Arc 1 - Chapter I: First Contact

I love sleep.

I mean, who doesn't love their sleep?

I love my sleep! I dream in my sleep, I think of new art in my sleep, one time when I was a kid I almost wet my bed in my sleep!

…

Okay, yeah, that was a little too much information, I realize that. That's on me, I own up to that. And I apologize.

Anyway, I seriously love my sleep. So you can understand why I'd take issue when someone would wake me up before the time I'm not sleepy-sleep. Which happened right about…

…

"-now! Seriously, Kairi, I may not care much if I'm late, but obviously, you do!"

Releasing a tired groan, Kairi's eyes slowly opened, giving his roommate a glare, "Miles, what are you doing?"

"Waking you up, you dingus!"

Kairi slowly took in a deep breath, "Okay, and the reason you're doing it while wearing a shirt that's dripping paint all over the floor?"

"It's still wet?" Miles turned around, trying to look for the places where the paint hadn't dried yet. Shortly, he found that paint had been dripping onto his pants with some drops falling onto the floor. "Oh, would you look at that."

Kairi covered a yawn as he got off the top bunk, landing on the floor on his feet. "You're cleaning the floor out, by the way. Your mess, your clean up," he said as he grabbed a set of the Visions' academy uniform from his closet. "Out painting another mural or something?"

"Oh yeah," Miles grinned eagerly as he took off his shirt and started to get dressed for class like his friend. "My uncle Aaron showed me this great place over on the Northside of Brooklyn in the subway tunnels. Remote and completely at the mercy of me and my spray paint. Wanna see?"

"You mean a picture right?" Kairi laughed as he buttoned up his shirt. "Cuz I don't think we have the time to make it up there and back for class."

"Duh," Miles rolled his eyes as he pulled out his phone. "Check it!"

Kairi looked down at the device and raised a brow. "Dude, it's blank…"

"What?" Miles blinked before looking down at his phone and pressing on its screen. He did it a few more times when the device remained unresponsive. "Aw come on, I swore I still had twelve percent on this thing when I left the train!"

Kairi laughed at his friend's antics before he spied the time on the Spider-Man wall clock he kept on the wall. "Whoa. You can show it to me later, bro," he said as he grabbed his blazer and kicked the door open, "we're going to be late for homeroom!"

"You know, I still don't really care about school!" Miles called after him as he pulled on his backpack.

And yet, Miles still attended class. As his only friend at Visions, Kairi insisted that he at least come to class. He knew Miles wanted out of Visions, to go back to his old school where all his other friends were. And Kairi could respect that, people should be at places where they felt happy, where they felt safe to learn. Still, Kairi told Miles to at least try Visions for at least a week and if he still felt like leaving, Kairi would help Miles get out of Visions.

"So what's your next idea for your next sculpture?" Miles asked him during lunch as he ate the food off his tray. At least the food here was decent. "Cuz I got this new set of spray paint that my uncle got me and I really want to use 'em."

Kairi, who had been using parts of his lunch to draw out a blueprint on the tabletop only nodded absently. "Uh-huh, yeah that's cool."

Noting his distracted tone, Miles looked over with a frown. "Dude, are you listeni- oh." When he noticed his friend's blueprint made of mashed potatoes and bits of chicken meat, he blinked before he smirked. "Well alright, you do you, man."

"Mmhmm, sure, Miles. Shhh."

Shaking his head, Miles watched as his friend continue making his blueprint, volunteering parts of his own lunch when Kairi's tray ran empty.

"And… voila!"

"It's… Spider-Man," Miles observed with a contemplative frown. "Fighting the Rhino?"

Kairi smirked, "Yup. Whad'ya think?"

"How big is this gonna be?" Miles asked.

Kairi's smirk turned into a grin, "Big, dude. Big." His arms stretched wide in emphasis.

Miles returned the eager grin. "Dude, this is gonna be awesome!"

"Heck yeah, it is!" Kairi raised his hand for a high-five, one that Miles easily gave. "But we're gonna have to talk to Stan at the junkyard after school, he's the only one I know in the city who has pieces that might be big enough for this."

"Aw, man, I can't wait!" Miles grinned.

