" Schultz said walking at a brisk pace.
MJ and Seren hide behind the wall again. They carry out a whispered conversation.
"Hey, that's one of the guys that tried to kill Peter and I." he said.
"What?!" She fumed out. What Seren didn't know is that she is so protective of him that she goes after anyone that tries to hurt him. Whenever there was a bully, he slowly faded out from being near him. He thought they just gave up on him in actuality MJ scared them so much that they ran for the hills.
"Yeah they sure did."
"I can totally take their white asses on." She said rolling up her sleeves.
"No, no, no, no, no. I gotta follow them. Maybe they can lead me to the guy that dropped me in the lake."
"Someone dropped you in a lake?"
"Yeah, after smacking me out of the sky."
Schultz and Randy enter a classroom.
"Ren-."
"No. Stay there, MJ."
Seren raises an arm to stop MJ and sneaks away.
"Ren."
MJ is left standing alone. Through the window, Mrs. Cromwell notices her. She knocks on the window, making MJ turn around, with her resting bitch face.
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Nothing."
Down the hall, Seren is trailing the two men. MJ tries to act nonchalant.
"Oh."
"Yeah. You good?"
"Chess."
Seren sneaks down a staircase into the classroom. Schultz and Randy are rummaging through the room.
"Can you imagine what the boss would say if he knew where we were?"
"It's saying there was an energy pulse right here."
Seren slowly walks down the stairs and takes off his bag.
"There's no sign of the weapon. And even if it was here, now it's gone."
"So are we."
Schultz looks in Seren's direction. We see no one there. An upside-down chair standing on the table shakes a little. Spotting the anomaly, Schultz gets closer, putting his hand on his gun. He crosses the room and pauses by the worktable, scanning the area. As the men head out, we tilt up to reveal Seren clinging on the ceiling. He shoots a tiny robotic spider he borrowed from Peter at one of the men's shoes. It stealthily climbs up the man's leg. Once he sees that the coast was clear he jumped down.
Sitting in Peter's room, Ned holds the web-shooter. It projects a hologram model of the city. Seren hops onto the bed next to Ned.
"This is so awesome." Seren gave him a blank stare.
"I know, right?" Peter agreed.
Ned pokes it, and the model becomes more defined.
"They're in Brooklyn."
Later. Ned is still studying the hologram and Peter is hanging upside down, eating chips.
"Staten Island."
Night has fallen. Ned lies on the floor while Peter works at his desk. Ned glances at the hologram.
"Leaving Jersey." Seren said playing with his telekinesis making it corporeal with it having a sparkly pink aura around it.
With a shooter, Peter projects a characterized image of his mask on the wall. Ned now lies on the bed. The hologram model starts to beep. Startled, he sits up, wearing the Spider-Man mask. He grabs the hologram model next to him.
"They stopped."
Peter pops into frame, hanging from the ceiling. He turns around, a little groggy, and eyes the model.
"Maryland?"
"What's there?" asked Seren.
"I don't know. Evil lair?"
"They have a lair?" Ned wondered.
"Dude. A gang with alien guns run by a guy with wings? Yeah, they have a lair."
"Badass. But how are we gonna get there if it's, like, 300 miles away?"
They simultaneously turn to face the Academic Decathlon poster.
"It's not too far from D.C."
Midtown High students are waiting by a yellow bus, dressed in their yellow uniform jackets. Peter runs toward them.
"Hey, it's Peter." Abe said.
"Guys."
"Peter?" Liz questioned.
"Hey, buddy."
"Yeah, I was hoping maybe I could rejoin the team."
Flash, standing in the back, walks forward to face Peter.
"No, no way. You can't just quit on us, stroll up, and be welcomed back by everyone.
The teacher walks out of the bus."
"Hey, welcome back, Peter. Flash, you're back to first alternate."Mr. Harrington said not even looking up from his clipboard.
"What?"
"He's taking your place." Abe laughed out.
MJ appears behind them, sans uniform.
"Excuse me, can we go already?'Cause I was hoping to get in some light protesting in front of one of the embassies before dinner, so."
"Protesting is patriotic. Let's get on the bus."Mr. Harrington crowded them like cattle.
Flash shrugs off his jacket and sullenly thrusts it into Peter's arms. The bus is travelling through the highway. 90 miles to Baltimore, 126 miles to Washington.
"Focus up, everyone. Our next topic is the moons of Saturn."
The students are holding bells, focusing on Liz's quiz. They ring their bells before answering.
"The second law of thermodynamics." Cindy answered.
"An American singer, actor, and producer born in Hoboken, New Jersey. He also started his music in the swing era."
"Frank Sinatra."
"Fort Sumter." Flash said with confidence.
"Flash is wrong."
"Okay, guys, let's focus. Next one."
"Liz, don't overwork them."
"Uh, strontium, barium, vibranium."
