It was maybe 5 pm, Thursday, and Doreen was getting pumped up for their attack on Exile's base, an old abandoned factory.

The plan was to hit them hard and fast, try to take out as many of them as possible and teleport them away using Lockjaw. Daisy had even prepared special cells for Exile, Hollow, and Fume.

The reason they hadn't caught anybody so far, except Sheath, was that if they were winning Exile quickly turned tail and ran. Coupled with a lack of permanent cells until earlier that week which meant that even if they had caught somebody before, Exile could have freed them like he had with Sheath.

This time, that wouldn't be a problem since they'd move his crew straight into a prison built for super villains.

According to Gwen the inside had two floors, though the second floor only covered a small portion of the factory. The rest of it was just empty, mostly open, space where old machines were collecting dust, but the part where there were two floors had been furnished.

The rooms where clean and the furniture new, but they hadn't done anything to the walls or floor other than cleaning which meant the floor-plan Daisy had would be accurate.

"I can't find Emulator," Gwen informed them.

"She hasn't shown up so far so she's probably hiding out somewhere else. Are the rest of them there?" Daisy asked.

"Jackal's in his laboratory, Exile and Jack are sparring on the factory floor, Hollow is reading in the living room, Fume is also there, playing videogames, and Furball is in a connecting room on his computer watching some video," Gwen listed.

They, again, had already decided who was fighting who but the matchup was different. Rayshaun was fighting Furball from the start, Riri and Daisy were fighting Emulator and her horde, and Hollow was moved to the bottom of their priority list.

Doreen herself was supposed to either fight Hollow, she had gotten a taser for that, or whoever else was the biggest problem for her teammates. Basically: she was backup again.

Dante was again going after Fume first and Carrion later if he showed up, though she doubted that since he wasn't in there. America was still fighting Exile together with Kamala if and when she'd taken care of Jack, and Gwen was fighting Jackal.

Daisy had been against it, but when Daisy had tried to get someone else to do it Gwen had insisted, saying she wouldn't let him get away again 'no matter what'.

"Alright then," Daisy said. "Letts teleport into the living room; hit them hard and fast."

Lockjaw teleported them in and things immediately took off. Iron Heart flew out of the window, searching for Emulators incoming army, and Daisy followed quickly behind.

"SHIT!" Hollow called out as soon as they showed up. "THEY'RE IN HERE."

Fume was already out the door with Dante hot on his heels; Furball charged out of his room, tackling Rayshaun out of a window, then Lockjaw disappeared.

"Exile's out here," Daisy said just before his big Darkforce hand pushed into the wall.

America flew over to stop it but Doreen wasn't sure what happened after that since she was already on her way down to where Jack was running to the stairs. Doreen tried to dropkick him but he stepped back in time to avoid it.

Lockjaw reappeared, behind Jack, and tackled him, but Jack shrugged it off like it was nothing.

There was a small earthquake, the tell tale sign of Daisy making her slope-walls, preparing to defend against Emulators horde. She hoped it wouldn't be flying game characters after her moderate success on Tuesday.

Gwen crashed through one of the windows used to watch the factory workers, landing hard not far from where Doreen was, with Jackal jumping down not much later.

Doreen attacked, leaving Lockjaw to face Jack alone. Jack's chains lashed out at him repeatedly but Lockjaw teleported away before any strike landed.

Jackal swiped at Doreen with his claws, and unfortunately she had just slightly shorter reach and so couldn't quite hit him while dodging his razor-sharp claws. Not with her arms anyways. She did a pirouette jump, surprising her opponent with just how hard a squirrel tail can hit when it's human sized.

Gwen, having recovered already, was shooting her webs at Jack to lock him down just as Hollow stepped through the wall, bellow the window Gwen and the Jackal broke, entering the fight.

When she saw that Doreen had noticed her Gwen switched opponents again, jumping over Doreen to land a drop kick on Jackal, who managed to scratch Gwen's leg with his claws in the process.

"What's wrong little spider, miss your boyfriend?" Hollow said, provoking a spinning kick through his head from Gwen in the process.

" I'm her boyfriend you impotent waste of organic material," Jackal said as he stepped between Gwen and Hollow. "And I do not need your incessant cloying for her attention, Hollow. Stay out of my way."

Hollow turned to Jack "Take your fight outside."