Stan was this guy who owned a junkyard over in Queens who always allowed the two of them access to his best scrap that he himself wasn't going to use to turn a profit. A curious old guy who always seemed to know better, but said the weirdest of things. Who said 'excelsior' these days anyway?

"Ahem."

The two froze before they slowly looked back over their shoulders to see one of the teachers staring down at them with his arms folded across his chest and a brow raised, a peeved look on his face as he glanced over at Kairi's blueprint.

"Defacing school property again, are we, gentlemen?" the teacher asked crisply.

Both Kairi and Miles plastered innocent smiles on their faces.

"Uh, hey, Mister York!" Miles said nervously. "Nice day we're having, right?"

"Indeed, a nice day," Mr. York nodded, his facial expression not changing in the slightest. "At least it was until I found paint drips leading from the main entrance to the dorm halls to your dorm room and now I've found that food is currently decorating one of our lunch tables."

Miles and Kairi traded looks.

"Okay, Mister York," said Kairi, "I admit that I will own up to the food on the table-"

"And I will own up to the paint on the floor," Miles cut in.

"And we are both sorry for what we've done," Kairi continued.

Miles nodded, "Very sorry."

"Uh-huh." Mr. York continued to stare.

…

"Dude, I don't think this is working," Miles whispered from the corner of his mouth.

"Bro, shut up, you're going to ruin it," Kairi replied back, just as quiet.

"Essays, from the both of you," Mr. York said as he lowered his arms. "Two pages on why it's so important to keep a school clean. Minimum. I want them on my desk in two weeks starting from today."

Both Kairi and Miles winced.

"Yes, Mister York," both boys chorused.

"Enjoy the rest of your day, gentlemen," Mr. York nodded before he turned on his heel and left.

Both Kairi and Miles breathed out sighs of relief.

"All right, we should probably get this cleaned up before the lunch ladies start hounding us about this too," sighed Kairi. "I'll go get some paper towels, can you take a picture of this so we can use it for later?"

"With what phone?" Miles looked over at him incredulously. "Mine's back in the room charging, remember?"

Kairi blinked, "Oh, right." Digging into his pocket, he tossed over his own phone. "Well, then use mine. And take plenty of pics! We're gonna need them."

"You got it, boss!" Miles saluted.

Kairi turned back around to go find some large paper towel rolls for the clean-up when he nearly bumped into someone. "Oh! Holy crap, sorry about that," he quickly apologized. "Didn't see where I was going."

"Don't worry about it."

Kairi was taken back by the sight of who he had bumped into, a blonde girl with a piercing over her right eyebrow. "Sorry, are you new here?" he asked curiously. "I don't think I've seen you around here."

"Uh, yeah, I just transferred recently," she nodded.

"Weird, I thought Miles was the only new transfer," Kairi hummed. "Anyway, welcome to Visions."

The blonde smiled, "Thanks. I'm Gwe-" She paused before blurting out, "Gwanda. The name's Gwanda. It's South African, I'm from South Africa but uh, I don't have an accent because I, uh, was raised here."

Kairi raised a brow, amused. "Cool, I'm Kairi. I'm part Japanese but I don't speak the language because I was raised here too," he said, offering his hand for a handshake.

That got 'Gwanda' to laugh a bit at the use of her joke as she took his hand and shook it. "I was kidding, by the way, there's no G," she cleared her throat when her laughter died down. "My name's Wanda."

"Well, nice to meet you, Wanda," Kairi replied.

"Nice to meet you, Kairi," she nodded before raising a brow. "So, do you usually get in trouble with the teachers?"

Kairi winced, "Ah, you saw that?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone in the cafeteria saw that," she smirked.

"Fair enough," he sighed. "But no, usually I don't get in trouble much. It's usually my friend Miles who does though."

"So then what did you get in trouble for then?" she asked curiously.

"Drawing a blueprint on the table with my lunch," he shrugged. "I didn't have any paper on me so I used what was available."
"With your lunch?"

"Well, when an idea's in my head, it has to get out," he shrugged sheepishly, tapping the side of his head with his knuckles in emphasis. "Otherwise, it'll just bug me for the whole damn day," he grumbled.

