Hey Football Heads! Here is my latest entry in fanfiction!
It's basically a rewrite of The Movie, but it's a Spider-Man AU.
Yes, Spider-Man.
I had some ideas and for the life of me I couldn't put it out of my brain, so I wrote it down. It came from a drawing on tumblr.
I don't really have a schedule for this, but if people like the start I will continue. I do procrastinate, so no promises on creating one.

Summary: Arnold Shortman, Hillwood's Spider-Man, must investigate and shut down a plot to demolish a large section of the city by Future Tech Industries while saving face for rivaling friends Stinky and Sid rising the ranks in the worlds of journalism and big science. Helga Pataki has to pledge her loyalty to her cause to help her love against her father's wishes as The Ghost. Gerald and Phoebe have other problems of the radioactive spider variety besides their blooming relationship. Will they tell Arnold and Helga? Can Hillwood's vigilant protectors stop Future Tech from destroying the city, or will the appearance of a tomato throwing, costumed supervillain make their lives much harder?

One last thing before we start. Everything happened in the series except for April Fool's Day, The Journal, and The Jungle Movie is canon and the original cast is aged up to their Junior Year of high school.

Enjoy.

Prologue: An Ode to Steely Phil

Hillwood was always welcoming in the spring, but the summer was getting closer.

The next heatwave is predicted to come sometime in the near future and the citizens of the city under its newest protectors are waiting now more than ever for it to come. The last of the coldest afternoons were almost behind them, they are ready to shed their comfy jackets for shorter sleeves. They all feel prepared this time, including the trees that had finally shed the skin of their petals that were now a thinly laid sheet over the grass and strown, like confetti, against the pavement of Hillwood's city streets.

They would be blown by the wind, passing cars, and the trudge of feet on the sidewalk, particularly by one Arnold Shortman taking one of his famous walks. His school's newspaper was clutched underneath his right arm, hands in pockets. He looks down more now. He notices the petals, hears the sounds of the wind picking them up and sets them down on the sidewalk in front of his feet in an elegant spinning dance. He hears the faint car honks in the distance, the sound of acid jazz had poured through the windows of the music store and he absentmindedly matched his stride to the slow beat, prolonging the inevitable; his weekly ritual visit to the south of town to talk to a cold, cold stone.

As he came closer to the place which he was traveling, the sounds were getting deathly quiet, the only sound being his slow footsteps. He assumed this would make sense, considering the place wouldn't be packed today. He couldn't come on yesterday's date, Memorial Day. He believed he didn't think he'd have the strength to talk to the stone with so many people around.

It was June now, about a year since he had to grow up. Great power and great responsibility, and all that jazz.

He arrived at the gates close to five, early in the afternoon enough that it was daylight but late enough that when he left at six he could take the bus home and be back for his grandmother's supper. He wishes supper would come sooner, but promises are promises. Even the ones kept for themselves, and themselves alone.

The gates were opened by him and he could swear to God that everytime he held the bars, they were still freezing cold no matter the weather, and he walked the short distance between him and his final destination. He curved left around a giant angel, passed the fresh dirt and newly placed red flowers for whom he never knew, hung a right, passed the tall white cross and walked straight until he found the beige plaster bench. The bench was white a year ago, and was beginning to show its age, as much as Arnold had.

His eyes were heavy from no sleep, and the bench looked like a saving grace, but he stopped to look at the stone in front of it. He sighed as his left hand exited the pocket of his blue denim jeans, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, sadly silencing a migraine that was never there and he solemnly stepped forward and sat on the plaster bench and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

He sat there for some time before he felt he could speak. The petals were with him, the wind was with him, the paper was now in his hand and with the touch of the slimy newsprint staining his fingers he knew his nerves were with him, but he only wished that he felt a ghost was with him too.

A ghost was there though, it was pale white and bent in the shadows a block away, hanging below a windowsill. They would raise its mask to wipe their face, but not of tiredness like our Arnold, but because it was wet. When it was done, the ghost raised their right wrist to the wall, creating a thick long rope of white, and hurriedly swung out of sight quietly turning the corner behind the alleyway.

Arnold set down the newspaper, unfolded, next to him on the bench and read the gargantuan bold black text reading: The Spider-Man Saves the Day Again, or Did He?

Under it read the line: written by editor Stinky Peterson. One mistake with a new partner that gained the upper hand and he's scarred for life. If Arnold knew Stinky, and he did, The Daily Hillwood would praise that new white and pink spider hero and leave Spider-Man in the dust, especially with him getting the blame for the failure instead of them. Stinky would believe anything he would read on the internet, or whatever story had entered his mind from his imagination.

Another article to the left side was a piece by Lila Sawyer herself, the name still pained him somewhat, but what the article was about pained him even more: Finalists Chosen for Internship at FTI from H.S. 118: Arnold Shortman and Sid Gifaldi.

FTI. All that work. I hope I made it. These powers are too suspicious and too dangerous for me not to know where it came from. That place is wrapped tighter than a steel drum. I just hope if I do get it, Sid will forgive and forget me somehow. His family needs the money more than mine does.

Arnold looked toward the pale periwinkle sky, and huffed a breath that held the weight of his apparent selfishness and shut his eyes. He hung his head down slowly, gaining back his peace of mind. Then he opened his eyes and solely focused on the stone, upon it was a picture of a face he knew, loved, and now feared, all too well.

He slowly peeled back the sleeve of his jacket and the long sleeve shirts that were underneath and ghosted a finger over the stretchy fabric of his red super suit, tracing over the black webbing that laced around his wrist. He again let go with a great breath, and his eyes locked on the image printed on the grey headstone.

"Hey Grandpa, How are you today?" A beat.

"I'm…" he sighs.

"...okay."

Would he be proud if he saw me now? Tired and weak but still walking to see him every week? He definitely wouldn't like that I skipped visiting on Memorial Day.

Arnold truly believed that every answer to those questions he had thought of was in fact a yes.

No matter what the papers may say...