Chapter 3-1

Ben Reilly: Origin

"Has it always been this hot?" Ben asked himself as he touched his forehead. "Has it always been this hot in New York? I don't remember."

He was talking aloud to himself but he knew that his aunt was in the living room with him. It was almost the end of July and that meant it was time for him to get back to work as a janitor at Midtown High. He had been to orientation a few times and had sat down with the higher-ups at Midtown to discuss the benefits of working there after a few months. He was wondering how long he would keep this job; he only took this job to help out with his situation with his aunt and uncle. His aunt and uncle had been struggling financially wise and he thought of giving them his hard-earned money to pay rent but they refused because that was his hard-earned money. Ben still decided to help out; he had a plan after all.

Ben arrived at the closed school on a Sunday morning, the last Sunday of July before August hit. He wanted to get into school and scope the place out so he knew exactly what to expect. When he arrived at the school, it wasn't in his own car but his uncle's.

"Thanks for the ride, Uncle Eric," he said as he opened the passenger door. "I'll let you know how things go."

"Take your time, Little Ben."

Ben smiled at the nickname. It reminded him of why he was called Ben: his uncle, Ben Eric Reilly, always went by his middle name but after he was born, Ben's mother named him after her brother's first name. Ben was tempted to call Uncle Eric 'Uncle Ben' but he understood his uncle's wishes and respected them.

He walked up to the front of the school and knocked on the twin glass doors. The person working security there turned and approached Ben and looked him in the eyes through the glass.

"I'm the janitor," Ben called out. "I came here to get a scope of the place."

The security guard sneered at him. He carefully opened the glass door just enough to stick his head through. "Janitors aren't due until tomorrow."

"I told you; I wanted to scope out the place. I thought maybe I could give the place one last scrubbing before school starts."

"Fuck off," the security guard hissed. "Only teachers and principals are allowed in school during the off-hours. Security guards are also an exception. Last time I checked, janitors aren't fucking teachers or principals or security. If I let you into campus, I'm ordered to follow you around like a puppy. I've had a fucking bad day as it is already and I don't want to follow some homeless-looking guy for a janitor."

Ben stroked his beard and contemplated shaving it. "No need to be an ass about it."

"Fuck off you floor sweeper. Get out of here, no one cares about you."

Ben held his hands up in surrender. "Look, jackass, I just want to get into school and get familiar with the place before school starts. I'm going to start tomorrow anyway so-"

"Fuck off. I'm not letting you or anyone else through this door unless they're a teacher or principal. Get lost, janitor."

"I've worked here before and I just want to familiarize myself with the place again so-"

"If you already worked here, you know what this school looks like. Fuck off."

"For the love of god, what is wrong with you!"

"I hate my job but this is the only job open for me at this hour. My girlfriend ditched me, took my child, is fucking other guys, and she is threatening to sue me if I don't pay child support. My job is easy; just monitor the place and keep unauthorized people out. I'm tired and stressed and as I've said before, I don't fucking feel like wasting energy following you around. So fuck you."

Ben glared at the security guard and looked at his nametag. "Fuck you, Dennis." He turned and walked off.

Unbeknownst to both of them, a young man around the age of nineteen had snuck into the school. He came with a couple of wrenches and used them to open up a random locker. He had a scorpion tattoo on his neck and he nervously wiped the sweat away.

"Just do it," he whispered to himself. "Set the guns up and blast the living shit out of everyone in this hallway." He very carefully took out an Ak-47 and placed it soundly in the empty locker. "Kill four or five kids and the Scorpions will accept me into their gang. I'll be one of the big dogs, no one will fuck with me ever again. I'll kill, beat, and fuck whoever I want. I'll make this school mine."

As the gangster was about to take out a Beretta 92FS, he froze when he heard someone calling out to him.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Dennis the security guard shouted across the hall. "What are you doing trespassing on school property?"

The gangster looked down at the pistol in his hand and hid it behind his waist. "Nothing, just getting in a day early to scope the place out."

"That excuse is getting old, think of something original for a change." Dennis took out his handcuffs. "You're under arrest for trespassing on school property."

