Miles may be a bit OOC in this chapter to some but frankly I think it's a very reasonable response to what's going down and in regards to his age. I mean the city is in a state of panic throughout all of her games. The Devil's breath, The Heist, Turf Wars, and now Silver Lining were dangerous and killing innocent people and all Screwball seemed to care about were her views. Plus, Miles is pretty young right now; he's at that age where his body starts to change. So, he may be noticing, in some... areas... for example —

No. Not that.

Um... right... Either way teenage years are... emotional and whatnot...

All credit to respective owners!

-YARN


After ascertaining the location of the party thanks to Screwball's almost-overwhelming amount of excited tweets, Miles swung over to the rooftop where the Screwball Party was being held only to see a lot of regular people cheering at his arrival. Miles shook his head, he couldn't believe this many people were okay with all the problems that Screwball was creating. He had tried to call Peter but the call kept on getting dropping saying it currently wasn't able to reach Peter. Miles didn't mind, he was fairly sure he could handle this and scanned the rooftop before he saw a huge box that was branded with the Screwball symbol that was next to the stereo system. Miles eyes narrowed and began to stalk towards the box with clenched fists right before his spider-sense buzzed. He braced himself as the box exploded outward in a puff of smoke and forced him to cover his eyes. Screwball leapt out of the box with an excited cheer and mechanical footwear that let out streams of pink light as she leapt from building to building.

Miles didn't hesitate as he fired a web-line and launched himself after the deranged and view-obsessed streamer, "Get back here!"

"Sorry!" She called back cheerfully, "No can do! The world is watching!"

"That doesn't mean that anything you do is right!" Miles shouted, twisting through a fire-escape, "You could kill someone you crazy lunatic!"

"Hey now!" Screwball pouted, "Not cool! Besides, have you SEEN the spike in con-current viewers! They are loving this~! Time for a photobomb!"

Miles spied a bomb on a platform next to a group of people and webbed it up before launching it at one of her boards. He scowled at the people cheering and wished for a moment that he didn't help them so he could see how dangerous and irresponsible she was.

He swallowed hard at even thinking that.

He knew Jameson would hate him.

He knew some would listen to the hate-mongering.

But people who blindly trusted him to stop the crimes to see this as a game?

To watch him dance even though Screwball was playing with their lives?

A angry snarl erupted from his throat and he stopped holding back as much Peter told him he had to. He wasn't going to kill her, but he was going to make her understand this wasn't funny or in good taste. Screwball was leaping on a building to see him closing ground and her perpetual smile faded slightly as for once his masked features didn't hide his emotions. His body crackled with small yellow arcs of electricity as his control began to slip and his powers flared in response; his normally wide lenses were narrowed in when could only be focus.

Kid-Arachnid was furious.

"T-time for a twist!" She shouted — trying to maintain her bravado — as she landed on a rooftop and several drones exploded from boxes she had prepared.

Kid Arachnid was barely behind her and didn't slow as punched straight through the drone, using the force of the explosion to launch himself towards the other drones. With a roar, the spider-themed protege let loose an bioelectric-burst that blew up the other three drones within seconds. Screwball tried to ignore the ambient electricity raising the hair on her arms as she realized that she had designed all these games for Spider-Man. He was experienced and much more composed than his protege and would be able to restrain himself even if monumentally angry. Kid Arachnid was not him and was probably not as good as controlling himself since he had only been a hero for a short time and there wasn't any evidence to point out that he was a hero before that. It was still only relatively recently that Kid Arachnid had hospitalized a remainder of the the Devils that hadn't been arrested.

Screwball sprinted as fast as she could, activating a bomb for a photobomb with a trembling and terrified shout of, "Photobomb!"

She hoped she could slow him down enough to get some more distance.

Kid Arachnid's gaze didn't waver but his free hand webbed up the explosive in a web-line and flung it not at the board she arranged but at her. Screwball eyes widened at the bomb sailing towards her right before a electrically-charged web-shot caused it to explode next to her. She let out a pained scream as she hit the top of a rooftop trailing smoke and rolled onto her back. The blast was detonated just far enough that it would hurt her and leave her stunned, but not close enough to critically injure or kill her.

