BAD SIGNS

For Spidey, what began as a relatively slow day had now turned chaotic. For as he watched Iron Man crash and destroy his gargoyle, the Web-Head notices pieces of debris falling and about to land on top of some fleeing citizens. So naturally, the Web-Slinger springs into action by jumping off of the ledge, shoots a web-line and swings down and lands to top of a lamp post, thankfully beating the debris before it could hit the ground. Realizing that he still had lives to save, Spidey points both of his hands down and shoots webbing from out of his wrists and on top of the post, then leaps over to another nearby post while still shooting web, thus creating a large giant web-net which catches the debris before landing on top of the fleeing pedestrians. The Web-Head pulls his end of the webbing, then places and secures it on top of the lamp post, holding the debris like a hammock. "Okay, got my good deed out of the way..." Spidey thought to himself, then looks up to see Iron Man still perched on where the gargoyle used to be. "Time to check on, Mr. Stark." The Wall Crawler then points his hands upward, shoots two web-lines and zips upwards towards the Shell-head.

Meanwhile, Iron Man shakes his head to get the cobwebs out, then looks down at his chest-plate to see a dint in the shape of a fist located right below the glowing circle on his chest known as the ARC Reactor. "Okay...didn't see that coming," said Iron Man as he finally sat up, then powers on his rocket boots and hovers in the air. "J.A.R.V.I.S., run diagnostic."

"CHEST-PLATE IS DENTED, BUT NOT SEVERELY DAMAGED, SIR, AND THE ARC REACTOR APPEARS TO BE FUNCTIONING PROPERLY," replied J.A.R.V.I.S., who communicates to the Golden Avenger in his helmet. "HOWEVER, GIVEN THAT THE SITUATION HAS NOW ESCALATED INTO A MORE SERIOUS ONE, MIGHT I SUGGEST THAT YOU NOTIFY THE OTHER AVENGERS FOR ASSISTANCE?"

"Yeah, I guess that would be a good idea," said Iron Man in a somewhat less than enthusiastic tone, hating it that he, one of the smartest men on the planet, just realized he's in a way over his head and now has to call for help.

As Spidey nears the roof, he heard a beeping nosing coming from a secret pocket sewn inside the right side of his pants, prompting him to reach in and pull it out his Avengers I.D. card blinking. "Oh man, whatever causing all this craziness, it's officially an Avengers problem." The Wall-Crawler thought to himself as he puts the card back into his pocket. "Which makes this a job for the 'Avenging' Spider-Man!" Before the crawls to the roof, he stops for a moment as he inspired himself with what he just thought. "Huh...Avenging Spider-Man has a good ring to it. Who knows, maybe they'll let me yell Avengers Assem-"

Suddenly, Iron Man looks down and notices Spidey starting out into space and looks confused when he sees the Web-Slinger daydreaming. "Spider-Man?" he asked, which started Spidey enough that he almost fell off the ledge. Needless to say, this sight causes the Shell-Head to give the young hero an annoyed look behind his faceplate. "I take it you're responding to my call?"

"Uh...yeah, well, I was in the neighborhood when my card went off." replied Spidey, who is still clearly nervous around on of, in his mind, 'big time heroes' a habit that he is still struggling to overcome. He then crawls up to the roof and stands on the ledge with his hands on his hips in a confident posture. "But hey, your friendly, web-sling reserve Avenger at your service."

Iron Man does not appear to be convinced nor comforted by Spidey's confident hero act but knows that the Wall-Crawler has since proven himself as a competent superhero and knows just as well that he needs all the help he can get with what lies ahead. "Good to know," said Iron Man is pleased but not too ecstatic tone, then suddenly receives a digital message in his helmet. He then presses a small button on the circle on the right side of his helmet, namely the place of the ear, and sees a digital pic of fellow teammate and co-leader of the Avengers, the Sentinel of Liberty himself, Captain America.

"Captain America responding," said Cap on the other end. "What's the situation, Tony?"

"We got some new friends, Cap," replied Iron Man. "Not at 'Masters of Evil' level, but still pretty bad. Spider-Man's here with me, but we're not going to be enough. We're going to need you and any nearby Avengers to get down here to Times Square ASAP."

Suddenly, within Iron Man's helmet, a digital pic of the team's archer, Hawkeye, shows up next to Cap's. "Of course you do," he said in a cocky tone. "You know Stark, for a guy who's supposed to be one of the smartest people on the planet, one would think you'd be smart enough to get in over your head."

