Race 10: New York City
Coming out of the portal, the heroes found themselves in a modern city, though there were a few differences from the normal New York City they were used two. Namely, it seemed that there were an abundance of giant spider webs everywhere, and certain buildings were tilted or looked like they had been through a battle.
"I don't think we're in the main Marvel Universe, guys," Logan said.
"My multiverse scanner tells me this is separate from Earth-616 and Earth-199999," Rocket said. "Thanks to all the alternate universe shenanigans happening all the time, I took the liberty of making my own universe scanner to tell them apart, your welcome."
"Why'd you say those universe numbers like that?" Toren asked. "Isn't the MCU Earth-616."
Rocket shook his head. "No, the MCU as you call it is Earth-199999, while the real Earth-616 is the main comic book universe. The only reason the movies call themselves "Earth-616" is so your normie humans have an easy name to say. Personally, I would have just gone with "Earth Prime" but whatever."
"Now that I think about it, what universe are you from, Rocket?" Gabriel asked.
"Well, the Magical World is outside the standard Marvel multiverse, so currently I'm a mix of all the different Rocket Racoons from across all the universes," Rocket explained. "But if you want me to be specific, my MCU and video games counterparts are the most dominant at the moment."
"Huh, good to know," Adam mused. "So then, which universe are we currently in."
"This is a variant of the Spider-Island universe, where most of Manhattan gets powers like Spider-Man," Rocket said.
"Oh yeah, they did this storyline in the recent Spider-Man animated series," Gabriel nodded. "I guess we'll be racing against a Spider-Man villain then."
As if on cue, the revving of an engine was heard as a massive golden vehicle jumped over our heroes. Said vehicle was a massive mono-wheel bike, with guns on the sides and a cockpit in the middle holding a man wearing a tacky green jumpsuit and helmet.
"Greetings heroes, you must be who I'll be crushing today," the villain said.
Immediately, Gabriel started laughing, the raven falling onto his back in hysterics. "Oh boy, I know Herbert probably didn't have the budget to hire a big-time Spider-Man villain, but this guy, seriously!?"
The others stared at their friend in confusion. "Uh, what's going on here? He's still a supervillain, right?" Aline asked.
"He's Z-List at best!" Gabriel laughed.
"You dare mock me?" the villain scoffed. "We'll see if you stay that way when I, Big Wheel, crush you with my high-powered big wheel!"
The got everyone else to laugh. "Oh. My. Goodness! Your villain name is Big Wheel!?" Toren laughed.
"That's so lame!" Logan added. "No wonder none of us know who you are!"
"H-Hey! I was in an episode of the 90's cartoon! That has to count for something!" Big Wheel said.
"Not a very notable one!" Rachel taunted. She wiped tears from her eyes before getting serious. "Okay teams, enough of the laughter. We've got a villain to beat and a time limit to get this race done."
"Heh, Big Wheel," Beth chuckled one last time before all the teams got in their cars.
"You will pay for your laughter with your lives once I beat you," Big Wheel muttered, his ego thoroughly bruised by the heroes mocking him. "And I thought just having Spider-Man taunt me was bad enough…"
3
2
1
GO!
The race began with Aline and Toren taking the lead, Logan and Rachel following up behind them as they drove through the upper side of New York in the Harlem district. Big Wheel could easily crush any of their cars with his oversized vehicle, so the teams would have to play the distance game in order to attack them. As they raced down towards Central Park, Rocket and Iron Man did some calculations to get some items on their side.
"I'm picking up some Spider Drones in the area," Rocket said. "I bet if we can hack into them, they'll drop items for us to use against this guy."
"Leave that to me," Iron Man said. The genius billionaire used his suit's power to call on the nearest Spider Drone, the robotic spider climbing down a building to drop some item boxes on the road. For the teams to use.
As they entered Central Park, Big Wheel decided to go off-road, with the heroes navigating around trees in order to get a good shot in at him. Toren blocked a missile fired by Big Wheel with a shield, giving Adam a chance to toss a bomb in the villain's direction.
