"Peter Allen has only scratched the surface of the otherworldly potential that this universe holds for him." The Watcher narrated as he eyed the boy just waking up and getting his food. "And there will be many more moments yet to come."
Peter was at home, watching the news as they showed while he was dealing with the Lizard some bizarre explosion at the Life Foundation claimed the life of Carlton Drake. Seems the entire world is turning upside down. Peter then changed to another news channel and came across a crime scene being reported on.
"Hector Ayala, a student at Central City University was reportedly murdered by his own sister, Ava Ayala." The news reported, getting Peter's attention to hear there's a killer out there.
Peter decided to try and figure out what he can about this. Seeing he needed to get back out there as Spider-Man, and maybe this could get him on the cop's good side after George's death. He missed Gwen's leave as he was visiting his father and was trying his best to honor his promise to George. And this could be good practice for Bobby.
Doing a bit of digging into Ava Ayala, Peter found out that she had quite the family living in Central City. Peter figured he might as well ask them questions about where Ava could be. Their first stop was to her niece, Angela del Toro.
When they made it down the halls to the apartment that she lives in, the two of them started to question what to do.
"CCPD already questioned her, do you really think she's hiding a killer?" Bobby asked as they strolled over to the apartment.
"People do things for family," Peter tells Bobby. "And there's no telling if she actually did kill her brother."
"She was there when he was alive. When she leaves, he is found dead." Bobby commented. "That screams guilty to me."
Peter rolled his eyes when they reached the apartment and Peter's senses went off. "Something's wrong."
Bobby looked over at Peter and saw he was worried about something. Icing up, Peter took his clothes off to reveal his suit underneath it. Then Peter punched the door and the two made their way inside to see that Ava Ayala was standing over the body of Angela.
"Totally not guilty," Bobby commented.
"Ava Ayala?" Peter asked as he stepped in front of Bobby. Ava started to shake as the two watched a green glow illuminate off from a necklace that she was wearing. "We just want to talk."
Ava then looked over to a window and ran, Peter and Bobby tried to stop her using their powers, but she dodged them and made her way out and smashed through the window. As the two of them made their way over to the window, they were shocked to watch her climb up the side of the buildings and even ran off faster than they could imagine.
"What the hell was that?" Bobby asked.
Doing some digging into that necklace that she was wearing, the two of them learned that it was called the Amulet of Power.
"The Jade Tiger Amulet." Peter started to read about the necklace. "Seems that according to legend, years ago, a group of Ninja assassins raided the Tiger Dojo and assassinated someone named Master Kee."
"Ninja assassins?" Bobby asks as he looked over his shoulder to look at the computer and saw that was literally how it was described. "Aren't all ninja assassins?"
"With his dying breath, he bequeathed the Amulets of Power to his best student, Lin Sun." Peter kept reading and ignored his friend. "Lin took the jade tiger's head for himself and gave the tiger's claw amulets to fellow martial artists."
"So, the guy finds an ancient relic, and the next thing you know he ends up dead?" Bobby asked Peter. "Are we sure his sister wasn't possessed or something? I mean, it explains a lot."
"You see, this is one of the cases that I can't tell if you're being serious or not," Peter said as he laid back on the chair. "You are saying after everything that happened, you deny the statement that there could be mystical properties in the universe?"
"I stopped believing in magic after a bad magic show as a kid," Bobby admitted to Peter.
Peter didn't know how to respond to that and just went back to work. "My point is, maybe she's not our killer."
"Then who is?" Bobby asked as he dropped down onto the chair.
"If there's anything I've learned from the Indiana Jones movies when you have a mystical artifact, there's always someone else out there that wants it," Peter said and started to listen into his police scanner for anything tiger or Ayala related.
"...We have multiple reports of what appears to be a tiger lady downtown, please respond..."
Peter eyed Bobby and the two of them saw this was their chance to prove if she was innocent or not.
In an apartment building with a lot of newspaper about powered people in Central City mounted on his wall, Gideon Mace was fixing his riffle when the door was busted open and he turned to see it was Ava, wearing a makeshift costume.
She wears a very form-fitting, white-colored cat-like suit that highlights her muscular body, with claw markings on her waist and shoulders. "You!"
"I was wondering how long it would take until you found me," Mace commented, not taking into account the angered girl with claws ready to shred him to bits. "Your father would be insulted."
"You killed my father, hunted him like an animal!" Ava cried in anger as she marched toward him. "I want to know why!"
"You people are a decease," Mace said as he eyed her. "Max Dillon was the first to start the psychotic trainwreck. Then the Lizard came along, and some sort of Molten Man. You powered people are a decease on this city. I saw it ran in the family. Your father, your brother, and your niece were the last links. Besides you."
"Huh." Someone said, getting their attention to see it was Bobby and Peter in the doorway. "Guess I was wrong."
"I won't say I told you so, but I told you so," Peter stated as he looked at the two of them. "So, which do you wanna fight first? The crazy guy who wants to kill people with powers, or the crazy cat girl?"