It happened once and on a test day to boot. He had ended up drawing his plans for his next piece on the backside of his answer slip and got chewed out for it by the teacher. The same teacher was also the one who introduced him to Stan the next day.

"Really?" Wanda laughed.

"Really, really," he nodded.

"Uh, Kairi? A little help?"

The two looked over to see that Miles was facing an angry lunch lady who was pointing at Kairi's blueprint made of food with an irritated and incredulous look on her face. Miles had his hands raised as he tried to deescalate the issue, but he kept looking over his shoulder at Kairi as he silently asked for backup.

Kairi winced, "Ah, I gotta go deal with that."

"Have fun," Wanda shook her head, a smirk on her lips.

"Better wish me luck instead," he sighed with a grimace as he went back to Miles. "And welcome to Visions again, Wanda!" he said over his shoulder with a wave.

With her amused smirk persisting, she waved back at him as she watched him join his friend and talk to the lunch lady. From the looks of it, it wasn't going all that well. Turning on her heel, she started heading out of the cafeteria. It was a shame that she had to give a fake name instead of her real one.

…Later that afternoon…

"Okay, dude, how long are you going to keep pouting?" Kairi asked Miles, who sat next to him on the subway train.

"I'm not pouting," Miles said gruffly, his arms crossed as he slouched in his seat, keeping his gaze averted from his roommate. "I'm not pouting. I'm sulking, there's a difference you know."

"I'm pretty sure the words are synonymous, bro," Kairi cocked his head to the side, a brow raised.

"Oh, come on, no they aren't," Miles scoffed.

"Yeah, they are. Ask Google."

Scoffing again, Miles pulled out his recently charged phone to check, typing in 'sulk' in the search bar. He waited a moment for the search to be complete and blinked when the search results did indeed say that pout was a synonym for sulk.

"Well?"

"The search is inconclusive," Miles lied, not wanting to give his friend the satisfaction.

Kairi shook his head with a laugh.

"But you still left me high and dry with that lunch lady to talk to a girl!" Miles accused, pointing a finger at his friend's face. "What happened to 'bros before hoes,' man? Solidarity! Solidarity must always be kept!"

"All right, fine, I'm sorry," Kairi rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry that I left you in the clutches of a lunch lady to talk to a girl."

"Good!" Miles nodded, his arms crossed over his chest. "Was she hot?"

…

Kairi blinked before his face became deadpan. "Really?" he asked flatly.

"Answer the question, dude!" Miles insisted, bumping the bottom of his fist against Kairi's shoulder. "Was she hot? I'll forgive you if you tell me she's hot."

"Bro, does it really matter?" Kairi groaned, palming his face.

"To some people it does," shrugged Miles. And if it wasn't clear, he did indeed include himself in the same group of those some people. "C'mon, tell me, dude. Was she hot?"

Kairi threw up his hands, "She was pretty okay?"

"And…?" Miles drew out the word, a teasing grin plastered over his face.

"And yes, she was hot."

"I knew it!" Miles laughed. "You gonna ask her out?"

Kairi shrugged as he looked away, "I dunno, I just met her."

"Oh, come on, Kairi," protested Miles. "Why not ask her out? I mean it has been, what, like a month since your break up with Elsa?"

Kairi aimed a glare off to the corner of his gaze. "Yeah, don't remind me," he grumbled.

Elsa Bloodstone, his ex-girlfriend who he dated for almost a year. She was a transfer student from England who came to Visions Academy on a two-year study abroad program. They had hit it off after a few study dates and he managed to work up the courage to ask her out on an actual date. And Elsa was a good person, a bit snarky but he had liked that about her, she wasn't afraid to tell anyone what she was feeling or if someone was being stupid. However, with that snark had come a level of cynicism and superiority.

At first, he overlooked it, but as time passed and whenever he and she discussed his art, she would phrase commands as suggestions during the creative process. Or at least, that was what he had thought and he had tried talking to her about it, but Elsa would just talk around the subject before blowing him off if things got heated. Eventually, he got fed up with arguing and broke things off because, at that point, most of their conversations happened either via text or phone calls.