"Very good, Peter. Glad to have you back."
"Glad to be back."
Peter's phone vibrates. He takes it out to see that Happy is calling him.
"What is the current standard unit of radioactive-."
"Can I take this real quick? I'll only be a sec."
"Yeah, fine."
Peter answers his call, moving to the back seats. As he passes by, Michelle stares at him curiously, looking up from her book. Seren is sitting one seat in front of him, so he can easily listen over his shoulder.
"Hello?"
Happy is talking on the phone in the Avengers Tower. Behind him, workers are carrying things.
"Got a blip on my screen here. You two left New York?"
Decathlon practice continues in the background.
"Okay, focus up, everyone."
"Tracker."
Peter holds the phone away from his mouth and mutters. Seren nods at that.
"Uh, yeah. No, it's just a school trip. It's, uh, it's nothing."
Peter sits in the back of the bus, next row to Ned.
"Look, Happy, I gotta say, you tracking me without my permission is a complete violation of my privacy."
Ned points at the hologram model.
"That's different."
Happy looks suspicious.
"What's different?"
"Nothing. Look, it's just the Academic Decathlon. It's no big deal."
"Hey, hey. I'll decide if it's no big deal."
Peter looks annoyed. He mouths, "what?"
"Sounds like it's no big deal, but remember, I'm watching you."
The bus approaches Washington D.C. Above the hotel entrance, we see a banner announcing the "United States Academic Decathlon." The Decathlon team arrives in the check-in area. We see the interior of the hotel filled with preparations for the Decathlon. The students and teacher look on in awe as they walk in. Liz is at their front, leading everyone.
"Everyone stick together."
"Yeah."
"You kidding me? This place is huge." Seren spun around.
"I've seen bigger." MJ nudges Seren at that. He snorts at that comment from Flash.
"There's a bird in here."
"Hey, you brought your laptop, right?" Seren fell back and questioned Ned.
"Why?"
The door to Peter and Ned's hotel room closes. The do not disturb sign is hanging on its handle. Peter and Ned unpack with Seren hopping right on the bed. Taking off his shirt, shaking various belongings like wires, the purple weapon core, toothpaste, and braces out of their backpacks. Peter takes a moment to look directly at Seren with a small blush on the back of his , Peter connects a wire to the suit. Ned is using his laptop, complicated lines of codes flashing through the screen. Peter holds a flashlight with his mouth, working on his suit.
"Peter, why are we removing the tracker from your suit?"
"Stark put a damn tracker in there? Why am I not surprised?"Seren scoffed at that.
"Uh, yea he did. He's kinda like a very overprotective babysitter."
"You're both lying to Iron Man now?"
"And what?" Seren looked at Ned. "Stark needs to realize that sometimes a lead needs to be taken just because what's happening is "below" the Avengers paygrade. It doesn't mean something "smaller" couldn't have a terrible impact on the world."
"No, I'm not lying. He just doesn't really get what I can do yet."
Ned warily eyes his friend. Peter removes the tracking device from the suit.
"Ah... Gotcha."
He takes the flashlight out of his mouth.
"All right, Happy. Enjoy tracking this lamp."
Peter sticks the device on a lamp, then gets back to the suit. Ned is still working on the laptop.
"There's a ton of other subsystems in here..."
"Hmm?" Seren responded.
"...but they're all disabled by the Training Wheels Protocol."Ned smirked at that. Seren busted out laughing.
"What?"
Peter hops up next to Ned and looks at the screen. The words "Training Wheels Protocol" are written in red. The codes declare the protocol is currently active and that "Stark Industry Key Identifier" should be entered to disable it.
"Training Wheels Protocol?" Peter choked out.
Ned chuckles.
"Turn it off." He whined out.
"I don't think that's a good idea. I mean, they're probably blocked for a reason."
"Come on, man. I don't need training wheels."
"I mean… I've seen you miss your webbing in New York many times."Seren chimed in.
"Quiet you. I've seen you fly straight into a window and crashed into someone's home. The worst part was the man was hooking up with another man. You full on saw a full-on porno trying to catch a petty theft."Seren blushed at that.
Peter steps onto his bed and jumps up and down.
"I'm sick of him treating me like a kid all the time. It's uncool."
"But you two are kids."
"Yeah, kids who can stop a bus with their bare hands or in Ren's case with his mind."
"Peter, I just don't think this is a great idea. I mean, what if this is illegal?"
Peter jumps down to kneel beside Ned.
"Look, please. This is my chance to prove myself. I can handle it. Ned, come on."
"I really don't think this is a good idea."
"The guy in the chair."Peter widens his eyes with a devious smirk on his face.
"Don't do that."
"Come on."
Ned sighs and types reluctantly. A blue flash of light briefly pulses through the suit. They all look at it. Seren, wearing the suit without the mask, zips up his sweat shirt to hide it and puts on his hood. He peeks out the door and looks around. Peter finally got himself together and did the same thing. The corridors are quiet and empty.
