Pikatwig: Well… that took longer than expected. *sighs* So… what kept ya? Getting Spider-Gwen out of that paywall?

KKD: I- wait, what?

Pikatwig: Some stop motion I saw today where numerous Marvel and Capcom characters got locked behind a paywall for Infinite.

KKD: Oh yea, I saw that… hold up, it was made by the same guy who did something similar with Smash 4, thanks to Goku popping up out of nowhere.

Pikatwig: Took us a bit to get Spider-Gwen and Venom out of there… but I found somewhere to lock up people who are banned from this story.

-Meanwhile-

*Silk and Mephisto both sighed as they watched Deadpool shoot at a wall with a dollar sign*

Silk: Give it up. We're stuck here…

Deadpool: NEVER! I! REFUSE! TO! STAY! HERE! *bashes fists against the Paywall*

-Back with Writers-

Pikatwig: Yep. *relaxes* I am content.

KKD: Figured.

Gwen: So… how would they ever get out?

Pikatwig: ...I dunno.

KKD: We'll figure that out later. Anything else worth noting before proceeding? Aside from college possibly keeping these from being updated faster than we'd hope?

Pikatwig: We recently finished a review of the origins and first two episodes of the new Spider-Man cartoon.

KKD: Yep.

Pikatwig: …

KKD: ...I still can't believe Doc Ock is that short. Seriously, they made him at LEAST as tall as Peter in most media prior. I'm telling ya, he's getting shorter every incarnation.

Pikatwig: Least it gives a good reason why he builds the robotic legs.

KKD: ...good point, actually. At least with how short he is. I was satisfied with them being used to safely managed unstable chemicals in previous versions.

Pikatwig: Ok…? Uh… let's begin.

KKD: Yea. Begin.

Disclaimers: Neither KKD nor Pikatwig own anything in this story as it is a fan-based project. Spider-Man and any associated properties within are owned by Marvel Comics, Walt Disney Studios, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and their respective creators and owners. The only things the authors own are the original concepts and idea introduced within.

"Spidey here. I've been at this superheroing thing for about… what, two weeks now? And things have been getting pretty smooth in crime fighting… I just hope I'm doing the right thing. If only Uncle Ben could see me…"

Peter looked at his locker and at a picture of himself with Aunt May and Uncle Ben on it. Gwen, MJ and Harry all looked from a distance, unsure of what to do or say.

"...somebody want to say something to him?" Gwen whispered.

"Why don't you say something?" Harry asked.

Before MJ could add anything in, the bell for class rang and the group headed for their homeroom.

The four friends soon returned to their homeroom with Dr. Connors talking about announcements for the rest of the semester. Peter listened with half-interest, focused mostly on his thoughts of his deceased uncle.

Dr. Connors seemed to notice this, but continued talking to the class, "As I was saying, we will be having numerous projects over the year. So make sure you study up and have a good team for group projects. I will tell you when you need to make groups when it is necessary, but I felt it would be good to let you know. Until then, it's fine if you mingle a little bit. But… Peter Parker?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it okay if I have a word with you outside?"

"Uh… sure." he nodded before he followed the teacher out into the hallway, "What's up?"

"Are you ok, Peter?"

"...what do you mean?"

"You've been kind of spacing out in the middle of class lately. Is something the matter?"

"...my uncle was killed a few weeks ago…" Peter informed.

"Oh… I'm… sorry to hear that…" Dr. Connors apologized, "Uh… I don't know what to say…"

"Don't worry, I'll get over it. Just… trying to cope with it…"

His teacher simply nodded before motioning for Peter to head back into class and following Peter back in after he went in.

"Hey, Pete?" Harry called out after school had ended.

"Yea?"

"You feeling alright? I know what happened to your Uncle and…"

"I'm going to be alright…" Peter assured, "It's just gonna take some time to get used to it…"

Harry was about to speak again, but Peter had begun to walk away. Harry then sighed before proceeding to head for a limo to head for home.

"I honestly felt like trash because I could've stopped him from dying… right before my own eyes..."

Peter simply kicked a pebble into a nearby trashcan and tried to fight back crying.

"I was a total wreck on the inside. Sure, Aunt May was still around, but Uncle Ben was gone…"

"Peter?" Aunt May called as Peter was standing outside the house, "Peter, what are you doing out here?"

"...being sad…" Peter responded.

"Still thinking of Uncle Ben?"

"Yeah…"

Aunt May walked over and pulled Peter into a hug as he struggled to not cry. She petted his back a tiny bit as he simply embraced her back, "Easy dear…"

"I feel so stupid…" Peter responded, "I could've stopped that man before he killed Uncle Ben…"

"Everybody has their time to go…" Aunt May told him, "Your parents had their time… and your uncle also had his time."

"...so… what you're saying is… he had to go?"