Before she could even open her eyes, she felt her arms and legs get webbed to the ground. She looked at the black-clad hero as he landed lightly on the roof, bits of electricity dancing around his clenched fists. Her leg armor was shot, too damaged from the explosion to work and let out small pink sparks when she tired to wriggle them. She squirmed to try to get out but she couldn't move, her heart started to pound and she was dimly aware of the view count rocketing up.

The odd thing was she didn't care about that as much as she cared about wanting to escape the angry superhero stalking towards her.

"This is the last time I am going to take this." Kid Arachnid growled, "You put innocent people at risk for this stupid ego of yours. All to appease criminals and people who won't mourn over your loss. You could kill yourself by snapping your spine and all I'd say your landing on the roof did it. And all the viewers who you got would shrug and move on to the next big thing and you'd be forgotten."

He crouched next to her head and slammed a fist next to her skull, grimly pleased as her eyes tracked it and seeing her shiver at the crater next to her that could've been where her head was.

"Maybe you should think on that while going to prison." Kid Arachnid advised.


Miles sighed and let tension seep out of his frame as Screwball was shoved into the back of a squad car — even now she was trying to chat up the two annoyed cops and asking to livestream her arrest — but her voice hitched as her eyes flickered to where Miles was perched and watching. She seemed to only relax once the car doors were closed and she was carted off to Ryker's Island and out of Kid Arachnid's reach.

While personally Miles wasn't the dark and threatening type, he hoped that his little act would maybe convince her to lay of the idiocy. After all this, all Miles really wanted a good and long nap and maybe some food. He had been running himself ragged all over the city doing these ridiculous Screwball events and tried to ring Peter only for it to say he was still unavailable.

"I guess I'll get some rest for now..." Miles sighed in exhaustion as he shot a web-line to swing away back to his house.


Peter was currently perched over an abandoned subway station where several Olympus-enhanced maggia were walking around and guarding the area. He had dropped down one of the tunnels into the sewers only to follow the general layout until he came across the abandoned station. He knew that he was close, he only needed to find Sable and then get her out of here. In all honesty, Sable's actions were not putting her in a good light — and he understood many of them were brought about by anger and desperation — but was that really a good excuse to turn down any help offered? He knew she didn't trust easily, but maybe he assumed that their temporary partnership at the end of the Devil's Breath Incident meant more to him than it meant to her.

'I am fairly certain you had no way of knowing things would get this bad.' Viri stated simply, 'Perhaps she would be less hostile if the situation wasn't so dire.'

'The only reason she is here is because she is personally invested and the situation is dire.' Peter replied, 'She probably wouldn't have come for anything less.'

Either way — dire situation or not — he wasn't leaving without her.

He stealthily crawled over a lone thug and webbed him up, lifting him into the air and out of the way before he could make a sound. The goon struggled but even with his Olympus tech, he was stuck fast and could do more than aggressively wiggle. Spider-Man didn't dither and coated his body with Viri so his symbiote could provide the impact webbing he intended to use. He dropped down and used his legs to latch onto a goon before flipping him into the ground and twisting to fire a blast of Viri's impact webbing at a thug that was promptly stuck to the wall. The remaining maggia tensed as the sound of the goon being flipped into the ground echoed loudly in the nearly silent station. They began to train their weapons around as they walked around, while they could hear the fall of one of their group, the echoing quality of the abandoned station only made the source of noise hard to locate.

Peter didn't have the time to be carefully as he usually liked. With every second he wasted, it was another second that Silver Sable was probably being tortured by the Maggia into creating more tech for them. With that morbid certainty fueling him, Peter silently blitzed through the abandoned station, knocking out goons and thugs with sharp punches, kicks, and gouts of webbing. When they were all incapacitated, he pulled Viri back under his Iron Spider Suit and followed the power cables to a subway car blocking a path.

"Hope this isn't a load-bearing car..." He mumbled as he fired two web-lines and yanked the car out of the way.

Dust and bits of the ceiling fell down but otherwise the station held. Peter sighed in relief and began to run through the passageway that had been revealed only to come to a stop at what almost seemed like a cylinder of mechanical drill — or something mechanical— that blocked off his advance. There were some gaps around the machine that lead down, but they were too steep for a normal person. Luckily fo him though, Spider-Man wasn't exactly the average person and was more than capable of crawling down a slope without losing his grip. He quickly made his way through the narrow path only to find body bags bobbing in the water and three goons with Project Olympus gear checking on the various gear that they had. Two were chatting while one was inspecting some of the blueprints spread out over a desk.

