I do not own Spider Man or any of the characters.

Hydration

Lexi rests a hand on it for a moment before smiling sadly. "It's a keepsake from home. Or, well, our old universe, anyway. There was one planet there where there was a cave filled with crystals of all sizes and colors. When Carnage came and we had to leave, I took a bit of the crystal as a keepsake. I loved those caves."

"Maybe we can go back there," I suggest.

"No!" Lexi gasps. "You can never go to our universe."

"Alright," I shrug. "But maybe that planet has the same caves in our universe. I'm sure Peni could build us a ship to get there fast."

Lexi's eyes widen before she smiles. "Yeah."

I smile, taking her hand just as water exploded into the air out in the canal, reaching twenty feet before stopping. It flooded outward as it fell, flooding into the city. We all look around, seeing Peter and MJ with Ned and his girlfriend, who Peter calls Betty, Ned and Betty having been washed over in their boat. Just then, water begins to rise, spiraling and forming together, creating a massive humanoid upper body. Peter quickly sends the others away and we run over to Peter as he looks around desperately.

"What do we do?" Peter asks.

"Run!" I shout as the giant, who had been trashing the city around him, turns and throws a punch at us.

We all take cover behind the corner of the building and the corner explodes just shy of us, a spray of water flying past and drenching us all. I growl in annoyance. My turn.

"Lexi," I say.

She nods, enveloping me for a moment and, just as miraculously as her sister had done when we first met Peter, leaving me in my suit when she separated from me. Except, the suit she's left me in is the Sub Zero outfit Miles gave me as a joke.

"Seriously?" I ask.

"Probably better to not make everyone think Spiderman's here yet," she shrugs. "Besides, you look cool this way."

"You're hilarious," I sigh. "Fine. You two go help evacuate. Peter, find a mask and do the same. There should be plenty lying around. I'll deal with this thing."

Everyone nods and leaves and I sprint out from behind the building, forming an ice path off of the walkway, sprinting along it by freezing my feet to it like I do to climb walls. The monster mostly ignores me, continuing to attack the city. I stop after a moment and form a sphere of frozen air and hurl it at the massive creature just as it pulls its hand back to throw a punch. The sphere hits the fist and the fist is turned into a massive chunk of ice that falls away, the rest of the water continuing. The ice blasts a building and shatters the brick wall on the second floor with ease. The ice chunk, on the other hand, explodes into the bottom floor like a wrecking ball, blasting through the building and out the other side. The whole building shudders for a moment before collapsing, water spewing out of it. I swear, forming an ice slide to the building and jumping forward, landing in a slide down the side, sliding to my feet and sprinting over, stopping beside the wreckage.

"Is anyone in here!?" I shout.

After a moment of not getting an answer, I turn to the giant just as it punches at a bridge, smashing the railing and the side of the bridge, but most of the damage ending there. Peter, on the other hand, did get thrown backward by a wall of water. I sprint along the walkway and up the stairs to the bridge, helping him up just as a blast of green energy hits the giant, then another. We both look up just as a man in gold armor with a long red cape and a glass dome around his head, filled with thick green gas. He begins to fly around, firing blasts of green energy at the giant. I stand, hurling a sphere of frozen air at the giant again, but a blast of water explodes up from beside the giant, catching the sphere and freezing before flying at me and Peter. I swear, me and peter leaping out of the way, Peter now wearing one of the Italian half-masks, this one a jester mask with blue spikes on the top, all tipped with bells.

The massive chunk of ice smashes across the top of the bridge and falls back into the water.

"Stop freezing it!" the mysterious guy in the gold armor shouts. "You're not helping!"

"Sorry!" I call out.

The guy, who has been using his energy powers as a shield to hold back a fist, gets hit by the giant's fist and streaks backward before catching himself, massive columns of water beginning to rise along the canal. The guy flies forward again, blasting columns as he passes, causing them to fall away, then returns to blasting the giant. Finally, he blasts it in the face, making it recoil.

"Sir!" Peter calls out. "Sir! Let me help! I'm strong! And I'm...sticky!"

"I need to lead it away from the canal!" the guy says.

"Good thinking!" I nod. "We'll minimize the damage!"