"Not now, Clint!" Cap said sternly. "We're on our way, Tony, just hold on! And in any way possible, keep them away from civilians!"

"Got it, and Steve...make it fast," With that said, Iron Man presses the button again to make the digital pics of his two teammates disappear, then turns his attention back to Spidey himself. "All right, back-up is on the way, but until they get here, we need to keep these creeps away from innocent people!"

Spidey gives the Armored Avenger a nod of acknowledgment. "Sure thing," he told Iron Man but appears uncertain as he raises his right index finger to ask him this. "One question though. When you said that these guys weren't at 'Masters of Evil' level, you were implying that they're easy to take down, right?" Suddenly, the Web-Head feels his spider-sense tingle, prompting him to look forward and see a sharp arrow coming his way and thus uses his right hand to catch it. As he throws the arrow away, Spidey looks down to see where it came from and to his surprise, he sees a group of hooded individuals, nine in all, have moved forward and the one who fired the arrow was that of a hooded figure clad in a dark green closing and the zodiac symbol of Sagittarius on his chest.

Moments later, another hooded man, dressed in red and orange with the symbol of Aries on his chest, holds up his open hands, points them at the Wall-Crawler and shoots two thin fire blasts at him!

Before Spidey could react, Iron Man flies in front of the Web-Head, and mentally commands his armor to produce a transparent energy shield from out of his chest plate and blocks the blasts, thus protecting him and Spidey. "Does that answer your question, kid?"

"Uh...yeah," Spidey answered back, clearly impressed by the mechanics of Iron Man's armor, but then looks worried when he looks past the shield and at the group of hooded meta-humans. "Doesn't make me feel any better, though."

Back in the street below, the hooded figure with the Aries symbol continues to fire more blasts and add more pressure to Iron Man's energy shield, another hooded figure, this time clan brown and possing the Scorpio symbol walks up, and holds up his right gauntlet up in the air to gain his comrade's attention. "Zodiac!" yelled the Scorpio clad hooded figure, who them makes his gauntlet into a fist, which in turn causes a key-shaped barrel to pop out of the top his hand. "Let us aid brother Aries in making an example out of these two 'so-called' heroes!" With that order, Scorpio points up and aims his barrel at Iron Man's shield, with the rest of the hooded group about to do the same.

However, before a single blast was fired, a golden energy blast comes from out of the sky and hits Aries in the chest, thus causing him to stop firing the blast and fly backward into three of his comrades. Needless to say, this action comes as a surprise to Scorpio, and afterward, he looks up to the direction where the blast came from and receives another shock when they saw who fired it.

As it turned out, the shooter of the blast turned out to be the blonde, red and black wearing masked female Avenger named Ms. Marvel, who hovers in the air and holding up a smoking open right hand. "Let's not!" said the determined Ms. Marvel, who then turns her right hand into a fist. To make matters worse for the Zodiac, Ms. Marvel was not alone. For joining her were two of the founding members of the Avengers, one being the shrunken winged, yellow and black dressed heroine called the Wasp, with her usual quirky smirk. And the other being long-haired, Viking armored, red-caped Norse God of Thunder himself, Thor, who has his enchanted hammer, Mjolnir, in hand. Needless to say, the arrival of these three Avengers left Spidey in both awe and relief.

As for Iron Man, he looks through the corner of his right eye to see his three teammates and thus deactivates his energy shield and looks up at his colleagues. "Well, you guys got here fast."

The Wasp is the first to reply to the Shell-Head, giving him her usual a sly smile. "Well, we were in the neighborhood."

Spidey has a huge smile behind his mask upon hearing Wasp's comeback and thus says this in response. "Hey, small world," Though pleased to get a gentle smile from Wasp, he sees that the rest of the Avengers are not in such a light-hearted mood and thus decides to change his demeanor to that of a more serious one. "So, uh, are Cap and the others on their way?"

"Yeah," Wasp quickly replied, charging up her hands to fire her signature 'Wasp-Sting' blasts. "They should be here in a few minutes."

As the Avengers conversed among themselves, the heroes increase in numbers does not sit well with the Zodiac, especially the large muscular red-clad figure with horns sticking out of his hood and donning the Taurus symbol on his chest. After letting out a huge snort, Taurus walks over an abandoned Buick, then grabs it, picks it up over his head and hurls it at the airborne Avengers.

This causes Spidey's spider-sense return, thus prompting the Web-Head to look forward and spot the vehicle coming towards them. "CAR!" he yelled with wide open eyes.