"So live a little man, you don't have to worry about her anymore, all right?" Miles shook his friend's shoulders. "Find someone you'll actually have fun with. Besides, it's like my uncle says, all you have to get a girl to be into you is be confident. Get your confidence back, man. Be confident so that you can walk up to them, put your hand on their shoulder and say 'hey.'"

Kairi looked at him with a brow raised, "'Hey'?"

"Hey," Miles nodded sagely.

Kairi then rolled his eyes, "Okay, dude. Sure."

"Seriously, man," said Miles as the train arrived at their stop and the two of them got up to disembark. "My uncle swears that technique works."

"Whatever you say, my dude," Kairi chuckled as they went down the stairs and onto the streets.

It didn't take them long to arrive at a junkyard. Excelsior Auto & Salvage, the overhead sign at the entrance to the property said. Many cars ranging from differing years littered the sides of the place with many broken or nonoperative appliances were in various piles. And in the middle of the lot, a decently sized building where both teens knew that the junkyard's owner stayed in while conducting business. Walking up to the front door of the building, Miles was the one who rang the doorbell while Kairi was content in sitting on the porch railing.

"Yeah, yeah, just leave the car-" an elderly man with his white hair slicked back and had a mustache and a pair of sunglasses on came out grumbling. Though he paused at who was at his doorstep. "Ah, it's just you two," he laughed. "What're you going here, shouldn't you be in school?"

"School's done for the day, Stan," Kairi reminded the man with a laugh.

"Yeah," Miles nodded. "Besides, Kairi's got an idea."

Shaking his head, Stan got onto the porch, closing the door behind him. "Well, alright then, what'dya boys got?"

Kairi got off the railing, pulling out his phone to show Stan his new idea.

"Did… did you make this outta food?" Stan narrowed his eyes in confusion from behind his shades.

"I didn't have pen or paper," Kairi shrugged.

Stan shook his head, chuckling, "Fair enough, kiddo. Anyway, this looks doable and I think I have some leftover metal cabling in one of my garage bays that should help with making the frame first."

"Sweet," Kairi grinned.

"I'll get it," Miles volunteered.

"Should be in Bay Two," Stan told him as he tossed over the keys. "If not…"

"Check Bay Three," Miles nodded.

This wasn't his first rodeo here.

Stan chuckled before he turned his attention back to Kairi. "So, how's your mom, kiddo? She doing okay?"

"Last time I check," Kairi shrugged. Only for his phone to chime, a ringtone that he had assigned specifically to one contact. "Ah, speak of the devil. Do you mind?"

"By all means," Stan waved him off. "I'll go see what kind of scrap I got that would work in the meantime."

"Sounds good, Stan," Kairi nodded before he turned his attention to his phone.

How was school today?

Typing out his reply, Same old, same old. Learned, took a quiz, Miles tried to fail again. You know, the usual.

Lol. Usually, it takes a lot of work to get into Visions, not to get out of it.

Smirking, he typed, Well, you know Miles. He doesn't like cages.

School aren't cages, sweetheart.

They are to some kids, Mom.

Right, well enough about other kids. I'm asking about MY kid.

He rolled his eyes, I'm fine, Mom. Like I said, nothing really happened much today.

"Hey, is that your mom?"

Startled, Kairi nearly dropped his phone and glared at Miles, who had a few rolls of metal cables under his arms. Dropping the cables onto the ground, Miles ignored the glare his friend was aiming at him and swiped his phone.

"Hey!"

"What a wonderful kind of day," Miles remarked with a smirk as he looked over his friend's texts, keeping Kairi at bay.

"Seriously, Miles, give me my phone back!"

"In a minute, dude," Miles replied. "Talking about me to your mom, huh? Well, it's a good thing our parents don't talk much."

Kairi glared at him for the pun.

"But…" Miles drew the word out as he started typing on his friend's phone.

"Oi! What're you typing?"

Miles then ran from Kairi, avoiding his friend as he finished typing. "You're welcome, dude," he grinned as he tossed Kairi his phone back.

Glaring in suspicion at his friend, Kairi then looked down at his phone.

Hey, Ms. Lopez, the text read. This is Miles, just wanted to let you know that Kairi met a girl today. Even left me in the clutches of an evil lunch lady to talk to the girl. Maybe he'll bring her home someday soon? Gonna hand Kairi his phone back.

