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To Agent Silver: Welcome back! Keep reading and I'll keep updating.

To moonjava: Hope you did.

On to the story and read and review!

Chapter 12: Octopus Capture

"So how was your day?" asked Rachelle.

"Oh just the usual mess: fighting off five supervillians at once, having bombs thrown at my head, nearly getting electrocuted to death, nearly getting suffocated by a human sandstorm, and trying to sell the pictures to your new boss who happens to be the daughter of your old boss. Then she throws my best pictures back at me and calls them crap, and then tells me she'd pay me six hundred dollars to send her a picture of my boyfriend wearing nothing but his tentacle harness and boxers."

Rachelle burst out laughing. "Did you tell her?"

"Of course not, Rachelle," snapped May. "And risk giving away my identity as Spider-girl?"

"Look, let me tell you a little story about when we were in high school. You know that Austin found out who his father was in freshman year of high school, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he found it out from a tabloid, as did everyone else, and let me explain…"

It was 1st period, AP English. The teacher said, "All right, class, I'd like to work on your English composition skills by…"

All of a sudden, Duke Kelly, who had been mysteriously absent from the class up until now, came running into the room. He stripped off his t-shirt and jeans, revealing a set of Spider-man tights. He pulled on a Spider-man mask, struck a heroic pose, and shouted, "I must stop the evil plot of Doctor Octopus!" Then he ran full force into the wall and tried to climb it, and the attempt of course failed miserably. The he walked out of the room.

"Gotcha!" said the teacher. "That was an experiment to see how observant you are! I want you to take out paper and write what you just saw—you have twenty minutes."

Later, the teacher stood up from her desk. "I read all your papers and they were pretty accurate except for one. Brandon McCloud, would you please stand up and read yours?"

Brandon stood up and read his paper, which simply said: "Wow, is Austin's daddy in trouble now!" to hearty guffaws from the class. Austin turned red and wanted to crawl under a rock.

"English is a very rich language! It has one of the largest vocabularies in the world! And an ill-conceived rumor is all you could write?"

"Ha, ha, that was funny," said Rachelle, laughing as she related the story. "My god, you should have been there! Oh, and then there was one—"

Rachelle started to tell May a story of when the high school had a big Father's Day party and invited all the students to come with their fathers. Austin came to school without a father that day, of course, and the teacher (obviously new and did not read tabloids) had asked why.

Brandon McCloud had replied, with the straightest face he could manage,that Austin's father couldn't make it due to the fact that he was probably webbed up to a lamppost in New York City with a note saying, "Courtesy of your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man."

"Rachelle, that's not funny, that's mean," rebuked May. "It's not like a person can choose their parents!"

Professor Edmunds walked over to the two girls. "Are you two May Parker and Rachelle Laufey?"

"Yes," they said together.

"First I need you to go, immediately, to the front of the college. A Mr. Peter Parker is picking you up there, he says it's an emergency and your professors have already been notified. Second, I need you to tell me where Magni Smith is."

"Uh…I think she's over at Criminal Justice 1A," Rachelle said.

But why was May's father picking up Rachelle and Magni as well as May?

Earlier

Austin Smith walked to his Advanced Biology 1A class. A shadow stirred behind him and a crackling of energy filled the air.

"What? That's not right," he muttered.

Before he could do anything, someone tackled him from behind. A redhead in green and yellow tights roughly pulled his coat and shirt up and firmly planted her hand on the harness. Austin felt an electric shock up his spine. The voices that were constantly buzzing in his head were now silent.

"Sorry, Smith," said the girl. "Can't have you using those on us, can we?"

"Who the hell are you and what do you want with me?" Austin growled.

"All will be revealed in time," said the girl. She pulled a blindfold out of a pocket and tied it around Austin's eyes. "For now, you're coming with me."

Miranda rose into the air, dragging Austin along the way, his tentacles dangling limply at his sides.

The next thing Austin was aware of, he was being shoved into a doorway. "Sorry about that," Miranda said. "I used my electric powers to temporarily short-circuit your tentacles. I'll fix that." She slapped his harness again, making his tentacles work. She removed his blindfold.

Austin blinked. He was surrounded by two girls and two guys, all in different costumes. He recognized them from the bank-robbery pictures in the Daily Bugle. The only one missing was…

A voice spoke from the shadows. "The Sinister Six is complete."