All credit to respective owners.
Special Thanks to 'Vanitas50 or Shadow25'.
And yes.
I failed to find a suitable name!
*sob*
Ricochet was never meant to be permanent, so I dabbled and planned and thought and searched everywhere I could before I finally conceded to use Kid Arachnid as Miles' new super-hero name. Arachnus was a close second and perhaps future counterpart, but not now.
Not yet...
-Y.A.R.N.
Peter webbed a final thug trying to blindside him to the side of a building when his hands-free cell buzzed and he answered, "Hello?"
"Hey Pete." MJ replied, "So about Yuri... apparently from what Miles gathered and sent to me, it looks like the Maggia were looking at her and investigating her participation in the police." Peter frowned and launched himself into the skies before web-swinging away, "Yuri? What would they want with her?"
"No idea." MJ replied, "I am still breaking into the encrypted files that Miles sent me, I just need the last piece and that should be everything I need to see the whole picture. She might be a target or something if they were looking into her."
Peter's mouth twisted into a grim line, "She already has way too much on her plate, I won't let her down again."
"I know you won't." MJ assured.
"Talk to you soon." Peter said.
"you too." Mj said softly.
She hung up and Peter sighed gustily as he landed on the edge of a building, "Yuri... Please don't worry me any more than I already have to..."
His hands-free buzzed and he answered, "Hello?"
"Hey coach," Miles greeted, "Are you gonna join me at the last base?"
Peter nodded despite the fact Miles couldn't see him, "Yeah, give me a minute and I'll be there."
He twisted in the air around a fire-escape and swung toward the last base.
"Another auto chop-shop." Peter muttered, "How very typical. You would think that just once — just once! — they might try something new, but chop shop it is. Like Tombstone all over again except less grave dust and more suit vests and rolled up sleeves."
Miles snickered at his mentor's overdramatized irritation, "You really missed out at the last base, they had this really fancy place for the rich and pricey! Anyway, ready coach?"
Peter chuckled and cracked a grin under his mask, "Always."
They both began to move from where they were perched, crawling along the ceiling and webbing up the various milling thugs before the maggia before they even had the chance to cry out. Soon the room was cleared and Peter and Miles landed in the middle of the warehouse; an alarm began to blare throughout the warehouse as maggia goons and thugs began to run out through the area.
"What?" Miles growled as he shifted into his ready stance, "I thought we got them all; none of the other guys here raised an alarm before we got them!"
"We did get them but I should have guessed and told you it wouldn't change much." Peter replied grimly as he got into his stance and eyed the surrounding thugs, "They most definitely had radio check-in times, when they didn't get the check-in a minute or two after their planned time, they must have guessed that something had gone down and triggered the alarm!"
The goons armed with pipes and batons rushed forward and Miles and Peter leapt into action at the same time. Miles dodged a swipe of a pipe before spinning and burying his foot into the goon's gut. Peter vaulted over the crumpling goon and landed feet first on the goon wielding a baton and tryin to blindside Miles, smashing him into the floor. Miles and Peter both fired off a blast of impact webbing that pinned two goons to the wall. A thug came in swinging and they cartwheeled and rolled out of the way into another group of goons trying to circle them. Peter's cartwheel ended with him kicking a Sable rifle away from Miles' back before clocking the goon across the jaw. Miles rose to land a devastating uppercut into a handgun-wielding goon that knocked him out cold. Miles lashed out with his fists and venom-blasts while Peter used his suit's temperature settings to deliver searing blows from his hands. With Peter's new tech and Miles' advanced powers, the spiders both began to make quick work of the rest of the maggia forces in the warehouse.
Miles huffed as he threw a goon to the floor before kicking him into unconsciousness, "Seems kinda pointless to be quiet about it if they still know when you just cleared the room."
Peter uppercutted a thug into the air before tagging with trip-mine webbing which trapped him to the floor, "Any edge you can get when you fight — like reducing their numbers by even a few grunts — helps and you can't ever be too careful."
They both leapt out of the way of a hail of mini-gun bullets and replied with a double shot of electric webbing. The thug spasmed and twitched as the electricity coursed through him and he collapsed into a smoking heap.
"Done?" Miles queried.
"Done." Peter replied in a satisfied tone.
Peter emotions shifted from triumphant and proud to shocked to defeated and guilty as MJ finally broke into the encrypted files that maggia had. As it turned out, both Yuri's father and grandfather had been dirty with the Maggia; which explained why Yuri was so driven whenever it came to taking down the Maggia. Making up for mistakes was something Peter understood all too well but the amount of responsibility and burden Yuri was carrying could very well break her. The incident at the asylum was already bad enough of a blow to Yuri's self-esteem and her composure, Peter's earlier failure had on compounded on it. Yuri had always cared about her men, but current events were blows — especially ones Hammerhead (of all the people it could have been) had dealt — that definitely hit her where it hurt. She probably had to prove herself several times over in the police force as people kept trying to prove of find out if it'd be a 'Watanabe Family Tradition' to be in bed with the Maggia.