"Am I really?" the gangster said darkly. He slowly brought his gun up and before he pulled it on the guard, he checked to make sure the safety was off.

Outside, Ben reached his uncle's car and climbed into the passenger seat. He sank into the cushy chair and looked up at the ceiling,

"What's going on, sport?"

Ben turned to his uncle. "The security guard in there is a real jackass. He said he won't let anyone into the building unless they're a teacher or higher-up. He said that if he let me in, he'd have to follow me around because policies tell him to."

"Huh, that's disappointing. I told you to wait until tomorrow so you could start your first day back to work like the students starting their first day back to school."

"Yeah."

"You were the one who insisted on arriving a day early."

"I know and I'm sorry I wasted your time uncle. Just… man, I hate how almost everybody I meet is a jackass. Does going back to school really make all people, old and young, cranky?"

Eric shrugged. "I can't answer that but back when I was your age, I used to love going to school. I thought of all the friends I could make, all the parties I could attend…"

Ben looked at his uncle. "I'm surprised you remember, uncle…. Considering that the last time you've been to school was twenty years ago."

"I have a good memory. It's why your aunt and I love each other. What's the real reason you decided to come a day early?"

Ben shrugged. "Like I said, just to scope the place out once again. I'm not going to lie; I have a slight fear of crowds and crowded places. If I remember where I am at all times, location-wise, I can mentally prepare myself should I decide to run out of there."

"Aww, do kids really terrify you that much?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "Kids scare me very much. Kids can be crueler than that one security guard in there."

"All kids are like that but if you work with them, they may come to like me." Eric looked ahead and realized that they were still on the curb. "Speaking of which, I've seen the gadgets you create in your spare time. Why not look into an engineering school?"

"I want a stable income before I think of applying to an engineering school."

"Like I said, we could always help pay-"

Ben shook his head. "No, it's like I've said before. I don't want you guys to spend your money on me, just like you don't want me to spend my money on you. I'm grateful that you're letting me sleep in your guest room for the next couple of days but I'd like to earn what I keep and I want you guys to keep what you earned."

Eric smiled at him. "I respect that. My sister raised you into a fine young man." His soft smile vanished but his expression didn't turn somber. "I just wished she was still with us."

Ben nodded and leaned back into his seat. "I miss Mom a lot." He looked back at the school. "I remember my first day of high school, how she dropped me off. She blew me a kiss and I caught it and blew her one back. A couple of kids noticed and waved to Mom. I thought they were going to tease me for some reason but they patted me on the back and said that I had a hot mom. When I met a few kids of this generation, they teased and picked on a boy who was kissed by his mother on the forehead. What is wrong with this generation?"

"I don't know," Eric admitted. "I wish I knew but I don't know. Kids are very different than they were twenty years ago." Eric grabs the stick and puts the car into drive mode. "Ready to go."

"Yeah-"

BANG!

Ben quickly turned and looked at the two glass doors at the front of the school. Whatever bang he heard, it came from inside the building. It sounded like a gunshot and Ben had stayed in the bad side of town one time when he was little; he knew what a gunshot sounded like.

BANG!

"What the hell?" Ben quickly got out the passenger door and ran up to the doors.

"Wait, Ben!" Eric called out. "Don't do it!"

Ben charged for the front door and stopped himself from crashing through the window by shouldering it. He clutched his throbbing shoulder before he looked inside and saw the jackass security guard from earlier laying on the floor, clutching his stomach and a pool of blood puddling around him. Ben tried opening the door but the door was locked.

He turned around and picked up the largest rock he could find and smashed it as hard as he could into the glass. After four strikes, the glass shattered and Ben climbed through. He rushed to the wounded guard, dropping to his knees and sliding across the floor to hold the wounded man's head up.

"What happened?" Ben gasped. He put a hand on the man's stomach to nurse the wound.

"Oh you know," Dennis winced painfully, "just decided to celebrate Halloween early and cover myself in fake blood." Dennis looked up to something behind Ben. "Look out." He grabbed his gun from his holster and shot blindly over Ben's shoulder.