"Sadly, those are our options," Bobby admitted.
"Get the hell out of here!" Ava demanded the two. "He's mine!"
"Actually..." Mace said as he raised a phone to show something. "I'm nobody's."
Peter's senses then went off when he realized the place was rigged just as Gideon Mace made his escape out the window and down a rope he had installed.
"We gotta go!" Peter said as the two dragged the cat down the halls just as Bobby created an ice slide on the stairs. The apartment was abandoned apart from the one resident, so nobody was hurt when the entire top floor exploded.
Getting their bearings, the two friends sighed in relief as they managed to outrun the explosion. Then they looked down and noticed their cat friend was unconscious. Could have been the smoke, several things but they could use this to their advantage.
When Ava woke up, to see she was on some sort of rooftop tied up with webbing courtesy of Peter. She looked and saw the two of them standing over her with their arms crossed.
"We have some questions for you," Peter tells Ava as she immediately started to try and escape. "It's time that we knew the truth."
Ava sighed and saw that she wasn't going to be escaping any time soon and should at least get her story straight. "Okay, what do you want to know?"
"Question one, where did you get the stupid suit?" Bobby asked her as he looked over her costume.
"I got it in some costume store, it's not like I went for a full costume." Ava scoffed at him.
"Where did you and your family get that amulet?" Peter asked her the more important questions.
Ava then decided that was a question she could answer. "Over the years, I and my family have guarded the Amulet and its power but have always had pieces of it spread across my family."
"Oh, so your brother didn't discover it?" Bobby asked, his theory being tossed out the window.
"My family, among all of our bloodlines, have protected the pieces of the amulet. The pieces were passed down from parent to child for generations." Ava explained the best that she could. "My father used to be the White Tiger."
"The mythical hero from Mexico?" Bobby asks her.
"Rio De Janeiro" Ava and Peter corrected him.
Ava looked at him in shock. "Nice."
"What can I say? Did my research on my heroes." Peter shrugged.
Ava hummed at that and went back to her story. "We moved out here after dad retired and decided to start teaching my brother how to use the amulet piece. Not to mention the rest of our family lives here. The amulet is passed down to the oldest sibling of the family." She then started to tear up at the memory. "Dad was then killed, and Hector said who did it was coming for us. I told him he was crazy; that nobody knew who we were."
"Then he ended up dead." Peter started to understand.
"With his dying words, he gave me the amulet and said that it was my job to protect it," Ava said as tears roamed down her face. "I tried to warn Angela, asking for her piece of the amulet. But she was dead when I got there, but Gideon was there with the knife in her stomach."
"God..." Peter whispered.
"He made an escape for it with the amulet, but I fought him for it," Ava whispered. "I was able to wrestle the amulet for him when the two of you arrived. He escaped out the back somewhere, while I escaped through the window...My powers allowed me to track him down and you two stopped me."
Peter then pulled Bobby away from Ava and stood a small distance away to think of their next move.
"Gideon Mace is our killer," Peter whispered to him.
"Yeah, I'm starting to agree. Too many things she's saying adds up." Bobby admitted as he rubbed his head, which turned out to be difficult due to his ice form. "If only we could prove it."
Peter then remembered some of the features in his mask and was given an idea. "Actually...I just might have an idea on how we can."
"How?" Bobby wonders.
"Looked into some of the features that Gwen gave this suit, turns out she added a mask-cam that recorded everything we see," Peter said as he gestured to the eyes. "We literally were just given a confession from both ends telling their side of the story."
Bobby was shocked to hear that then came with worry. "You plan on editing out our identities?"
"Obviously. I can take care of that." Peter promises. "I'll go drop it off with a member of the cops I think won't shoot at me." He then started to walk away and looked back. "Keep her here. We don't want her going to kill Gideon."
"If you say so." Bobby shrugged and turned back to face Ava as Peter swung off.
Yuriko Watanabe was just going on her patrol around the city on her own after Eddie Thawne was reassigned to Joe West. Going on her usual patrol, she would never expected how this day was gonna go when there was a thump on the top of her car.
Jumping out of her car, Yuri aimed her gun at the roof of the car when she noticed it was Spider-Man. "Spider-Man?"
"Detective." Peter greeted the woman who was there for him after his uncle died.
"Spider-Man." Yuri sighed as she put her gun away. "Can't you just knock on the window or something?"
"Honestly, I didn't know if I had the right car or not," Peter admitted to her before tossing a drive at her that she caught. "That's a confession from one Gideon Mace, regarding the murder of Hector Ayala and Angela del Toro."
"And how did you get this?" Yuri wonders as she looked over the drive.
"Let's say he confessed it while trying to take down Ava Ayala," Peter answered as he sat and crossed his legs.
"I'll have to look into this, see if it's liable for use in a trial," Yuri tells him. "Where's the girl?"
"How did you know I have her?" Peter wonders.
"You just confirmed it for me," Yuri said with a smirk.
Peter froze and couldn't believe he fell for the oldest trick in the book. "I'm keeping her contained until we learn if she's not needed for the case."