"Stand back guys, it's time for me to owl out!" Logan said, his special charged up. Letting Della take over driving, Logan transformed into his giant owl form and flew over Big Wheel, picking up the vehicle and spinning it like a hamster wheel. "How about we go for distance with this one!" Logan said, tossing Big Wheel high into the air before delivering a kick to the vehicle, knocking it clean out of the park and into Midtown to get caught up in one of the giant spider webs. "Ha-ha, score!"
"Good job Logan!" Dastan said. "Although you did just give him a lead in the race."
Logan transformed back into a human and gave a sheepish grin. "Oops, sorry about that."
"Luckily that gives us some time to get more items for when we catch up," Gabriel said. "Let's get moving, team!"
The heroes made it to Midtown just as Big Wheel managed to break out of the web, the villain grumbling about how, "Even when Spider-Man isn't here, I still have to deal with his annoying traps."
"How's this for a trap!" Logan taunted, shooting a banana at Big Wheel. Beth followed up with a firework attack, the two then falling behind their friends so they could get a shot in.
"Look at this, a Special Attack Bonanza!" Silver cheered. "Hit it, Elsa!" The ice queen launched a snowball attack at Big Wheel, doing damage while also creating an ice ramp for the other teams to more easily navigate the tilting buildings of Midtown.
"How about I heat you up after that icy attack?" Poe chuckled, using his special to created a fireball attack.
"And your puns are just as bad as the spider's as well!" Big Wheel groaned.
"We're not done yet!" Toren called, his special shining. "I call on the emotion of Joy to brighten up your day!" With that Toren's spots shone like a spotlight, blinding Big Wheel and making him accidentally run onto a car that was suspended by webbing, his vehicle taking more damage from it.
"And here's something to put a bit of spark in your step!" Adam called. He charged up his robot arm and launched a special attack to temporarily disable Big Wheel's controls, sending up spiraling up a building in an out-of-control manner.
"I don't know if he'll be able to recover from that cat-tastrophe of a pun, Adam," Aline chuckled. She used her special next, deciding to take a page out of Logan's book and transform into a giant version of her cat form. Climbing up the building, she caught up to Big Wheel and started spinning him around like a cat playing with a ball of yarn, before knocking him back down to street level bouncing into Hell's Kitchen.
"Wow, Aline is getting really good at her magic," Rachel said.
"Indeed, it's no wonder she was one of the candidates to be Dream Keeper alongside Gabriel," Poe said. "Though as well all know, having great power must also come with great responsibility, and Aline is still learning alongside Logan and Toren the balance between the two."
"Luckily we're still young and have time to learn!" Toren said.
"You guys know that I'm older than most of you, right?" Logan said, rolling his eyes.
"But we're totally a trio now after our big movie marathon," Aline said. "I'm like Kairi, Toren is Sora, and Logan is the Riku!"
"I wanted to be Sora," Logan frowned.
"Focus on the race you three," Adam said. "The next set of items is on the way as well.
Going through Hell's Kitchen and into Greenwich, Big Wheel was starting to get more aggressive, using his machine guns and missiles to more actively antagonize the heroes. Rachel managed to knock a missile right back at Big Wheel, with the stun he got from the attack giving Silver and Aline time to fire their bombs at the villain. To finish up this combo, Toren got out in front with a banana, slipping the villain up.
"And for the finisher, how about a bit of Unibeam!" Iron Man called, using his special to fire his massive chest laser at Big Wheel.
"Ouch! This is why I don't like dealing with big name heroes!" Big Wheel groaned.
The race soon started to get to its end, with the Downtown area in sight as a holographic finish line awaited them. More Spider Drones came down to give items to the heroes, but Big Wheel had something else waiting as well. Pressing a button on his controls, the streets around the heroes suddenly started to shake, revealing a plethora of ramps and barricades to get in their way, all while Big Wheel could easily control them to make a straight line to the finish!
"That cheater!" Rachel growled. "I hate it when villains don't play fair."
"I'm with you on that one," Beth nodded. "Let's give him all we got, guys!"