Ben jumped from the gun going off near his ear and turned when he heard a cry of pain behind him.

The gangster that shot the security guard took a bullet to the stomach and convulsed. The gangster quickly turned towards the glass door Ben shattered and pushed it open. He limped over to the car parked on the curb and he drew his gun on Uncle Eric.

"Shoot him," Dennis urged. "Shoot!"

Ben took Dennis's gun and aimed for the back of the gangster's head. His finger found the trigger and he told himself that all it would take was a slight squeeze and he could end this entire man's life. The very thought made Ben hesitate and felt sick to his stomach. He saw the blood on his hands and gasped slightly, lowering the gun half an inch when-

BANG!

Uncle Eric's head went limp against the driver's seat with a hole in the windshield and blood dripping down his head.

Without wasting another second, the gangster moved over to the driver's door, opened it, dragged the dead man's carcass out of the car, and hijacked the vehicle. He drove off as fast as he could, one hand on his stomach and driving recklessly with one hand without his seatbelt on.

Ben gasped breathlessly as he dropped the pistol to the floor and ran up to his uncle's body. He got down on the ground beside him and lifted his head up, tears welling in his eyes.

"Uncle Eric…" he whispered with a shaky and trembling voice. "W-what… n-no!" He turned to the security guard. "Do something! Call the police! Call an ambulance!"

Dennis had limped out of the front door and picked up his fallen pistol. He holstered it and he kept a hand on his wounded stomach as he called the police. "It's your fucking fault he's dead. Remember that."

Ben heard what Dennis was saying but the words were incomprehensible to him as he stared down at his dead uncle. All he could think of were the last moments he shared with his uncle, and how much his aunt and uncle helped him out. More tears than he realized began streaming out of his eyes as he quietly sobbed into his uncle's shoulder and hugged him tightly.

A few hours after Uncle Eric died, the police arrived at the school and found the locker where the gangster stashed the Ak-47. The police confiscated the rifle and deduced that the 19-year-old was the latest candidate to be recruited into a violent gang known as the Scorpions. According to several sources, one of several initiations into the Scorpions involved mass murdering at least four or five random people without a second thought. It looked like this gangster chose to use this school for target practice to get into the gang.

The murdering gangster got away but based on DNA evidence left behind in the crashed car, the gangster's name was Abraham Copeland, a 19-year-old boy who was held back in ninth grade not for poor grades but due to an overwhelming number of absences and tardies. He survived the car crash and gunshot and made it back to his hideout. Whether he was accepted into the gang or not, Ben didn't know.

Ben was comforted by people around him over the loss of his uncle and the officers told him that, while he may have lost his uncle, he played a part in stopping a school shooting, because, had he not gotten Dennis to move to the front of the school, he never would've noticed the gangster slipping weapons into a locker.

Ben was conflicted, not knowing what to feel. He wondered what his mother would say if she were still alive, what his aunt would say, had she not taken her own life shortly after the death of her husband, or what to do when he sees Abraham Copeland once more, he just had no answers.

What he did know, however, was that when that spider bit him in the subway four months later and gave him superpowers, he would use them to stop the other Abraham Copelands out there and not let another Uncle Eric die because of him.

Present

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. From now on, your troubles will be out of sight.

Ben Reilly blocked the chorus of the song that played on the jukebox out as he stared up at the television screen in the corner of the cafe.

It was his day off from work and since he had a little time to spare before meeting with Miles and Cindy, he went to a cafe around the corner that New York claimed to make the best cup of joe. He could always appreciate a good cup of joe. "What's going on there?" he asked the waitress before pointing at the screen.

"'old on, love," the waitress told in a heavy Australian accent that almost sounded exaggerated. She grabbed the remote in front of her and turned up the volume. "There ya go, love."

Ben looked up at the screen, his enhanced hearing doing the rest for him, and he zoomed in on the television.

He could've sworn just two seconds ago that the Daily Bugle was doing a broadcast and slandering his and Miles and Cindy's names. Since when did the gang know as the Scorpions take over the broadcast and hold J. Jonah Jameson hostage?