"If this comforts you at all… Ben's back with his brother now. It'll be alright…"

Peter simply nodded, tears falling from his eyes, before his aunt guided him back inside, "So… uh… you're cool with me doing what I'm doing, right?"

"I'd still want you to be careful… but I'd be more than happy to support your efforts in memory of your uncle, Peter."

"...uh… how?" Peter curiously inquired.

"I'll do whatever I can…" she assured, "I may not be as smart as you are, but I have ways to help. Whether it be with fixing your costume or helping you get some info on the bad guys."

Peter simply smiled a bit at his aunt, a bit surprised she would actually do that, before he took off his book bag and proceeded to take out a book, "Well… for now… I'm gonna get to homework. I need to catch up before I gotta go web-swinging."

"I understand, Peter."

The bank sat relatively quiet as the sun began to set and the clerks began to prepare closing shop before a strange smoke stack floated from outside. This confused many people who were there before they began seeing what looked to be green monsters. They began to panic as the monsters seemed to strike them down before a man in an ornate green costume with golden gloves and ornaments, a violet cape, and a glass dome for a helmet that was impossible to see into. He walked into the bank with the guards in hysterics and simply stood before them.

"If you know what's good for you, bring the money out here."

The guards simply nodded and quickly brought money out of the vault to the helmeted figure. The figure chuckled in response, taking the money before he tossed a smoke bomb to the ground and vanished.

The next day soon rolled around as Gwen was preparing to head for school.

"Hey, dad?" Gwen asked, getting the attention of the man with graying blonde hair, green eyes while wearing a white shirt, black tie, black military pants and boots , "Have you seen my phone?"

"You left it on the kitchen counter," he informed as he was looking over some crime reports, "I might be out later tonight seeing the recent string of crimes."

"Alright," Gwen nodded as she picked up her phone as she soon headed for the door, "Good luck with work."

"...thanks," he smiled softly as Gwen exited while he skimmed over the reports.

Back at school, Gwen met up with Peter as they were waiting for MJ and Harry to show up.

"Hear about those recent robberies?" somebody behind the two asked another person.

"Yea, real crazy. Heard something about them involving people being stuck in laughing fits and seeing all kinds of crazy creatures…"

Peter made a mental note of this as he waited a bit before Harry and MJ walked in, "Hey guys."

"Sorry we're late…"

"No, bell hasn't rung yet," Peter assured.

"Really?" Harry asked, checking the clock, "Sheesh. All this tech and I still forget Daylight Savings time."

Peter, Gwen and MJ all laughed a little bit at this, Harry chuckling nervously as he sat down.

"So, there's a bank robber casting magic, huh?" Spider-Man muttered as he looked around a bit, trying to figure out where the next robbery would be, "Well… this is rather slow. ...welp… might as well wait a bit."

He sat down on the roof he was observing from before he looked to try and find something going on. Spider-Man exhaled a bit to regain himself as he sat back up before taking a leap and saw somebody walking into a bank. He slowly lowered himself in via an open window to examine what was happening. He could faintly see what appeared to be a man with a fish bowl on his head and was surrounded by smoke.

"More money… good…" the person muttered as he had the bankers fill up some sacks and got them out of the building, but then Spider-Man webbed up the money bags, "What the?!"

"Nice try, fish-bowl, but I need to see some ID…"

"...what?"

"Oh, sorry. How rude of me. I'm your friendly-neighborhood Spider-Man. And you are?"

"I am Mysterio! Master of Illusions!"

"An illusionist? So none of this is real. Even the smoke on the floor?"

Mysterio blinked a bit before he raised his hand to summon up large snakes with golden glows. The snakes rose up to where Spider-Man was presently as he dodged and blasted his webbing at Mysterio's helmet.

"Sorry Captain Fishbowl, but I'm gonna need you to surrender yourself to the cops."

Mysterio managed to struggle out of Spider-Man's webs before tossing a vial of smoke at Spider-Man's head.

"Hey! Watch it, I don't wear a fish-bowl like you!"

The illusionist slipped away with the money in tow as Spidey took a moment to rub his face. Spider-Man then looked and saw his uncle standing there with a disapproving look, leaving him dumbfounded before he saw what looked like his friends also looking at him disapprovingly, "Uh… I'm gonna go home now and splash some water on my face…"

He quickly zipped off, but the looks of disapproval continued to follow him. He began to panic internally, but tried not to show it before he accidentally smacked into the side of a building and the looks vanished, "...ow. That hurt…"

The people at the building who could see the hero there looked shocked before somebody tapped on the window.

"I'm ok…" Spider-Man responded as he sent out another web-line and headed off, "...whatever that guy did to me must've blocked my Spider-Sense… I can't even tell where I'm shooting my webs anymore…"

He eventually landed on the ground and simply began to walk for a bit, trying to clear his head as he saw people take pictures of him. He tried to get out of the spotlight, managing to duck into an alley and get out of his costume, "If Aunt May found out I couldn't stop a bad guy… oh man, I don't know how she'd react…"

Peter eventually got back into the house and saw that his aunt wasn't there, "Aunt May?! Where are you?!"