"Body bags?" Peter mumbled quietly to himself, "This just took a turn..."

'This is wrong!' Viri growled heatedly, 'Such a disgusting and inhumane way to dispose of a person!'

Peter couldn't agree more but stayed quiet; he quickly used a web-line to zip to the ceiling and carefully looked around to see if he could find any clues as to Sable's location. There didn't seem to be much except for a cache of stolen tech so Peter dropped from the ceiling and slammed two of the chatting thugs into the floor. The remaining spun only to see a fist rushing into his face. He was launched across the room and into a pile of weaponry. After webbing them securely to the floor, Peter brushed his hands and inspected the room, listening to several recordings of Hammerhead plans — and how exactly he demanded to become a cyborg — and reading blueprints were on scattered on several table that depicted Digboys, Olympus canisters, Sable's private war-jet, and a giant warship.

"If Hammerhead gets his hands on any more of this," Peter mused grimly, "New York is gonna be in huge trouble, he'd be a much more ruthless Sable army, and those guys were already corrupt as all hell..."

'Then we simply have to make sure he doesn't acquire them.' Viri replied calmly, 'Together, I am sure we can best him and then his organizations will be in shambles and demoralized.'

"Cut the head off?" Peter considered, "Might work, especially if they see that even with the cybernetics he wasn't able to take me down...the armor probably damaged his standing with regards to confidence..."

Just then a echoing scream met Peter's ears and he looked wildly around, "Sable!"

'She must be close!' Viri commented, 'She can't be allowed to be forced more tech for Hammerhead!'

"We already decided on that!" Peter snarled as his mask pointed out a hollow area behind some pipes and he yanked them apart to open a crawl-space, "Hold on, I'll get you out soon..."

The walls he made his way through were boarded up in some places and had electrical wiring sparking in others, but none of that mattered. Peter winced as another scream echoed through the sewers.

"Every minute I am here is another nail in your coffin!" Sable screamed in defiance.

A amused chuckled

"You got spirit." the voice drawled, "I like it."

"I will never give you what you want!" She roared.

He finally emerged from the crawlspace and saw Sable held to a metal table of her own tech with her arms held above her by crackling electrical energy. A maggia goon walked towards her with a drill in his hand, the tip spinning. Just as he was about to plunge the drill into her flesh when the construction tool stopped working and the goon grumbled at the machine. Sable already had a bloody hole in her shoulder as she writhed, trying to free herself. Peter fired an electric web which shorted out the generator powering the cuffs causing them to fade and allowing Sable to slide to the floor. The goon panicked as he saw Spider-Man and whirled only to see Sable execute a roundhouse kick to his face that knocked him off his feet. Sable stalked towards him and began to furiously drive her fist into his face — over and over, with each blow punctuated by a furious scream — until blood and teeth began to paint the floor beneath him.

When she stopped and tried to rise her body decided that that it was going to cut off her adrenaline and let her feel the pain of her torture. She winced as she held a hand over her shoulder and fell onto her back, panting through the pain. Peter flipped to the floor and held out a hand for her to take.

She stared at him for a moment before taking his hand, "You came back for me."

Spider-Man nodded.

"Why?" She asked gruffly.

"Because I need you." He said calmly.

'Because you're being foolish and sucidal.' Viri corrected, though thankfully the symbiote didn't actually speak out loud.

Sable seemed to want to say a million different things before finally settling on, "I work alone."

"I used to say the same thing." Peter sighed, "I know what's happening in Symkaria. I know why this means so much to you."

"You *think* you know." Sable muttered, walking away to pick up dual pistols from a nearby table, "But you do not know."

Annoyance began to bubble up in Peter.

He constantly tried to make her see he didn't want to have to make this a fight to HELP HER.

He had saved her several times from her own impatience when HE DIDN'T HAVE TO.

What more did she need to see he wanted to help her?

"What can I do to make you trust me?" He half-demanded, half-pleaded.

She stopped and turned to face him with an odd expression, but didn't reply.

He let it go and instead pulled out the flash drive he got from Felicia, "Look, I think I know how to take down that monster. But I can't do it alone."