The gang leader walked in front of the television screen, holding a subdued Jameson by the back of his collar, and pressed a gun to the top of his scalp.

"Good morning, New York!" the gang leader yelled like an announcer in an enthusiastic voice. "Merry Christmas!" He pulls the hammer on the gun. "My Christmas gift to you guys… is a better New York City."

Ben narrowed his eyes at the screen, taking in every inch of the gang leader on screen. The gang leader's face was covered by a facemask but he could make out that the leader had black hair that was combed to the right, caramel skin tone, and chocolate brown eyes. He could also make out a scorpion tattoo on the man's neck.

Ben stood up when it sank in that the gang leader was indeed part of the gang known as the Scorpions. Not the supervillain known as The Scorpion, but the gang he was named after, The Scorpions.

The gang leader pointed to the screen with his gun, saying 'bang' before laughing. "I'm going to cut straight to the chase. We're not here to make a deal or demand money; none of that low-level shit. This is what we want."

The gang leader leaned into the camera. "Spider-Men." He pulled back and his brows arched like he was smiling. "Not Spider-Man, but Spider-Men. Those three new copy-phonies that showed up in New York City a few days ago. This is all the Scorpions demand. In return, we will return these hostages to you, unharmed, and alive."

A gangster wearing a face mask walked on camera holding a stick of dynamite. He whispered into his superior's ear before pulling back. The leader smiled under his mask and held the stick of dynamite up.

"Scarlet Spider, Silk, and the last one, whatever you call yourself, we want the three of you here at the Daily Bugle, in the fucking flesh. If you refuse to show up…" He took out a zippo from his pocket and held it up to the fuse at the end of the dynamite. "Then the Daily Bugle will be lighting up like a Christmas tree. Your time limit here is three hours… don't keep us waiting." He checked his watch. "It's 12:30, which means you have until 3:30 to meet us before these hostages go bing bang boom." He tilted his head to the camera. "See you later, Scarlet, Second Spider-Man or whatever your name is and, I can't wait to see you, Silk. Especially you, Silk."

"I bet you're in on it," Jameson shouted at the gang leader's back. "I bet one of those menaces, maybe all of them, paid you to take us hostage. That's the kind of thing these adrenaline junkies would get off on!"

"Shut up."

The gang leader pushed him off to the side, which the camera follows to reveal the four other hostages in the room as Eddie Brock, Ned Leeds, Betty Brant, and Robbie Robertson.

The line went down with a new headline that said 'Hostage Crisis at the Daily Bugle'.

"Holy shit," Ben whispered under his breath.

"Eh, shoulda known; them Spidey-blokes ain't popular in these parts a town." She picked up a packet of sugar. "Any sugar ta go with dat, love?"

Ben quickly finished his coffee before getting up. He took out his wallet and took out a twenty. "Keep whatever change as a tip. Merry Christmas."

The waitress picked up the twenty-dollar bill and marveled at it like it was a lost treasure she found. "Thank ya, honey. Come back anytime, sweetie. Goodbay."

Ben turned towards the door and ran out without turning to the waitress.

The Daily Bugle

With the broadcast down, the eleven gangsters in the room moved to secure the hostages. One of the gangsters was checking the security cameras and motion detectors set up around the place. So far, so good; no police officer dared to come up through the front door or from the roof. They had all windows barricaded with desks and other random stuff they could find. Each of the five hostages had eight pounds of dynamite strapped to them, each one having a timer on to go off in three hours.

The five hostages sat on their knees with their hands behind their backs, surrounded from all sides by six gunmen armed with assault rifles.

Jameson looked over to the hostages closest to him, which were Ned and Betty.

"Stay calm," Jameson told them. "We're going to make it out of this alive."

"Yeah," Eddie agreed. "Spider-Man will save us. I hope it's Spider-Man and not those copy-spiders."

Jameson looked at Eddie. "Spider-Man and those 'copy-spiders' as you call them may save us but it won't change my opinion of them; they're still menaces."