Kairi's head snapped up, his glare intensifying.

Miles just grinning.

But before Kairi could say or do anything further, his phone chimed again. Releasing an annoyed groan, he check his phone again, immediately dreading what was going to happen when he saw the text notification.

So what's her name?

"You're dead to me, Miles," Kairi hissed.

Miles just laughed. Payback!

"I think I found the best scrap metal that would work for the base of the statue," Stan said as he came back, hauling some pieces of metal in his hands. Only to find Kairi on top of a downed Miles, strangling the guy.

"Uncle! Uncle!" Miles rasped in surrender.

"Die like a man, Miles! Die like a man!"

Stan blinked once, then twice more. "I feel like I should ask," he sighed. "But then I don't really want the headache." Dropping the pieces of metal onto the ground in a pile, he turned back towards where he came from. "I'm just gonna get more scrap."

…A few hours later…

…Over in Manhattan…

Bright orange lights began to spark in an empty alley before a circular portal began to slowly separate the air. The portal held open for a few moments, revealing some kind of hallway with fine decorations placed about. And through the portal, a puddle of black and yellow goo shot through before the portal before it closed. The goo, seemingly having a mind of its own began to move through the alley before it neared the edge of the alleyway.

An edge of the goo lifted, acting almost like a head as it 'looked' about as many pedestrians passed by it. All of them were completely unaware that a sentient goo had been near their feet as they walked the streets of New York. An advertisement overhead caught the goo's attention, it was one of Spider-man beating the bad guy and saving the city from another catastrophe.

"Once again, due to the actions of Spider-man, Shocker has been defeated and put safely behind bars, keeping our city safe. From the people here at NBC, we thank you Spider-man. No matter what other people say, you are a hero to us."

The head of the goo turned around when it heard a metal trashcan fall to the ground behind it, breaking its attention from the Spider-man news story. Going back into the alley, the goo saw that the perpetrator of the falling trashcan had been a cat.

Upon noticing it had company, one that it was not used to, the cat arched its back and hissed at the goo. The 'head' of the goo tilted itself before a maw opened up and hissed back only louder, completely scaring the poor feline and was sent scrambling back with a yowl. The goo released a rumbling chuckle before it began to expand and grow. And soon, the black and yellow goo took on the form of a cat, albeit with four red eyes.

The newly formed cat meowed as it shook itself before it leaped further into the alley.

…Back in Queens…

"Whoa, is that the time? You young'uns outta get back to your dorm," Stan frowned as he looked down at his watch.

Kairi and Miles shared a perturbed look from where they were individually braiding the metal cables in order to create frames for their newest collaboration project.

"Stan, did… you just call us 'young'uns'?" Miles asked incredulously.

"It just slipped out, okay?" Stan sighed. "Anyway, my point still stands."

"Mm, he's got a point," Kairi said reluctantly to Miles. "Plus, I need to get studying done for next week's social studies quiz."

"All right, fine," Miles sighed.

Personally, he wanted to keep going since he didn't have a vested interest in keeping up his grades at Visions Academy. But he could respect the fact that Kairi did. Though, now he was wondering what he was going to do to pass the time.

"Come on, we can take what you boys got done over to Bay Three," said Stan, grabbing some of the scrap metal.

Miles and Kairi took the metal cables they had fashioned together for the limbs of their statue and some rolls of the metal cable they had yet to touch before following after Stan to his garage bays. It took a few trips to get all the gathered materials from where they had started to Bay Three, but eventually, between the three of them, they got the job done.

"As always, the both of you should feel free to come back anytime," said Stan as he locked the bay door up with a padlock. "Your project won't finish itself, after all."

"Thanks, Stan," Kairi nodded, offering his fist for a fistbump.

One that Stan easily gave before he also gave one to Miles.

"See you later, Stan!" Miles said as he grabbed his backpack and slipped one of the straps over his shoulder. "Thanks again for dinner!"

As he and Kairi left the junkyard, Miles' phone chimed, causing him to check it and grin. "Hey, man, I'm gonna hang out with my uncle again. He just got the God of War game and he's offering to let me play."