"Actually..." Viri tried to interject, "I am more than confident that together we can—"

'Please Viri.' Peter mentally cut her off, 'She needs this and while I don't doubt we might be able to take him down, the more help we have, the better.'

Just then several goons walked around the corner and saw them talking.

"Damn it!" One shouted, "He let her loose!"

Sable whirled with her guns at the ready as a goon slapped his hand against a machine and a whine filled the air. Several Olympus canisters let out steam as several goons decked out in Olympus tech walked out. Some grabbed rifles while others shifted into a fighting stance.

"Okay." Peter began, "Here's the plan. I'll take—"

Sable promptly ignored him and flipped forward, shooting one goon with one of her pistols before leaping into the air aid kicking one goon while shooting another while still in the air.

Peter took a moment to stomp down on his annoyance before launching himself forward as well, "Good plan."

They both began to beat the goons into submission as they fought in tandem. Sable didn't let her injuries affect her as she weaved in between punches and replied with a volley of bullets and martial arts. She was ruthless in her attacks and every strike was meant to cause the maximum pain and put her enemies down for good. Peter didn't just watch as he lashed out with several sharp blows, weaving through a hailstorm of bullets and using his webs and natural agility to take down several goons in quick succession. He didn't need his waldoes for this as the restrained area would only make him the bigger target. Even with the Olympus tech enhancing them, the goons stood no chance against the person who designed them and the hero who had beaten their boss while decked out in the same gear.

"Nice to have you fighting on my side for once." He commented playfully as he flipped a goon onto his back before webbing him into the floor.

"Shut up and fight!" Sable responded as she knocked a goon over before she slammed her foot down on his face.

"You gotta work on your fight banter though." He replied back.

'I believe she doesn't actually DO fight banter Peter.' Viri commented mildly, 'She seems a bit too... disciplined for that.'

'You realized I am joking right?' Peter half-complained to the symbiote.

'As am I!' Viri replied amusedly.

Peter let out a wordless grumble at his partner's sense of humor.

The deadly dance continued as they each took down the goons pouring in. Spider-Man scissor-kicked one thug into the floor before webbing a piece of machinery from behind him and — without looking — swung it into a pair of goons preparing to open fire on Sable with a pair of rifles. Sable spun out of the way of a punch from a thug and shot the thug attempting rise to chase Peter. Before the thug that attacked her could attempt another attack, an impact web slammed him into the wall, pinning him there helplessly.

They shifted closer as the various maggia tried to box them in.

"You're webs are effective in combat." Sable half-complimented, half-noted, "You must teach me how to use them."

Peter threw out a suspension matrix to halt an oncoming group of maggia from charging as, "I wish I could but it's a whole big intellectual property thing..."

Sable didn't seem to care as she ducked under a fist and slammed an elbow into the underside of a goon's chin and shooting him in the knee. Spider-man appreciated the restraint from her as he really had enough of Sable killing people to get to Hammerhead. He webbed the various goons into parts of the room when the ground exploded in the corner as Digboy erupted from the hole.

"A Digboy." Peter complained, "Of course."

"Did you just call that a Digboy?" Sable inquired incredulously.

"Yeah." Peter replied easily, "Much better than its real name, don't ya think?"

Sable seemed to let it go as they dealt with the fresh wave of goons clambering out of the Digboy. Peter slipped past a whip-wielding goon only for Sable to weave through a strike with lethal grace and slammed the goon into the floor with a knee.

"Hey Sable," Peter inquired while lifting up a thug to toss him into a goon, "where'd you learn how to fight?"

"On the streets of Symkaria." Sable replied shortly as she axe-kicked a charging goon.

"Yeah?" Peter responded, feeling a bit embarrassed, "I learned from watching movies, we should compare notes!"

They fell silent as they realized they had cleared the room of enemies.

A last beaten goon crawled towards a discarded rifle and stood up before Peter fired web at his face and grabbed Sable's hand before tossing her towards the goon. She hit him hard enough for the ground to send up a plume of smoke as well as completely discombobulate him. His gun, which he threw up when hit by Peter's webbing fell down on his head and knocked him out.

"That was awesome!" Peter cheered after a moment of silence, "High-five!"

He held out his hand only for Sable to turn away.

'If it count's for anything,' Viri snickered, 'I would've high-fived you.'