"I'm in the basement," she called out, confusing Peter as he found his way to the basement and saw what looked like his spider emblem made out of a sort of cloth, "I was thinking about how superheroes work… don't they usually have some secret base they go to so they can gather info?"

"...in comic books, maybe?" Peter responded.

"Well, I figured we could convert the basement into your own base should you need it."

Peter blinked a bit, surprised his aunt came up with the idea to begin with, and began to think about it, "Uh… let me think about it a bit. This is a lot of work to manage, especially with our current budget."

"Just an idea," Aunt May smiled, "So… how'd it go?"

"Well… it went… um… not to well… uh… the bad guy got away…"

Aunt May just sighed as she patted Peter's shoulder a bit, "Don't worry. You'll get him next time."

"He casted illusions and… I keep seeing Uncle Ben…" Peter informed, as he turned away from his aunt, "I see him standing there right now…"

Aunt May looked to where Peter was looking and didn't see anything

"Going to go splash some water on my face…"

Peter went into the bathroom and did as he said, splashing wateracross his face, which made the illusions vanish. He gave a small sigh of relief as the illusions didn't come back.

The Master of Illusions looked over the money he had gathered, counting some of it up, "Should be enough to fund my next project. Hmm… I should probably deal with that superhero before he becomes a major issue…"

He then fueled up some parts of his suit with nearby gas tanks before he headed on out.

"Hey, dad?" Harry called out, "I wanted to talk to you real quick."

"Can it wait? We had a recent robbery at one of our banks. Lots of employees are going to blame me if I don't handle this…" Norman responded.

"That's what I wanted to talk about. The newspaper found out it was some illusionist," Harry informed, "Quentin Beck, if I recall correctly. Does that name ring any bells?"

"He was a special effects artist in Hollywood. Heard he was charged for hiding drugs in his equipment…" Norman commented as he wrote down something, "Harry, can you please leave me be? I have some business to attend to."

Harry sighed as he departed from the room. Norman, meanwhile, pondered about Beck as he looked over how much money got stolen.

The next day rolled around and it was a peaceful weekend day. Peter was preparing for a meet-up with his friends.

"I'm going to need some chocolate doughnuts," Peter said to the owner of a bakery.

"Coming up," he nodded, gathering them and putting them into a bag for Peter, "So Parker… how have you been lately? I heard about what happened in the news…"

"...I'm doing alright…" Peter responded, "Just had a weird… dream about him coming back and being disapproving of me…"

The bakery owner gave a small nod as he gave Peter his doughnuts. Peter was about to fish out his wallet, but the owner just held his hand up in response.

"Don't bother, Peter. I know what you're going through now. Just take it. It's on the house," the owner smiled.

"Thanks," Peter smiled as he headed out.

"You're welcome!"

Peter then pulled out his phone, pulled up a song, put in earbuds, and then headed for the park. When he arrived, he found that his friends weren't there yet and people were running away in fear.

"Oh no… not again…" he muttered.

"Robots are taking over!" one person yelled as Peter looked to see Mysterio spreading around a gas of sorts.

"Mysterio…" Peter muttered as he ducked behind a wall and got into his costume.

"I'm growing impatient with that Spider…" Mysterio muttered as he looked for Spider-Man and soon Spider-Man web-zip over, "About time. I've been waiting for you…"

"I've got myself my own arch enemy already? Didn't expect it to be you, fishbowl head…"

"MY NAME IS MYSTERIO! STOP CALLING ME FISHBOWL!" Mysterio angrily yelled.

"I'll stop saying that as soon as you stop using one for a helmet," Spider-Man joked.

Mysterio then took his gas tank and tossed the contents over Spider-Man. Mysterio then quickly grabbed onto the rope of a blimp managing to get hoisted up, but Spider-Man managed to web a rope up onto it.

"...what's with that gas…?" Spider-Man muttered as he climbed up his webbing, "This is seriously getting old fast…"

"Peter…" a ghostly voice spoke.

"If that's supposed to be Uncle Ben, I'm trying to focus here…" Spider-Man muttered.

"You are a disgrace… a failure… you aren't worthy of being a superhero…"

"Y'know, I know that's not really Uncle Ben. You're just my overly concerned thoughts given form…" Spider-Man told the illusion, "My uncle is always proud of me… he would never consider me a failure, always boost me up, and guess what? I am the wisecrackin' webhead, I am New York's protector, I am… Your Friendly Neighborhood SPIDER-MAN!"

With the shout of this last line, the illusion vanished and Spider-Man continued his way up to the blimp Mysterio was in. He soon shot a web that hit something in the blimp and he webbed zipped on in.