Back with Bobby and Ava, they were trying to make of the time that they were stuck with. Bobby passed the time by humming some song he heard by some band about his friend.
"Spectacular, spectacular Spider-Man." Bobby sang to himself.
While he was singing to himself, Ava was getting annoyed when she noticed that the webbing she was wrapped up in was starting to decay. Getting an idea, she pretended to struggle to move her hands while freeing them with her claws.
"Hey, White Walker!" Ava called Bobby out as he looked over towards her. "If we're gonna be stuck here, can you at least scratch my nose?"
Bobby looked at her with a raised brow, wondering if he should comment on the idea that a girl with cat powers is asking him to scratch her. But decided to go against it and just do what she asked.
"Sure." Bobby guessed.
When he went to scratch her, Ava attacked by clawing at him, sending Bobby flying across the roof. "That was kinda sad."
And with that, she got back up and started to make her way as far away as she can get before looking for Gideon again. Sadly, that's how things looked when Peter found Bobby and he was on the ground just getting back up.
"What happened?" Peter asked.
"Your webbing seems to have dissolved. And she clawed my face!" Bobby stated as he gestured to his failing ice form.
"Okay." Peter groaned and knew he needed to go after her to deliver the news. "I say go home and cool down...wait."
"Moving on!" Bobby said, not wanting to deal with ice puns right now.
"I'll go stop her. You rest." Peter recapped as he ran off and shot a web to a nearby building before swinging off.
Ava was currently racing through the city, having Gideon's scent again and chasing it through the streets. But when she finally came across him, she was tackled by Peter and he held her down.
"No!" Ava cried. "I can't let him get away!"
"We're not!" Peter promised and showed her the cops starting to surround Gideon.
Yuri got out of the car and a few other officers aimed their guns at her. "Gideon Mace. You're under arrest for the murder of Nestor and Hector Ayala, and Angela del Toro."
As the two watched him get dragged to the cars, Ava looked to Peter for answers. "We took what you and he said as a confession for the murders. He's going away for a long time. You'll need to stop by and give a statement and everything."
The Watcher eyed the two of them and smiled at the work. "Believing his father is innocent, Peter took a mental swear on how he will never take everything for what others say. He looked into the story and managed to find the real killer." Then cutting to a few weeks later, Gideon was tossed into prison as he belonged. "After the weeks passed, Ava Ayala saw there was much to learn about this amulet..."
Ava was finishing packing while Peter and Bobby helped her. She was going to be sent to live with her sister, Awilda Ayala, who lived in New York and has made it her life's work to study the Amulet her family had kept on them for generations.
"Awilda said that she might know a way to help me use this Amulet for good," Ava tells her friends as she put her bags in the car. "I... can't thank you enough. Either of you."
"Well, I always knew you were innocent." Bobby lied casually.
"Ignore him," Peter said as they shook hands. "If you ever need us, feel free to come and stop by."
"I'll keep that in mind. But something tells me this city has enough heroes." Ava said as she climbed into the car and was taken away by her sister to leave for New York.
"I'm gonna miss her," Bobby said to Peter.
"You're weird," Peter commented. "But something tells me that we finally have everything under control."
"No. No, you don't." The Watcher told the boy, even though he couldn't hear him. Looking out into the darkness, he saw the face of the Goblin. "Because it's almost time."
The time of the dance had finally come, and Peter was unable to get himself out of the date with this Ms. Watson's niece. Trust me, he tried all he could, but May even somehow talked Bobby into going with them.
Peter didn't know which to feel sorry for. Him, for being roped into a date to a dance. Or for Bobby, the guy who has no date.
"You look so handsome," May said as she fixed Peter's tie on his suit.
"Why did I let you talk me into this?" Peter questions.
"Oh, come on, Peter. Maybe you'll like this girl." May told him. "Ever think of that?"
Peter sighed and knew he just needed to survive a few hours and pray maybe some supervillain makes an appearance. "Okay, I'll stop complaining."
May then heard a knock and looked out to the window and saw she was here. "Oh, looks like she's here. Wow, she looks amazing." Picking up a corsage on the table, she handed it to Peter. "Here, this is for her. Just go and say hello."
Peter sighed and took it. "Okay, but I don't see this working out for either of us."
"Oh, you'll be surprised," May said with a coy smile.
Peter went and opened the door and was left shocked by who was there. "Mary?"
"Mary Jane Watson, but my friends call me MJ," Mary admitted to him.
She was wearing a black elegant dress that stopped above her chest. The rest upward was a fishnet-style look and stopped a little over her knees. Her hair was combed and curled with some of it going over her left shoulder.
"Let's just face it, Tiger. You just hit the jackpot." She stated with a grin as she watched him admire her. Maybe Gwen was right about trying out a nerd. Seems Peter wasn't even expecting someone like this.
The Watcher looked over to Peter as he just stayed there over his shoulder with a smug smile. "Any regrets, Parker? Because your first date might not be what you expected."