"Yeah, the glowy thing, it's evidence. Keep it safe."Seren said to Ned.
Ned picks up the glowing core.
"All right?" Peter confirmed with him.
"Okay, okay."
Peter activates the tracker.
"They're on the move now."
Peter hurriedly walks out of the room.
"Be careful you two I would hate to read your orbituaries."
As Seren and Peter tried to walk down the hall unnoticed, Liz approaches in a bathing suit.
"Hey, Liz."
"Perfect timing. We're gonna go swimming. Come on, come on, come on."Liz whispered to the other teammates to sneak past.
She waves the other students forward.
"What?"
The teenagers sneak by, laughing quietly.
"Hey, Peter."
"Hi."
Flash slaps Seren's ass.
"Hey!"
Seren squeals in a high tone, offended.
"I was, uh... We were gonna go study, um, in the business center."
"Peter, you don't need to study. You're, like, the smartest guy I've ever met."
Peter looks at Liz, bewitched.
"And besides... Um, a rebellious group activity the day before competition is good for morale.
"Hmm?" Seren gave her a look.
"Um, well, I read that in a TED Talk, so, I-I heard it in a TED Talk. And I read a coaching book."
Liz smiles and nods.
"Wow, you really... This is really important to you."
"Yeah. It's our future. I'm not gonna screw it up. Besides, we raided the minibar and these candy bars were, like, eleven dollars. So, get your trunks on and come on."
Liz throws a candy bar at Peter in a smooth arc.
"Come on."
"Come on."
"I'm coming, I'm coming."
Liz catches up with the others.
At an indoor swimming pool, the Decathlon teammates swim. Liz sits on a wall between the pool and a spa.
Wearing his suit without the mask, Peter watches Liz through a window on the roof. Seren is playing with his retractable claws. Liz playfully chats with her teammates. Peter sighs. Stepping back from the window, he tightens the straps on his backpack. Peter puts on the mask. A brief glow expands from the spider emblem on his chest.
"You know I'm one for going after the bad guy. But I can see that your heart isn't in it, Peter."Seren rests a hand on his shoulder."If you want to hang out with them even just for two hours we can."
"No. We need to do this."Seren put on his new goggles that he got from Stark the only thing that he wanted from him.
"Hello, Seren." A British male voice called from his earpiece.
"Hello? Hello?"
"Congratulations on receiving and gaining access to your new protective eyewear. On top of being able to access worldwide databases through the Stark Industries Network.
We see Seren's view from the goggles, quickly changing to different view modes.
"Ah, thank you."
"So where would you like to take me tonight?"
"I, I, want you to track a tracker Spider-man put on someone. He's a bad guy."
"Tracker located."
We see the spider suit tracking down the path that leads to the guy they are after.
"Plotting course to intercept target."
"Okay, well, as long as we make it back in time for Decathlon, it's fine."
Seren launches off flies slowly as Peter lands on a truck. As the truck runs past, we see a banner that says "United States Academic Decathlon."
Peter rides on a different truck, raging down the road. We see Seren in his full suit flying a little bit higher so bystanders aren't able to see him, with the dark night sky in the background.
"One hundred meters from destination and closing."
The truck roars past a patch of grass.
"Dive down now."
Seren dives down from the air and rolls down a grassy bank. He runs across the bank through the tall grass, approaching an abandoned gas station.
"Detecting three individuals." The A.I. Seren called Synergy said.
We see Peter observing the gas station from behind his back. The station is dark, with a couple of trucks in its driveway. He stops and crouches to observe the gas station.
"Why is their secret lair in a gas station? That's so lame."Seren groaned out.
Seren jumps, and climbs on top of the empty gas price sign.
"Hey, suit lady, what are they doing?" Peter asked.
"Do you want to hear what they're saying?"
"I can hear what they're saying? Uh, yeah."
"Activating Enhanced Reconnaissance Mode."
"Synergy do that too."
"Ok, Mr. Gwynn."
The goggles display closes in on the van and shows Seren the heat signals emitted from the men inside. Three people in the van are quietly speaking.
"I got the gauntlet from the Lagos cleanup. The rest is all my design."
"Whoa, that's so cool."
"Can't believe they're still cleaning up that Triskelion mess."
"I love it. They keep making messes. We keep getting rich."
"Target inbound."
"Whoa, they're in the middle of a heist. We could catch them all red-handed. This is awesome. Okay, I'm gonna get a little closer so I can see what's happening.
"Would you like me to engage Enhanced Combat Mode?" Peter's suit called out.
"Uh, Enhanced Combat Mode? Yeah."
"Activating Instant Kill."
The eyes of Peter's spider suit turn into evil-looking tiny red dots.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to kill anybody!"Seren chocked out a laugh.