"Just be grateful for once," Eddie snapped back.

"We're in this mess because of them, am I wrong?"

The gangster standing before Jameson put a gun to his head. "Shut the fuck up!"

"Keep an eye on them," the gang leader ordered. "I need to go check on something."

"This was not a good idea," one of the gangsters voiced their opinion. "The OG Spider-Man is definitely going to kill us now."

"It's okay, I have a plan. We're going to kill all three Spider-Men. As soon as all three Spider-Men have entered the room or just one of them, follow my lead."

He turns and heads out the door leading out of Jameson's office. He walked down the hall before coming across a maintenance closet and locked himself inside. When he was sure that he was alone, he turned around, fell to his knees, and began spitting snot and mucus from his mouth and nose and tears from his eyes.

"I DID EVERYTHING YOU WANTED! PLEASE DON'T FUCKING KILL ME!"

David Dante in his black and white Spider-Man outfit sighed before gently letting go of the ceiling and landing softly on the ground before the gang leader.

"Abraham," Spidey hissed menacingly at his victim like a serial killer before he strikes. "This… was not the deal. You follow my lead and I won't kill you or your friends." He grabbed the back of the gang leader - Abraham's - head and lifted him up. The gang leader winced in pain but he opened his eyes to meet the black-suited Spider-Man in his pupilless white eyes.

"More importantly, I won't expose the illicit deals you've been making behind your gang's back. I know exactly how you wormed your way to leadership and I can assure you, that I can make you suffer. I know the name of your mother, father, two brothers, and your niece. I won't kill them… but I will kill you. After that, I expose what you've been doing behind your gang's back before I cover up your death. Your gang will believe you went into hiding so they'll punish your family and what happens to them, I don't know but your gang isn't known for being merciful."

"You're not going to do it," Abraham shouted.

"If you're so confident that I wouldn't go through with it, then why did you submit yourself to me? More importantly, why did you endanger the lives of your teammates?"

Abraham shivered in his boots and nearly shit himself had it not been for Spidey letting go of his hair and letting him fall to the ground.

"That's what I thought." Spidey turned and looked up to the ceiling grate that he climbed through. He leaped to the ceiling and clung to the wall and ripped the grate from the wall. He hung upside down and addressed Abraham once more.

"Remember, Abraham Copeland… I'm always watching."

A mouth formed at the bottom of Spidey's mouth a long lizard-like tongue stuck out. Abraham gasped and scooted back before Spidey's mouth disappeared into his black costume.

With Hobgoblin

"What the hell?" Roderick muttered under his breath as he stared at the computer screen before him. "Since when did Gargan's namesake have the balls to take people hostage on live news?"

Behind him, Aaron and Gargan started suiting up.

"You should get ready man," Aaron said. "With the three Spider-Men busy with the hostage situation, we should be able to hit a few banks before they chase after us."

"Hurry up," Gargan urged aggressively. "That spider-punk should be fully cured of his superpowers by now, right?"

"Not necessarily," Roderick confirmed, folding his arms as he stared at the TV. "He'll be severely weakened but…"

Gargan rolled his eyes. "Just say what's on your mind, Kingsley."

"Good." He held up one finger. "Okay, first of all… why would your old buddies, Gargan, challenge the three latest spider-punks using hostages with dynamite? Your old gang never challenged Spider-Man out in the open so why are they doing it with the three copy-spiders? More importantly, why are they singling out the three copy-spiders? Why not demand all four to go there and blow them up? Above all else, why did they decide to spare the original Spider-Man and attack only the three copy-spider; after all, their lives are in less danger when the OG Spider is out of the picture."

Gargan looked at the screen before looking over at Aaron. After they exchanged a few glances, Gargan looked at the back of Roderick's head.

"Even if you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting… Spider-Man saves innocent people, not endangers them."

Roderick nodded. "Yeah, you may be right. But desperate times call for desperate measures, especially for a loser like Spider-Man. Either way, this is a plan of some kind because the hostage-taking gang is acting extremely out of character."

