Time for our heroes to face down Mysterio! But is everything as it seems?
Upon arriving in Berlin, Nick Fury was waiting to pick the two heroes up from the train station. Getting over to SHIELD's location, Shocket continued to mess with the broken projector, but to no avail.
"Ugh, Stark Tech is the pits to hack," the ottercoon growled. "I'd need access to the mainframe to do it. Dad is better at this kind of thing. At the very least, I might, and I emphasize might, be able to locate where the drones are, but until then…"
"Geez, I made a mistake," Peter sighed.
"Oh, what kind of mistake?" Maria Hill asked as they entered a conference room.
"I made a mistake trusting Mysterio with EDITH," Peter explained. "He's not who you think he is. Beck is a liar. Mysterio, the Elementals, it's all fake. He has some sort of illusion tech, and that's how he tricked you guys, and he tricked me into giving him EDITH."
"This thing is a projector," Shocket tossed the device onto the table. "'Night Monkey' pulled it off of one of the drones back in Prague."
"So all the death and destruction we witness was created by this?" Fury questioned.
Shocket shook her head. "No, he used this in combination with advanced Stark drones to do it. I did some research on the way over here: Quinten Beck used to work for Uncle Tony but was fired for being mentally unstable. Clearly, he wanted EDITH for himself to get back at him, classic villain backstory."
"If that's true, then Beck is very dangerous and we need to be smart," Fury said. "Who else did you tell about this?"
Peter zoned out as he got a tingle in the back of his neck. Shocket felt something off too and looked down at her wrist com to see blinking dots heading their way. "Flark," she cursed.
"It's Beck, he's here," Peter warned.
The room around them suddenly faded, including Hill, turning into an abandoned construction sight. A blast came through one of the walls, taking out Fury in one shot. Peter got shot by one of the drones as well, knocking him down a few floors while Shocket ducked for cover.
"Wow, Peter. Wow," Mysterio said through the drone speakers. "I thought we were close. Fury always had to die, but not you."
Shocket looked down at her com to see multiple drone readings. "He's already armed EDITH," she said, dread filling her. The ottercoon quickly climbed the construction site to avoid the drones and break away from the illusion. "Stop hiding, Beck!" she called out.
"I tried to let you walk away," Mysterio monologued. "Now you're making me do this."
The room suddenly faded to black, making Shocket fall down and land where Peter was. "Stay close," she said. "Flark, flark, flark! I can't read anything! There's too much interference!"
Their costumes faded to their regular outfits as they fell further into the illusion. "You told me you were just a kid," Mysterio said, appearing before the two. Peter shot webs and Shocket aimed her gun, but both only shout out green smoke. "You told me you wanted to run after that girl." Peter tried to punch Mysterio, only to hurt his hand as he punched a wall instead.
"Help me!" MJ's voice echoed.
"MJ!" Peter shouted, only for Shocket to hold him back.
"She's back in Prague, going home right now," she said. "Don't let Mysterio pull you in deeper. We know this isn't real, Beck!"
"Do you though?" Mysterio questioned, changing their scenery to that of the Eiffel Tower. He held MJ in his hands by the neck, then dropped her off the tower. Peter dived after her, but Shocket stayed back and tried to shoot Mysterio once more.
"Enough of the games!" she shouted.
"On, but this isn't a game," Mysterio jeered, kicking the ottercoon down to where Peter landed. "Neither of you know what's real." The two heroes were then punched by a giant Mysterio fist, sent plummeting out of the building to land on top of a car, with Shocket landing on top of Peter. "You need to wake up!"
Shocket groaned, then quickly sat up and fired her blaster in random directions. "This. Flarking. Sucks!" she shouted.
The blackness came around them once more as the drones descended, creating mirror shards that caged the two in. "I mean, look at yourselves," Mysterio said.
Suddenly, the reflections came to life, attacking the two heroes! Peter fought them off, while Shocket fired at the mirror shards, accidentally hitting a drone in the process. Seeing a tear in the illusion, the ottercoon taking the leap to get out of the drone's area of effect. Ducking under a construction vehicle, she caught her breath for a quick moment.
"Okay, I think we're safe," she said. Looking around, Shocket gasped as she couldn't find Peter. "Peter? Spider-Man? Oh no…"
Meanwhile, Peter was dogpiled by his clones as Mysterio continued to monologue. "You are just a scared little kid a sweatsuit!" When he broke free, Peter was in his original 'underoos' outfit. "I created Mysterio to give the world someone to believe in. I control the truth! Mysterio is the truth."