Jack whipped his chains at her, moving slowly but deliberately as he corralled her towards the door. Lockjaw, realizing he couldn't get close to Jack at that moment, teleported away.

That left Doreen with only a few options, really. She could try to stay inside to help Gwen with her fight, or maybe to fight Hollow, but Gwen didn't want anybody else to fight the Jackal and Hollow wasn't a priority target. He also wasn't much of a threat to Gwen since she'd always sense his attacks coming before he had a chance to land a hit.

Her other option was to let Jack push her out, and allow Hollow to do whatever he planned to do. That could be bad, but she had no idea how, and it wouldn't be any better than resisting and slowing him down. Not unless she could somehow gain the upper hand against Jack or...

Doreen turned around, then ran at Furball. He wasn't paying any attention to her so she socked him in the back of his head, and as he turned to look her way Rayshaun hit him a few more times.

Jack keeps lashing at her, and she kept dodging, which meant that she couldn't get close to him. She got closer to Furball, hoping Jack would accidentally hit his friend, but instead he turned and ran towards Kamala, with his chains trailing behind him, who was too busy pushing down Exile to notice.

She ran after him, but he had a head start and she wasn't fast enough to catch up so quickly. As he readied his whip-like swing she pulled on one of his chains. Just touching it hurt, it seemed to burn with energy, which she supposed it did if he used Darkforce to control it.

He pulled her in and just as he was about to whip her when something distracted him and he turned to Daisy's slope-wall-thing, the horde had arrived.

"Fume is captured," Dante announced over the comms as Lockjaw blinked into existence in front of Jack.

With Jack focused on her again she and Lockjaw slowly guided him back to where Patriot was fighting Furball, before Lockjaw vanishes again.

"Right on time," Gwen answered, "because Carrion just arrived."

Inferno flew overhead towards the building where Gwen was fighting Jackal, Hollow, and Carrion on her own. Even as good as she was she wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.

As Doreen scrambled out of Jack's range she saw America get punched hard enough to fly through a wall, which had to hurt even her .

"Patriot, tag team!"

Rayshaun glanced over then fired one of his two concussion missiles from his shield, which managed to weave through Jack's random lashing to hit him in the stomach. Jack fell but caught himself, landing on his butt. It didn't take him long before he went back to lashing out.

Doreen got a few good hits in on Furball but it didn't seem to hurt him too much. He laughed, throwing heavy hit after heavy hit. Doreen backed away slowly. Rayshaun seemed to notice what she was doing when he silently moved behind Furball.

When she was just about inside Jack's range she slapped Furball's punch away from her, throwing him off balance for Rayshaun to tackle him into Jack's flurry of attacks. He fell, hard.

Kamala had wrapped herself around most of Exile, keeping him in place, when Dante called out over their comms:

"Ghost-Spider's hurt, she needs help!"

Gwen hadn't heard much from Jackal during their fight. He'd tried to flirt with her, sure, but it was repulsive enough for her to wish for brain-bleach whenever she listened so she'd stopped paying attention to his words long ago. She had heard Hollow's taunts, but somehow Jackal still managed to infuriate her way more than Hollow ever could with his disgusting remarks.

Jackal grabbed her ass, earning a knuckle punch to the throat in return. She followed up with a kick to his dick, only for it to faze through without hitting anything.

Hollow's tricks were getting old.

He'd saved Jackal's genitals several times now, which only made her want to castrate her stalker even more, but she didn't have a way to hurt him other than surprise attacks or tricking him into fazing through the electrical wiring of his own base, and Hollow paid too much attention for either to work.

"If you do that hard enough you won't be able to have kids later on," Hollow said as he re-materialized.

Jackal was about to tell him off again when Gwen Sparta-kicked Hollow, who dematerialized without Jackal, then punched him in the face, with her foot still inside Hollow.

It wasn't the best position to punch from but by combining her wall-sticking power, to get some leverage behind the punch, and her superhuman strength she knew it would still hurt, which Jackal proved when her flew back a meter and a half.

"You bitch!" Jackal staggered to his feet again. "Playing hard to get is one thing, but to do that while sneaking around with your little friend? Keep going like that and even I might think you're cheating on me."

Gwen's blood ran cold. He'd timed it so perfectly that she almost didn't realize her Spider-Sense going off behind her.

"Fume is captured," she heard Inferno say over their comms while turning around.

"Right on time," Gwen answered, as Carrion floated out of the same window Jackal had kicked her through, "because Carrion just arrived."