Fortunately, Thor is the first to heed the Wall-Crawler's warning and thus sets the Buick in his sights. He then raises his hammer above his head and conjurers up dark clouds in the sky which in turn causes lightning to strike and charge Mjolnir. While letting out a loud yell, the God of Thunder points his hammer at the airborne vehicle and shoots a lightning blast which successfully hits the vehicle while it was still at a safe distance, thus causing it to explode. However, Thor's quick action in saving both he and his teammates also caused a huge cloud of black smoke which is impossible to see through. "It would appear that we do not have time to wait for the rest of our teammates," said Thor, trying to see past the smoke. Therefore we must..." Suddenly, two large watery hands pop out of nowhere and grab both Thor and Ms. Marvel, gripping them tightly. As the smoke cleared, the watery hands are revealed to belong to that of the blue-clothed hooded figure wearing the Aquarius symbol, who then transforms the rest of his body into the same liquid substance and grows to the size of a seven-story building.

Wasp's eyes grow wide with shock upon not only seeing the giant-sized Aquarius, big enough to put her partner, Henry 'Yellowjacket' Pym to shame, but she also saw him holding her two friends like action figures and was beginning to squeeze the life out of them. "No!" she exclaimed and with her hands still charged with bio-electricity, she flies up to the watery giant's face and fires numerous sting blast to release her two friends, but to no avail.

Spidey himself is just as surprised at the sight of the gigantic Aquarius taking Thor and Ms. Marvel captive and instinctively points his right arm up towards an nearby building that was about the same height as the liquid-based Zodiac member and was just about to shoot a web-line to see if he could assist the Wasp in trying to free the two Avenger's trapped in the watery monster's grip.

Iron Man, however, remains cool and collected as he stops both Wasp and Spidey from attacking by calming saying this. "I got this one," he then pointed his right fist at Aquarius' large chest, and suddenly, a small compartment opens up on the top part of his gauntlet. Moments later, the Armored Avenger fires a small capsule, which ends up hitting and sinking into Aquarius' large frame, floating inside the water that composes his very being.

Aquarius himself looks down at the capsule inside him, then chuckles as he looks down at Iron Man. "Really? That's the best you can do?"

Even with his capsule seemingly doing nothing to stop Aquarius, Iron Man maintains his cool demeanor as he gives this reply that confused not only Aquarius himself but also Spidey and Wasp. "Wait for it..." With Aquarius standing there completely dumbfounded, the capsule inside him suddenly sprays out both a blue and white liquid chemicals within the Zodiac member's body. Then, as the two chemicals came in contact with one another, it causes Aquarius' watery body to freeze instantly, turning him into a makeshift ice statue.

This allows both Thor and Ms. Marvel to power out of Aquarius' ice-up hands, and as the result of their combined might, caused the frozen giant to shatter into millions of pieces. A sight in which stuns Wasp and causes her to turn to Iron Man himself. "Whoa! New toys, Tony?"

"Yeah, a little something I worked up over this weekend." Iron Man told his pixie-sized teammate as he mentally commanded the compartment on top of his gauntlet to close.

This reply causes Spidey to look at the Avengers' co-leader with an astounded and confused look. "Whoa, wait! You designed and built a small capsule with chemicals that create instant cold...over the weekend?!"

Iron Man gives the shocked Web-Head a smile behind his faceplate. "Well, everybody's gotta have a hobby, kid."

Back down below, Scorpio is now seething with anger upon seeing Aquarius being disposed of by the Avengers, and once again points his hand at the heroes. "EXTERMINATE THEM!" he roared as he and the rest of the Zodiac charge towards the Avengers up in the sky.

Up above, Ms. Marvel sees the Zodiac attacking and thus charges her fist with energy. "Tony now is not the time to pat yourself on the back!"

"Agreed!" replied Iron Man as he powers on his jet boots and hovers in the air. "AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!" With that battle cry, the Shell-head charges down towards the Zodiac, with the rest of the Avengers not too far behind.

Spidey, however, hesitates for a moment to watch in awe as the 'dream team' that he is a part of charge towards the Zodiac. "Man, Tony beat me to it!" Spidey said to himself in a joking tone, referring to the 'Avengers Assemble' battle cry. "Oh well, I guess there's always next time..." At that moment, the Web-Slinger points his right arm at a nearby building and shoots a web-line. "...that is if I don't get creamed by these hood wearing weirdos first." With that said, the Web-Head swings off to join the Avengers in taking down the Zodiac, and in the process, once again prove that he can 'hang with the best.'