Mysterio then appeared, battling Peter within the illusion. From the outside, Shocket saw webs come out from nowhere, grabbing onto the crane and pulling it down. She quickly pulled out her gun and fired at where the webs had come from, hitting another drone in the process. "Peter, get out of there!" she called as the tear was quickly closed up, being forced to hide once more.
"Shocket?" Peter called back.
"Ah yes, the pet," Mysterio said. "You can never do anything on your own Peter. Maybe if you were better, Tony would still be a hero." Suddenly, a battle-scarred Iron Man suit burst out of the ground, chasing Peter further into the illusion. When he thought he got away, the hero ran into a glass wall, actually being Mysterio's helmet filled like a snow globe. "Deep down you know I'm right. You made your choice. All you had to do was step aside."
Shocket rolled her eyes and said "Screw it," jumping back into the illusion and tossing a bomb. When the explosion went off, the illusion faded as Beck appeared in a strange mocap suit, defeated from the bomb's blast. "Oh thank God," she said.
Peter looked at Shocket in relief as Fury and other SHIELD agents appeared, surrounding the area. "Beck's people are trying to find everyone that could expose him," Fury explained. "Who'd you tell? I know you told someone, so just tell me."
"Just Ned and MJ from my class," Peter replied. "Maybe Ned told his girlfriend Betty, but that's it."
Shocket looked down at her device to see that the drone signals were still in active use. "Oh Flark. Peter this isn't-"
"You're such a sucker," Fury said, his form fading as Beck came back. "And now all your friends have to die."
"You son of a bitch!" Shocket shouted, getting onto Peter's shoulder as the drones assaulted them with illusion after illusion.
"It's easy to fool people when they're fooling themselves," Mysterio said. Shocket tried to shoot him, but the drones would either block the bullets or misdirect her fire. "But for what it's worth, Peter, I am sorry. As for you, Shocket, well, I never did like vermin."
He turned off the drones, and the heroes had little time for Peter to hold Shocket tight as a train barreled into them, knocking Shocket out as Peter barely held onto the train. Pulling them into the train, Peter took of his mask and flopped into a chair, passing out himself from the pain of the collision. 'MJ, Ned, Shocket, everyone, I'm sorry…' he thought as the world faded out.
[***]
Shocket found herself on the Benatar, the sound of Star-Lord's mixtape playing as she sat in the pilot's seat. "Oh, it was all a dream," she sighed to herself. "I didn't go to Earth, meet Peter, and fight a psycho with a bubble head and way too many drones."
"Sounds, like a wild dream, sis," said an unfamiliar voice. Shocket turned to see an anthropomorphic duck in the co-pilot's seat, wearing a red bandana and a green jumpsuit. "But we're almost to the rendezvous point, so a good time to wake up."
"Who the Flark are you?" Shocket asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Linda the Duck? Genetic clone of Howard the Duck?" the duck explained. "We escaped the Collector and now work a two-man mercenary group?"
"I think I ate something funny last night," Shocket said.
"Or you were knocked out and are experiencing a temporal anomaly," Linda suggested.
"A what now?" Shocket asked.
Linda sighed. "You hit your head so hard that your astral projection reached another dimension? Dr. Strange said it can happen when two dimensional counterparts fall asleep at the same time. Where did you come from?"
"My Dad, Rocket, and my mother, Lady Lylla," Shocket explained.
"Ah, you're his birth daughter," Linda said with recognition. "My Shocket is his genetic clone. Strange difference, huh?"
"Sure," Shocket said. "So, this is a dream or something?"
"Yeah," Linda nodded. "All you gotta do is wake up. Here, I'll make it easy for you."
The duck tossed a glass of water in Shocket's face, making the ottercoon sputter awake in shock as he sat up in her own body. "That was a weird dream," she sighed. Looking around, she saw that she was lying in a farm of some kind on the side of the road. "And Peter isn't here either, great." Shocket looked down and saw her ruined Stealth Suit, letting out a sigh. "Well, this suit is wreaked. And so is my tech. Better find something else."
Stripping out of her ruined suit, and being silently grateful that her fur covered everything, Shocket snuck around the area to find that she was now in the Netherlands. "Borrowing" some kid clothes hanging on a line, she got herself clothed and used her tracker to get to where Peter was. Luckily he wasn't far, and she found the teen hero walking in a flower field.
"Peter!" she called.
"Shocket!" Peter replied, picking her up. "I was worried about you after that train and…"
"It'll take a lot more to kill me," Shocket said with a smirk. "Us Half-Worlders are built tough. Though my gear is kaput."
"I got us a ride home, don't worry," Peter said, looking up as a Stark Jet made its landing in the field.