And even though MJ was working on a piece of Maggia fronts, she had to pitch this and possibly air Yuri's private (and shameful) issues and affairs to the whole city. Peter understood, he had been a photographer for the Bugle and knew that circulation was important, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Still, he never hated himself more for actually finding the hidden files and wishing that they weren't mentioning Yuri.
"Well..." Miles tried to help his mentor see any positive, "At least we managed to get a lot of the Sable Tech that Hammerhead had managed to get his hands on after Sable International vacated the city and the hidden files might lead us to more stockpiles later on."
"There is that..." Peter sighed as shook his head.
His headset beeped and he lifted a hand to answer the call, "Yuri?"
"We've got a convoy of trucks heading to different precincts so that the Maggia won't be able to get all the tech if they manage to get inside the precincts." Yuri said succinctly, "We need to you guard each convoy so that the maggia won't take them as they are moving to he precincts."
"Im on it." Peter assured, "I've got Ricochet with me, we'll both be guarding a convoy each, try to keep them safe."
Yuri hung up without another word and Peter's worry deepened as he and Miles both made their way to the precinct, "Yuri..."
Desperate to change the topic and focus of his mentor's opinion, Miles threw out a question, "So I wanted to know if I could change my name to something else, more spider-related than just Ricochet."
"Why?" Peter inquired, "Is it bothering you?"
"A bit." Miles admitted, "I mean I have powers that were given to me by a spider, everyone sees the spider insignia on my chest, and it kinda obvious that your my mentor and teaching me how to be a better hero. I mean, Ricochet isn't a bad name, but it doesn't exactly match the image..."
"I suppose and I don't think you would like to be called Spider Junior..." Peter mused teasingly. "No!" Miles protested, "I get enough of the whole junior thing from the guys I beat up!"
Peter hummed, "Let me think, how about...Arachnus?"
Miles tilted his head in consideration and replied, "How about we shelve that one for when I am a legal adult and use... Kid Arachnid? I mean, I am still young, got plenty of growing to do right?"
Peter let out a laugh as they got closer to the precinct, "Alright, it'll do Kid Arachnid."
Peter swung off after convoy and Miles moved to watch another as they covered them from the skies.
"Watch out for the digging-tank things," Peter cautioned over his link to Miles, "They can pop up anywhere and are filled with plenty of Maggia to pummel."
Miles swung after one of the trucks and landed on the edge of a rooftop, "Got it. So anything else you want me to know about?"
Peter shook his head despite the fact that Miles couldn't see it, "That's the most important thing I can think of, if something goes down, let me know."
The first few minutes were the most peaceful as the convoy left the precinct, but that wasn't to last. As soon as the convoy was halfway through the park, the road in front and behind the convoy exploded as four digging machines erupted from the earth. Miles didn't dither and launched himself into the fray, punching one goon in the face before lifting him and tossing him at a thug nearby. The two went down in a heap as Miles spun on his heel and lashed out with a spinning kick to a charging goon's jaw. He flipped out of the way of a hail of bullets as the other maggia forces opened fire on him.
Miles Warren stared at the new reporting the Maggia attacks on the police convoy, arms crossed and expression surly as he sat in a chair, "We should strike while the Spiders are distracted, why are we waiting to exact our revenge?"
"Your revenge, Warren." Calvin Zabo said absentmindedly, as he fiddled with a machine he was trying to calibrate, "I don't share your hatred for Osborn, Spider-Men, or any of the other criminals incarcerated; the Devil's Breath incident was occurring while I was out of town and even then, I had lost nothing. I only aided you since I am simply interested in what will happen during your attack, and while Mr. Hyde would so very much like to play, he doesn't desire needless conflict to get in the way of our time and research. Besides you never allowed me to make sure the mutagen you acquired was fully stable to be combined with your splicing test, your body hasn't shown any adverse affects yet, but I am curious as to whether your body simply has yet to react."
Warren rounded on Calvin Zabo, hands instantly growing into sharp talons, "Is that why you supplied me with locations of the Osborn Labs? To test the prototype mutagen's affect on me? I am no one's lab experiment! "
Zabo felt a prickle of sweat bead on his neck and forehead while he subtly reached for the vial that would transform him into Mr. Hyde in his pocket, "Come now, Warren. You wanted to carry out your revenge and I simply aided you, you never would have been able to get the mutagen to even a half-feasible stage at all if I hadn't assisted you. This is hardly the way to show your gratitude."