"I'll say," Gargan inputted. Gargan looked back at the screen and thought back to his times spent with his old gang. "Either way, I can't believe I saw my old pals on TV. I don't like it; not one fucking bit. There's only room for one person to have the name 'Scorpion' in this town."

"Atta boy," Aaron said sarcastically. "Ya shouldn't have named yourself after your old gang then."

"Don't remind me."

Roderick stroked his chin, massaging the skin on his jaw before he licked his lips as something clicked within his mind. "I don't know what's going on here, whether the Scorpions are being manipulated or not, or who the real mastermind is, but we're going to play it safe. Remember, with the three Spider-Men dealing with the hostages, we're still vulnerable to the OG Spider. I have a plan to keep him from having the upper hand on us."

Aaron tilted his head. "What plan?"

Roderick looked at Aaron and smiled deviously.

Thirty Minutes Later

"I said 'no innocent people endangered'!"

Spidey swung away from the Daily Bugle and landed on top of the snow-covered roof. "Oh, you did? Huh, must've slipped my mind or something." He put his hands on his hips. "Besides… this part of the plan wouldn't really work without innocent people on the line."

"Why not?"

"Because guys like the Scorpions don't take their own traitors hostage; they shoot them so having the Scorpions take their own hostage was out the window. The biggest compromise the plan could have was only a handful of innocent people in danger. But I can assure you that you have nothing to fear; none of the innocent people will be dying anytime soon."

"How do you know?"

"Because I did a background search on the ten other gangsters taking hostages right now. I stalked each one of them and once I figured out their identities, I hacked into their electronics and sent them an email. I told them that if they could complete this operation without killing any innocent people, then they would be paid an extra ten thousand grand each after this hostage takeover was over. This means that each of those gangsters will be working extra hard to make sure none of those five hostages escape free; they don't want to have to kill them if they don't have to after all."

"Huh, interesting. I was wondering what you were doing on the computer this morning."

"Computers are expensive to buy, especially this time of year, so I stole a computer from some rando at school."

"Really?"

"Yeah, but I destroyed it so it couldn't be traced to him. See, alien, nothing to fear at all."

This alien symbiote is the biggest piece of shit I've ever known. Always ordering me around, commanding me, living with this idea in his head that he's in charge of me. I could give a flying fuck what happened to those worthless pieces of trash in that building, innocent or not. I want Hobgoblin, Scorpion, Prowler, Scarlet, and Morales's heads on a pike.

But either way, everything is going exactly as planned.

Several Days Earlier

"We're going set up a hostile takeover. We're going to have an entire crowd of people held hostage. The criminals are going to on air and demand that the spider-phonies arrive at their location so they can kill them."

"Why?"

"So they're distracted. If Hobgoblin, Scorpion, and Prowler realize that the spider-men are distracted, they'll rob a bank. Felicia gave me her analysis and said that Hobgoblin and his crew are more concerned with money than killing me. The three spider-men distracted and the OG Spider-Man losing his powers, they won't be able to resist such an opportunity. Based on their previous pattern, stealing from two banks, they're going to rob a bank."

He pulled out his phone. He typed in the names of several banks. "The two banks they made an appearance at were in the same general area, just miles away or so. There are dozens of banks in the city of New York but depending on where the hostage crisis takes place, Hobgoblin will probably be on the opposite side of the city, robbing a bank. We can manipulate where the three spider-men will be at all times and if we play our cards carefully, we can manipulate the place where Hobgoblin will go to rob a bank."

David flipped through his phone. He found a location. "We'll set up a hostile take over at the Daily Bugle. After that, every bank in Lower Manhattan will be up for grabs. As for figuring out which bank Hobgoblin has shown up at… he's a flying yellow elf on a hoverboard; he sticks out like a sore thumb. Besides, we're only going there to plant a piece of you on the villains, nothing more. We're going to kill them, but not yet."

"Wow, this is beginning to sound so interesting."

"You can regenerate. When I first got you, I noticed that I was shooting webs from my wrist, not my web-shooters. The webs you were shooting out were made from your own mass and liquid form."

"Correct. But if I shoot too much out, I won't be able to heal in time."