While the altered terrain made it hard for the heroes to get a shot in at Big Wheel, with Silver missing a bomb attack, Rachel missing a firework shot, and Beth missing a banana throw, some of them did manage to get a hit in. Logan got in front of Aline to block an incoming missile with a shield, buying her time to aim and successfully hit with a bomb. Adan went off a ramp and used a firework with great accuracy.
"Go Perry go!" Toren cheered as his friend got a Special ready. Agent P nodded, pulling out Phineas and Ferb's baseball launcher and firing a remote-controlled baseball at Big Wheel, damaging some of the spokes in the wheel and making his slower.
"Okay guys, time to wrap this up!" Gabriel said. He jumped out of his car and activated his Special, transforming into his dragon form as Fantasia started to play a song. "Hey Big Wheel, how about I call in some amazing friends to put you in your place?" With that, the dragon sang out as three heroes came to the rescue.
They can climb great heights to do what's right
The Spidey team is on the scene
Swinging
Spinning
Climbing the walls
Spidey crew do it all
As Gabriel sang, Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and Ghost Spider all swung into action, doing a pose as he sang.
They're your friendly neighborhood spiders
And their teamwork can't be tighter
"Oh no, not them," Big Wheel sighed as the three spider-heroes swung into action.
Woah ho!
Woah!
Go webs go!
Woah!
Miles swung down and delivered a Venom Punch to Big Wheel, disabling his technology. Ghost Spider then created a net to catch the out-of-control vehicle, while Spider-Man came in to pull Big Wheel out of the vehicle and web him up in a cocoon.
It's time to Spidey swing
With Spidey and his amazing
With Spidey and his amazing
Spidey and his amazing friends!
Once the villain was caught, Spidey and his amazing friends all posed in front of Big Wheel as he pulled out a camera. "Say 'Cheese!'" Spider-Man said as Big Wheel groaned in frustration.
"Great job, Spidey Team," Gabriel said, landing in a superhero pose as Fantasia faded out.
"We were just in the neighborhood and saw you guys racing Big Wheel," Miles said.
"And with as much of a loser as he is, it didn't take long for us to wrap things up," Ghost Spider said.
"Nice one, Gwen," Spider-Man chuckled, giving his friend a high-five.
"I think I'm good on puns for a while now," Silver said.
"That's another villain down, and the last one for us to go face Herbert," Rachel said. "Though the real question is how we're going to get to Club Penguin from here."
"We better make it quick," Adam said, pulling up a countdown clock. "We don't have a lot of time until he has his Meltinator ready to use."
"We can help with that," Spider-Man offered. "I have an amazing friend who knows all about opening portals to other dimensions."
Total Points
Gabriel (48)
Rachel (47)
Logan (47)
Toren (45)
Aline (40)
Silver (36)
Adam (36)
Beth (34)
Author's Note
And that was another amazing tale in this Magical World Grand Prix! Most people probably just know Big Wheel as an obscure joke villain in Spider-Man's history, which is exactly why I had to have him appear in this story. I could have used a similar racing-themed obscure Spider-Man villain Overdrive (who appeared in an episode of the recent Spider-Man cartoon), but his suit it a bit too similar to Tron and I didn't want to use him back-to-back when Cyrus was in the last race. I hope you enjoyed everyone getting in on the pun action, though!
Rocket explaining how the multiverse works is something that's actually going on right now. In Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness the main MCU earth is called "Earth-616" despite their universe being designated as "Earth-199999" in the greater Marvel multiverse. I think the movie people are just using 616 for the audience's sake, and they aren't going to suddenly make the movies the "main" timeline in the comics. Just a fun fact for you all to know about!
Peter Parker Spider-Man, Miles Morales Spider-Man, and Gwen Stacy Ghost Spider even got to make appearances this time to help save the day! The song Gabriel used is the theme song from the Disney Junior "Spidey and his Amazing Friends" show. The song is actually pretty good, and it was sung by the lead singer of Fall Out Boy of all people! We truly do live in the weirdest timeline, don't we?
Next Time: Club Penguin is in trouble, and our heroes race against Herbert to save the world!