Coming out of the jet was Happy, a worried look in his face. "Peter, are you okay?"
"Happy, is that you?" Peter called.
"Yeah, of course it's me," Happy said.
"Stop!" Peter and Shocket said at the same time, before Peter continued. "Tell me something only you would know!"
"Remember when we went to Germany? You pay-per-viewed a video in your room? They didn't list the titles but I could tell by the price that it was an adult film at the front desk," Happy replied.
Shocket looked at Peter with a weird look. "It's him," Peter sighed, moving forward to hug Happy. "It's so good to see you."
"Peter, you have to tell me what the Hell is going on here," Happy said.
"It's a long story," Shocket said, surprising Happy. "Hey, I'm Shocket. You met my family at the "Saving the World" party about a year ago?"
Once they were on the plane, Happy got to fixing the injuries the two had sustained in their battle with Mysterio. Shocket was neutral over the whole thing, but Peter was tense the entire time. It was mostly her that explained everything about Mysterio to Happy, while Peter complained about his injuries.
"Peter, you need to relax," Happy said.
"How can I relax Happy?" Peter shouted. "How can I relax when I messed up so bad? I trusted Beck, right? I thought he was my friend. So I gave him the one think Mr. Stark trusted me to carry on his legacy with, and now he's gonna kill my friends and half of Europe, so please, do not tell me to relax." Peter sat down and took a deep breath, head in his hands. "I'm sorry, Happy. I shouldn't shout…"
Shocket sighed. "Peter, I get it. I wish Uncle Tony could still be a hero too. He'd sort this shit out in no time."
"I miss those days too," Happy admitted.
"Everywhere I go, I see his face," Peter said. "And the whole world his asking who's going to be the next Iron Man… And I don't know if that's me, Happy. I'm not Iron Man."
"You're not Iron Man," Happy stated. "You're never going to be Iron Man. Nobody could live up to Tony. Not even Tony. Tony was my best friend, and he was a mess. He second-guessed everything he did. He was all over the place. The one thing he didn't second-guess was picking you."
"He's right," Shocket said, looking at Peter. "I don't think Uncle Tony would have tried to sacrifice himself if he didn't think you'd be here after he was gone, Peter. My mum using the Phoenix to bring him back to life was just a bout of divine intervention." She stood up with confidence. "Now our friends our in trouble, we can't call the other heroes, and our tech is trashed. So, What are we gonna do about it?"
Peter looked at his friend, then smiled and stood up as well. "We're gonna kick his ass."
"Hell yeah we are!" Shocket said.
"But right now, specifically, what are we gonna do?" Happy asked. "We've been hovering over a tulip field for fifteen minutes."
"First, we gotta call my friends," Peter said, taking Happy's phone. "What's your password?"
"Password," Happy answered.
"Seriously?" Shocket said, rolling her eyes as it worked to open the phone. "You're the head of security at one of the largest tech companies in the world and your password is 'Password?' Maybe Mysterio just deserves to take over this Flarking planet…"
"I'm not proud about it either," Happy sighed.
Peter looked to see Flash was streaming for his vlog in London, giving them a destination to go to. "They're in London, but we're gonna need suits," he told Happy.
Pressing a button, Happy opened up the back part of the plane to reveal a miniature Stark lab, complete with a suit builder for the two to use! Peter quickly pulled up the database on Spider-Man, while Shocket looked into the tech that Rocket and Tony had collaborated on for the Guardians. Creating hard-light holograms, Peter donned a new web shooter while Shocket created rocket boots like her father's. Happy looked at the two kids, seeing the influence that Tony had on their lives.
"What?" they asked as Happy smiled.
"Nothing," he said. "You take care of the suit, I'll take care of the music."
"Back in Black" started playing, making Peter and Shocket bop to the beat. "I love Led Zeppelin!" Peter said.
"it's AC/DC," Shocket rolled her eyes, creating a new mask to wear. "Respect the classics, man." Putting on the hologram, she smirked as the 'eyes' moved with her expression. "Oh, this is going to be so sweet!"
Author's Note
First of all, hype for Guardians of the Galaxy: The Video Game! I know not everyone is a fan of the Avengers game, but I personally love it and this Guardians game looks even better!
Secondly, while Shocket wasn't able to stop Mysterio in Berlin, she's not going to let him get one over on her a second time. The dream she had is a shout-out to the comic book version of Shocket, who's a genetic clone of Rocket that's partnered up with a clone of Howard the Duck, Linda. They're from a Howard the Duck comic so it's expected to be wacky and weird.
I'll be unveiling Shocket's new suit next chapter, so be hyped for that as we head into the final battle!