"That's why we're only using one piece at a time. We put a piece of you on every single one of my enemies and then once we find out who they are, we'll set up a plan to get them all killed."

"Why not kill them in their civilian lives?"

"Because Spider-Man doesn't murder civilians. As long as they are out of costume, they're civilians. I busted my ass off trying to get as many people to trust me as possible because I knew it would eventually benefit me in the long run and I'm not going to waste that effort."

"I see."

Present Day

He turned the edge.

"Alien symbiote, are you on my side or are you not?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you approve of what I'm doing or doncha?"

"What difference does it make?

"Plenty. Are you on my side or not, I need an answer once more."

"I'm on your side if it means I can survive and have a host."

"Where did your innate concern for innocent humans come from then?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's because this earth reminds me so much of the planet I came from, innocent and guilty people and all."

Huh, so this parasite is more human than I thought. Well not for long; David Dante isn't a human by human standards.

"I don't think you seem to fathom how people work on this planet. No offense but I think you and I have a very different point of view on good and bad in our worlds."

"How do you know; I never spoke about my home planet, no in detail."

"Trust me, humans have this thing known as instinct. There are some things we know by instinct. I understand your passion for protecting humans you perceive as innocent but innocent and guilty work very and might I add, drastically different in this world. For example, 'scumbag thieves' don't get hung by their throats."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

Spidey's phone chimed. He reached to his waist, the black goo fading away in that area, and he pulled out his buzzing cellphone. The black goo covered the empty spot as Spidey checked his phone.

"What's going on?"

"There's a bank robbery in progress."

"Well, would you look at that: Hobgoblin, Prowler, and Scorpion are already starting to rob banks once more."

Spidey narrowed his eyes. "Huh, that's interesting."

"What?"

"If what my phone's saying is true… then multiple banks are being hit at once."

"What, how is that possible?"

Spidey scrolled through his phone, checking the notifications to see three different banks, all on opposite ends of each other in Chinatown."

"What does that mean?"

Spidey rolled his eyes. "It means… either Hobgoblin, Scorpion, and Prowler are dividing their resources and going after one bank each… or they're going after one bank and they set off the alarms at the other banks to distract us."

"Haha, looks like things are getting interesting."

Spidey narrowed his eyes.

"Hey, alien symbiote? You want to see something cool?"

"Sure?"

"I'm going to show you what a badass I can be on this planet and world. You said that things are getting interesting to you so here's an idea: you take a backseat in the back of my mind and watch things play out. That's all you do; just watch."

"Why? You tired of my voice?"

"Partially but I'm at my peak when someone isn't chit-chatting in my head. I'm going to show you that I'm a worthwhile host to have bonded to. Just stay quiet, shut up, and watch everything play out from my perspective."

"You're up to something… so I'll play along… for now."

And with that, the alien symbiote retreated into the back of David's mind and stayed there until it was ready to come back out. It took a seat in the corner like an audience member in a movie theater.

Finally! I can hear myself think. I got to find a way to get this symbiote to shut up permanently. I swear to god, if it weren't for the upgrades this parasite gave me, I'd burn this symbiote to a crisp. Either way, now that I'm in full control once more, it's time to find Hobgoblin.

His spider-sense went off; Scarlet Spider, Spider-Miles, and Silk were swinging in the direction of the Daily Bugle a few blocks away.

"Before we proceed any further, I have to know one thing, symbiote. Those little symbiote pieces I put on Cindy, Reilly, and Morales, can you track their current location?"

"Yes, they're heading in the same direction as the Daily Bugle. Based on fluctuations in the movements, they are flying up in the air before falling down, the process repeating every few seconds or so."

That proves it; Ben Reilly is Scarlet Spider and Miles Morales is the other copy-spider.

Spidey smiled under his mask.

Everything is playing out exactly as I planned.

Spidey charged for the edge and leaped off, swinging off with his first destination being the East 31st Bank.

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why. Spi-der-Man is coming to town. He's making a list, checking it twice, going to find out who to put on ice.

Spi-der-Man is coming to town.