Gwen was pissed . Jackal, without making the threat explicit, had threatened Daisy. She knew him well enough, even if she hated that she did, to know how he'd treat someone who threatened his perceived relationship with her, and he knew that she did . He'd meant it as a threat.

" But ," Jackal continued, "I can be nice. We both know you don't mean anything to her, so come home with me tonight, I'll give you what she could never give you."

He grabbed his groin, making it exceedingly clear what in particular he meant.

That's when Inferno arrived. In the few seconds before he broke through one of the high windows on the outer walls Carrion did nothing, patiently letting Jackal do as he pleased without interfering. Inferno covered himself in fire and blasted at Carrion, drawing the deadly villain's attention to himself.

Hollow tried to coax Carrion closer, or to subtly influence Gwen and Jackal into moving closer to Carrion and Inferno, but thanks to their training they managed to keep their fights separate. He ended up sticking around Gwen's fight but he wasn't much of a threat, so she focused on ending the Jackal.

Whenever Hollow got close to interfering she stuck something through his guts to stop him from using his powers on Jackal.

She webbed down Jackal's feet, trapping them for a few seconds. She punched through Hollow's face, then kicked Jackal's legs.

Hollow tripped backwards, startled by the punch, at the same time as a loud crack resounded. Jackal fell, leg broken. Gwen launched forward, ready to castrate him, then stopped. Jackal wasn't a threat anymore; he was completely out of the fight. She needed to control her anger, not let it control her.

She took a deep breath and felt pain spread through her back.

"Ghost-Spider's hurt, she needs help!" Dante called over their comms.

"On it."

Doreen rushed back to Exiles base, taser ready. Gwen was still inside fighting Jackal and Hollow, only Riri and her were properly equipped to deal with him (Daisy's gloves and Rayshaun's shield didn't have enough power flowing through them) and Riri's fight, holding off any flying Zerg since Daisy couldn't get to them, was more important.

She felt bad leaving Rayshaun to face Jack and Furball on his own, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

Inside Hollow was using a bloody knife to cut free Jackal, who had had his legs as well as most of his upper body webbed to the concrete floor.

Doreen screamed as she rushed at him, hoping he wouldn't notice the taser before it was too late. He did.

He sank into the ground before she was even close, leaving Jackal behind.

Doreen turned to Gwen, who was lying on her side, blood all around her but especially on her back.

"Lockjaw, get here quick." she said over the comms. "Teleport Gwen to a hospital."

She turned to the Jackal, sure that he would try to stop them, but as he got up on his leggs (or rather leg, since he wasn't putting any weight on one of them), he retreated. Doreen could pursue him, but that would mean leaving Gwen alone with Hollow nearby and she was not about to do that.

Once Lockjaw and Gwen were gone she ran back out to help Rayshaun, fighting two opponents at once couldn't have been easy. She hoped he was doing alright.

She didn't see him when she stepped out of the base, she just saw Zerg, lots of them. The horde had gotten in.

America was the only one fighting Exile and Kamala was struggling under maybe ten or fifteen of the monstrous reptile-bugs. Rayshaun was doing alright, fighting Furball while taking out several Zerglings, but they really weren't winning anymore.

Jack was nowhere to be seen. Or at least that's what she thought until she saw him underneath Kamala.

Doreen charged them, kicking and punching off as many of them as she could before she too got swarmed, unable to move about quite as freely. Luckily it had been enough for Kamala to be able to move one arm and begin ripping the Zerg away from them.

They were destroying a lot of Zerglings, especially with Ms. Marvel and Lockjaw focusing mainly on doing just that, but more kept getting past Riri and Daisy.

Jack lashed out at Kamala. Doreen judo threw a Zerg over her shoulder, then stomped on its head to destroy both it and the one she had thrown it into. Her eyes searched the crowd for Hollow, who had probably freed Jack from Kamala.

"I think," Rayshaun roundhouse kicked Furball before punching away a Zerg, "that we might need to retreat."

Doreen wasn't a fan of running any more than the rest of her team, but with how overrun they were she couldn't agree more.

"Iron Heart." Daisy said over the comms. Riri, carrying Daisy, flew over Daisy's wall on the south end of the battle-field, firing back at the horde.

Lockjaw mauled his way over to her and Kamala, with Rayshaun in tow, while Dante flew out through a window to join them.

A second or two later they were back at their base.