Warren scowled at his accomplice before settling back into his seat, grumbling audibly at Zabo as he went back to watching the coverage of the battle. Zabo swallowed hard and withdrew his hand from his pocket, tension ebbing away from his frame. Hyde was monstrously strong but Warren was no pushover himself and the last thing he needed was for Warren to attack him in his lab, the damage could be catastrophic and expose them as criminals to watch out for. He had noticed an effect of the mutagen that Warren had stolen from Oscorp, and it was obvious. Warren was beginning to become too aggressive and near homicidal when there was even the slightest hint of provocation. Whatever the mutagen had done to his body, his mind was what Zabo realized was the most affected; Warren's self-control was rapidly decaying and the man hadn't even noticed. The mutagen was never properly tested and only now was it beginning to show side-effects. Warren was running out of time before he lost all his sanity. It may have had to do with him mixing the mutagen to the arachnid DNA or some random genetic defect from Warren's DNA but it was fascinating.
Peter swung after the truck carrying the Sable weaponry as the Maggia goons threw taunts and jeers at him. He ducked away from a rocket to firing a web-line that caught the top of the fleeing truck. With a quick yank, Spider-Man landed on the top of the truck and crawled to the sides of the truck to throw out the goons that were inside. With a quick twist and leap Peter landed in front of the speeding truck and planted his feet firmly against the ground and slammed his palms into the grill of the vehicle, forcing it to come to a stop as the tries squealed and metal crumpled under his hands. His waldoes shot out of his back and two stabbed into the earth as two braced themselves against the vehicle. The driver's head smacked against the glass — cracking it with a spiderweb of jagged lines — He let out a short pant of air as he straightened and surveyed the now stopped vehicle. He leapt to the front of the window and pressed his fingers against the man's jugular, feeling the pulse of blood still pumping through the veins from the unconscious goon. A quick web cocoon to the drivers seat and Spider-Man leapt on top of the truck.
"Good..." He sighed before calling Yuri, "Yuri? I just stopped the trucks and—"
"Get back here NOW!" Yuri's voice shouted into the phone.
"Yuri?" Spider-Man panicked, "YURI!"
Viri immediately shifted to crawl over Peter's usual suit and Spider-Man launched into the air hard enough to crack the ground as he blitzed over the the police precinct. Yuri's frantic calls to the emergency services and pain-filled voice caused Peter's worry to skyrocket.
Yuri cared for those under her command.
And judging by the sheer horror in her voice?
Something hit them hard.
Peter's hatred for Hammerhead burned like Molten-Man's flames twisting through his heart as he saw the result of his negligence. The police precinct was in horrible shape and it didn't help that paramedics were swarming the area and several bodies were already covered in sheets. Miles had swung over as fast as he could and froze when he saw the state of the precinct as Peter's symbiote suit receded back into his body. He looked to Peter only to see Peter's clenched fists and tense frame. Yuri was crouched over a bloodied officer and was directing medics to take over before the man bled out. She surveyed the scene with guilt and helpless agony in her features before she schooled her features into a cold mask. Peter internally flinched at the unforgiving fury that was now burning in her eyes.
"I'm sorry Yuri," Peter sighed, "I should've been here."
"He knew exactly what he was doing." Yuri spat angrily.
She stalked over to a dead Maggia goon and planted a foot in the body's ribs to kick it off the sable rifle it had under it. Miles gasped and Peter's heart lurched to shoot into his throat as his stomach flipped uncomfortably at Yuri's casual disregard for the body. Viri squirmed in agitation as it sensed Peter's distress.
'Oh no.' Peter mentally begged, 'Not her. Don't let vengeance consume her...'
"He won't get away with this Yuri." Peter said, hoping to draw Yuri out of the vengeance that was swallowing her up.
"I know." Yuri replied shortly, turning on her heel to march toward a cop car.
"Where are you going?" Peter almost-shouted as he jogged towards her.
"To teach a lesson in fear." Yuri snarled as she pulled on the handle of the car.
Peter placed a hand on the window, stopping the door from opening too far. Yuri furious glare snapped to him and Peter forced himself not to quail.
"Woah. Deep breaths." He said, trying to calm Yuri down.
"You can either get out of my way," Yuri threatened, "Or I can arrest you."
Peter raised his hands in surrender and watched as Yuri clambered into the car and drove off at high speeds. Miles quietly stepped forward to stand next to his mentor.
"P-er, Spider-Man..." He began, "What should do now? They have the sable tech and Miss Watanabe..."
"I don't know kid." Peter replied, "This can't be any good."
With all things as hectic as they were Peter barely had time to swing to Horizon Labs and log in to the check-in system. He knew that time was of the essence but he had to log SOME hours in and was already working on the side for a new suit that he was creating for Miles in case of an emergency and a new impact resistant helmet for a work objective. Frankly, while his work life was far more stable than his super-hero life (which was a rather ironic shift of his usual situation), he needed to show he was serious about this new job and was researching a new energy source he had recently been looking into. Even so Peter had his earpiece hack into police frequencies while Miles decided to patrol the city for any smaller crimes that may have been going on thanks to the Maggia. Peter also hurried to make a new batch of webbing that he had created and was intending for use on the streets as a way to stop some of the stronger villains he had faced.
Something that was not his Spider-Sense gave him the feeling that he would need it.
All in all, today had been a disaster and the heroes were running out of time to reign in the chaos in the streets.