"No! Stop! STOP IT! Leave me alone!" Mysterio snapped as he prepared his fists, but Spidey easily knocked him aside. Mysterio then looked to the emergency exit and was about to head for it.

"Going somewhere? Around we go!" Spider-Man smirked, grabbing Mysterio with webbing before he was spun around and slammed to the ground, "Caught me a big one! See ya!"

Mysterio's helmet cracked upon the impact, causing him to get knocked out. Spider-Man quickly headed to the blimp's cockpit to make sure it would land safely, somehow managing to get it down to the ground without crashing.

Spider-Man handed the webbed up Mysterio over to Officer Stacey and his men, "You're welcome."

The officers looked a little confused and watched as Spider-Man headed off.

"The man… he seems familiar… I can't quite place it…" Officer Stacey muttered. Despite that, he looked to Mysterio, removing the cracked dome of a helmet and the white mask underneath to reveal a man that looked very drained with his short brown hair looking very ruffled, "Quentin Beck, looks like you're heading back to jail…"

"Ok, so… what made you so late?" Harry asked as Peter showed up.

"The park got attacked by some guy with a fishbowl for a helmet. Had to find another way around the fleeing crowds…" Peter told the group.

"Well, I'm glad you're alright," MJ smiled with relief as the group sat down together, "...you good Peter?"

"Huh?"

"With what happened…"

"Oh yea, yea, totally. ...I may miss Uncle Ben, but I've come to terms…" Peter nodded as he handed a doughnut to MJ.

"Thanks," MJ smiled.

Gwen gave a slightly annoyed look, pinching the bridge of her nose before she scooted between Peter and MJ. Harry couldn't help but snicker a bit at the antics of the two girls while noting his best friend's flustered look, feeling that he was lucky.

Pikatwig: We have finished another chapter.

KKD: Sure was a cool one.

Pikatwig: My idea was to have some time with Peter dealing with his uncle's death, since most continuities don't dwell on it for too long.

KKD: I'd assume there's some minor time skip to get us to get to the good parts while Peter's got that gnawing at the back of his mind, but yea, that was a good idea, Pika. And we planted some good seeds for future chapter material.

Pikatwig: And, yes, the scene with that illusion of Uncle Ben saying those things to Spider-Man was indeed taken from Batman The Animated Series. I don't know why but it seemed to fit.

KKD: Hey, it's cool. Sometimes people at Marvel spoof DC, sometimes DC spoofs Marvel. It's all good in the end, right?

Pikatwig: True. Also, the day we finished this, September 23rd, is the day the episode of the current Spider-Man cartoon had Miles officially become Kid Arachnid. ...sure, they never said that in the episode, but behind the scenes material said he'd still use that codename.

KKD: Neato. Looking forward to that. But I'd also want to review the new Ducktales episodes, too.

Pikatwig: Haven't watched them yet.

KKD: Fair enough. Still, thanks for tuning in if you read this. Hope you liked it. My favorite part was that Batman spoof scene leading up to him using that move from Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite where he spun Mysterio to knock him out.

Pikatwig: Same here. Oh, speaking of that game, you recently finished it. What'd you think?

KKD: It's just the story mode I finished. It was fun. Short, but fun, and I look forward to trying out the other modes.

Pikatwig: Something I can't help but laugh about in that game is that Johnny Yong Bosch, Melissa Hutchison, and Alycia Packard are all doing voices… and they all voice characters in Yo-Kai Watch.

KKD: Huh, didn't know that.

Pikatwig: Oh, and quick question. What'd you think of Redfield's "genius" plan to use sound against the Venom symbiote?

KKD: Not exactly the best plan. I could've thought of something better since in some versions, symbiotes are also weak to fire.

Pikatwig: ...and one of Chris' attacks is a flamethrower…

KKD: Yea. Seriously, Chris!

Pikatwig: In his defense, Peter didn't tell him that. Also… Peter mentioned church bells… I know he did that in the 90s toon because of Death Battle, but was that in the comics too?

KKD: Yep, that was an actual thing. After he found out about the suit being a symbiote, he eventually ended up at a church and banged against the church bell to make it sound off, and that's when it came off. Not so accurate is in some versions Eddie Brock was right under him when it happened.

Pikatwig: He did find Venom at a church, so I guess that makes sense… uh... you get the character skin DLC for X, Thor, Hulk, Ryu and Captain Marvel, mind my asking?

KKD: Yep. Captain Marvel's was PS4 exclusive while the others were preordered early thanks to Gamestop. Really interesting to say the least.

Pikatwig: And, out of the six DLC characters, who do you think you're the most excited for if you had to pick one?

KKD: I'd say either Venom or Monster Hunter.

Pikatwig: Cool. Alright, wrap up time. Just Live More.

KKD: Jaa ne.