"Deactivating Instant Kill."
The eyes switch back to their normal width and color. Peter jumps off the sign and falls on his face on the hard asphalt ground. Peter grunts.
"Did you hear that?"
"What the hell just happened? What was that?"
"You jumped off the sign and landed on your face."
He fires web pellets from his shooter which land on the gas station sign.
"Suit lady, what's wrong with my web-shooters?"
Peter runs to hide behind a sign.
"Rapid-fire is the default for Enhanced Combat Mode."
"Why would I need rapid-fire?"
"Would you like to see even more options?"
We see Peter's hands from his spider suit point of view. All kinds of webs are shown from which he can choose.
"You have 576 possible web-shooter combinations."
"Whoa, Mr. Stark really overdid it."
Inside the car with the criminals.
"You two wait right here."
"Wait. You're gonna want to turn on the dampers, though, or that thing will shatter your arm."
"All right. Where's the dampers?"
Peter is still looking down at all the options for his webs displayed over his hands.
"That one."
"Great choice."
One of the options turn red.
"Would you like me to set this as your new default?"
Peter shoots an electrified web at a neon sign, making it blink on and off.
"No, no, no."
Through the window, we see Peter struggling with his electrified webs. He keeps shooting, and the neon sign keeps flashing. The men in the car are oblivious.
"Push that in."
"Right here?"
"No, no, the other-."
"This one right here?"
"Yeah, push."
Peter runs behind the gas station, away from the truck, and leaps on some trucks to reach the roof of the building.
"What was that?"
"Taser webs."
"Taser webs? I don't want taser webs.
"You seem to be very unfamiliar with your web-shooter settings. Would you like to run a refresher course?"
"Peter get your fuckin' suit together, or I'm gonna knock you the fuck out." Seren whispered in the comms.
"Shut up Ren."
Peter sits on the roof to get a better look at the men.
"No, just... You choose."
Seren decided he wanted to be closer to Peter just in case his suit decided to act up again.
Inside the DODC convoy truck:
"Six-Alpha-Niner. Are you running on time?"
"Copy, Central. Six-Alpha-Niner on schedule."
Schultz, Vulture's bald henchman, peers through binoculars. Three trucks are approaching the gas station.
"I have visual."
"Green light, green light."
Peter spots Vulture flying overhead in his wing suit.
"Oh, that's him." Peter nudged Seren
Vulture soars over a convoy of transport trucks. The suit's eyes glow green in the dark.
"Okay, I got eyes on the convoy. Pulling in behind the caboose."
"Deploy anchors." Mason said with his laptop in his lap.
Vulture fires cables onto the roof of the last truck. He drops a cube onto the trailer, which separates into four pieces. Arranged in a rectangle, they create a glowing portal through the roof.
"Dropping down."
Vulture detaches from his suit and falls through the portal, but the truck driver seems unaware of what's happening.
Inside the van, Mason speaks into his walkie-talkie, surrounded by wires and screens.
"No outgoing distress signals. You're all in the clear."
We see Vulture's green-filtered view of the inside of the trailer. Cage-like boxes contain exotic items.
"Hey. Looks like they got some good stuff here."
He rips off the door from a cage full of tech. Seren flies on top of the trailer and touches the portal. His fingers go through.
"Whoa, cool. It's some kind of matter phase shifter."Peter said on the other side of it.
"Can you please dumb it down for me? Seren begged.
"It means the portal thingy is special." Peter said slowing it down.
Peter crawls down the ceiling as Vulture rises into view. Vulture kneels and zips a duffel bag.
"Alright, coming up."
Vulture jumps through the portal and onto the roof of the trailer. Seren gestures at Vulture's bag, pulling it away with his telekinesis.
"Hey, Big Bird! This doesn't belong to you!"
Vulture's green eyes glare intimidatingly in Seren's direction.
"Oh, god."
Vulture gets into his wing suit and soars towards them. Peter jumps over him and fires long, weak webs past Vulture.
"Suit lady, what was that?"
"You told me to choose." Seren rolled his eyes at that. He charges at Vulture to take him down. He puts up a pretty good fight landing blows on his stomach. Managing to hit wings to scruff them up a bit. Vulture goes to lunge and Seren closed his eyes. Somehow he didn't get knocked off the bus. He turns around to see Vulture looking at him in shock. Seren took one false step and fell backwards into the portal.
Vulture attacks Peter and Peter tries to balance himself on the edge of the trailer.
"What? No, just set everything back to normal."
Peter grabs Vulture's duffel bag, and starts to tug.
"Activating all systems."
Peter rips the bag out of Vulture's talons. He falls through the portal back into the truck. The portal cube is thrown off position by Peter's movement. He immediately jumps up to get out but slams his head on the now solid roof and lands on Seren. They both lose consciousness.
~End~