"Yeah, yeah," Kairi easily waved off. "Go, have fun. Say 'hi' to your uncle for me."

"You got it!" Miles said as he went the other way so he could get to the train that ran in the opposite direction of Visions Academy, offering a wave over his shoulder. "Don't study too much, bro!"

"If only," Kairi grumbled.

Honestly, he did not like social studies much. In fact, he hated the subject. Why talk about the accomplishments and failures of dead people? Just keep the lessons of their failures, no need to know when they were born or some other crap.

Heading for the subway back to Brooklyn, Kairi plugged his ears with his earbuds and played some music from one of the playlists on his phone. Joining a crowd in the same direction he was going, he nodded his head to the beat of the music. He was a big fan of indie rock music since they often had a fresher sense of music compared to what was usually popular or brought back some old nostalgia that popular rock bands used to play but stopped for whatever reason.

Eventually reaching the subway station, took the appropriate subway that was going in the direction of his school, still nodding his head to his music as he grabbed a nearby handlebar to steady himself instead of finding a seat. Though that was because there wasn't an empty seat in sight. Honestly, he wasn't really surprised by the lack of empty seats, people who were going to work for the night shift, or people who had worked late and were going home often filled the subway train.

As the train moved, his thoughts wandered over to the girl he had met at school today, Wanda. Even in a school as prodigious as Visions Academy, new transfer students tended to create a buzz in gossip. Gossip was made when Miles transferred from his school, but there was little to no gossip that he had heard when he first met Wanda. Now, he wasn't the type to actively participate in gossip, but he did like to at least keep his ear to the ground. After all, some rumors about people were right.

But again, he heard absolutely nothing on Wanda. So either she was messing with him and she was just a student he had never had met until today, or… Nah, that was the only plausible reason he could think of. Maybe she was just the anomaly in regards to the whole gossip before a new transfer student thing, an outlier. And he was being honest when he told Miles that he had found Wanda pretty… and hot. But asking her out? Yeah, that sounded like a lot of stress he did not want to deal with at the moment, thank you very much.

When the subway train finally arrived at the station close to Visions Academy, he disembarked and headed for street level. And it was during this time that he passed by an alleyway and a sound managed to get through into his ears during a lull in the music he had been listening to. The sound he had heard had been a sharp crash, sounding like glass or something.

Unable to help his curiosity, Kairi pulled his earbuds from his ears and stuffed them into his pocket before he decided to investigate. Looking about, he found the usual stuff one would find in an alley, garbage cans, garbage bins, even sine dried vomit that was left by a drunk during the weekend. But eventually, he found a cat wandering the alley, who had looked up at him at his approach.

"Hey, kitty," Kairi said lowly, respectfully keeping his distance.

The feline tilted its head at him before its ears twitched, pricking up as it stood still, its muscles tensing. After a short moment, it then dashed away. Shaking his head, Kairi dismissed the noise he had heard before as the cat had bumped into a pot or a glass cup that had been left behind somewhere. He dug into his pocket to grab his earbuds and turned around to see…

What the hell?

Was that a four-eyed cat?

It started up at him, its head tilted in curiosity. He had been living in New York long enough to know that weird crap tended to happen here in the city of New York. What with man-sized lizards, guys completely composed of sand, and dudes who control lightning and electricity like they were Greek god Zeus. Honestly, a four-eyed cat shouldn't surprise him, but he hated to admit that it did.

"Whoa," Kairi blinked before becoming deadpan. "Please don't tell me you're a Spider-man villain. Cuz I would really hate to die before I could see how Spider-man deals with you."

The four-eyed cat blinked, all four eyes blinking consecutively rather all the same time, making the situation even creepier. But before Kairi, could react, the cat-thing leaped into the air towards him, and reflexively, he took a step back with his arms raised to defend himself. And further to his surprise, the cat expanded into a large wave of goo and that was the last thing he saw before everything went black.

If it isn't obvious, Kairi is a character I've created for this story, which will be following the Into the Spider-verse film and its later sequels when they come out. Additionally, in regards to our main symbiote, I will be using elements from the comics and the Venom films when it comes to the alien's personality and whatever other creative freedom I'll be using.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and you all have a good day.