The guy nods and takes off past us. We scatter as the giant floods past us before dropping into the river and traveling through it to chase the guy. Peter and I follow using webbing. The creature smashes anything it passes. A small foot bridge, the façade of a building, a plaza. Everyone's able to stay out of its way, however, so there's one less thing to worry about for now. As we're passing a building where the façade is falling off, we both go through one of the top two windows, connecting dozens of strands of webbing each to the façade, stopping it from falling, then continue. More and more damage is done as the giant chases our mysterious helper. We end up fixing about five more buildings in the next few minutes, and I save one puppy from a bridge. I drop him off with a little girl who's crying and the puppy barks happily, licking her face until she laughs.

"Hey, can you do me a favor and find him someplace away from the water, someplace with a lit of adults?" I ask. "But you'll have to be a big, strong, brave girl. Can you do that?"

She nods.

"Alright," I nod. "Go find some adults."

She nods again and turns, running away as fast as her little legs can carry her, the puppy continuing to lick her face as she runs, making her laugh again. I turn, chasing after Peter again and pass the da Vinci museum, seeing Mr. Harrington and Mr. Dell, along with the remainder of our class running for cover. We're in a square now, no water for the giant to draw on, and our mysterious ally is peppering the giant with energy blasts. However, the bell tower in the center of the square was broken by the giant at some point and is beginning to fall. There's webbing around the tower to keep it from crumbling, and I freeze that, adding a layer of ice to it for good measure. Peter's in it, with webbing attached to a pair of buildings off to either side, but as soon as it pulls tight, it yanks him forward and up off his back, his forehead smashing into the inside of the bell, dropping him again. I laugh once before swinging up and landing beside him.

"You okay?" I ask.

"I'm going to have a welt later," Peter groans, pushing himself up, this time on the correct side of the bell. He send out two more strands of webbing, bracing himself against the corner of the tower, and it slows. It's still falling, but slowly. I hurl a sphere of frozen air at the ground below the tower and it explodes into a massive spiral of ice, catching the tower and halting it, holding it so it was aligned along a street, rather than over buildings.

"There we go," I sigh. "Now I'll just leave it here until that thing's dealt with."

I look over at the water giant just as our ally forms a pair of glowing green triangles by his hands, larger ones appearing on either side of the creature and smoke shooting out of the eye in the center of the circle. The smoke wraps around the giant's arms, and begins to pull. Then, after a moment, our ally yanks his arms out to his sides and the smoke rips the giant in two, the entire thing crashing down into the street as water. I sigh, allowing my ice to begin to thaw slowly from the top down, gently setting the bell tower down before dropping out of it and disappearing into an alleyway, Lexi meeting me there and enveloping me, taking the suit back before separating. We hurry back into the square just as our ally takes off, disappearing behind the buildings in moments. I watch him go and sigh. I'd have at least liked to get his name. Maybe there's a version of him in our universe. It'd be great to get some extra help dealing with Carnage.

I walk over to the others and stop beside Peter. "Everyone okay?"

"Yeah," Brad says. "Where were you?"

"Following the monster," I say. "How often do you get to watch a superhero beat the shit out of water? Better question, how often is it necessary to beat the shit out of water?"

"Fair point," Brad says. "You're out of your fucking mind."

"Everyone else headed to the hotel," Lexi says. "The monster didn't go to that part of the city, so a lot of people went that way."

"Alright, let's go make sure everyone's safe," Mr. Harrington nods, taking the lead with Mr. Dell.

As we walk, Peter drops back beside us. "MJ's okay, right?"

"She's worried out of her mind because you're not there," Lexi grins. "She might even let you kiss her when we get there."

"Very funny," Peter grumbles.

I chuckle and shake my head, but I don't comment on the fact that Lexi might be right. After a few minutes, we reach the hotel and Peter rushes over to Ned and MJ while Jess meets me and Lexi at the door, hugging us both painfully tight.

"I told you I'd be fine," I smile. "It was just water."

Jess gives me a stern look and I sigh before her expression softens. "Well, at least you're both safe now."

I nod and look around. "You know, it figures that all those nice buildings and monuments get trashed and this place survives."

"Yeah, that's pretty typical," Lexi agrees.

We all head upstairs to change, planning to meet back up in the main room after.

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