Jason Wheeler, aka Spider-Man, formerly Aracnor, here. I just recently got back to Earth from exile on an alien planet where I was a gladiator yet. I escaped with 4 other aliens and now we're planning a counter attack against Reshef. So far we've stolen back a large majority of the superheroes' weapons that were confiscated, made contact with Black Panther and Storm to join us later, and I've just met up with the Crimson Warlock, formerly Wiccan...
"How's your locator spell?" I asked. I knew I was sleep deprived at the moment and should probably just head back to the ship with Billy but I wanted to stop Reshef as soon as possible and that meant not sleeping a bit longer.
"Better than ever," he replied.
"Great," I smiled under my mask. "Let's find X-Force."
Crimson Warlock nodded, placed his hand on my shoulder, and closed his eyes. The next thing I knew we were in a desert, in the middle of a battle between X-Force and Ruin and Demise.
We wasted no time in joining the fight. I immediately shot a webline at Demise and yanked him back enough for X-23 to slash his neck. Crimson Warlock blast Ruin with a bolt of lightning giving Wolverine the opportunity to stab her in the stomach.
"And the calvary arrives!" Deadpool announced as he cut off several of Demise's tentacles. "The Crimson Warlock and Spider-Man 2.0!"
I shot two weblines at Demise's legs and yanked him off balance, giving X-23, Deadpool, and Archangel to attack Demise again. Domino, Wolverine, Vanisher, and Crimson Warlock worked on Ruin.
"Wheeler..." Demise growled.
"Hey buddy," I replied as I punched him in the jaw. I had never considered the idea of revenge before this point. I had the opportunity to get revenge against Demise and Ruin for the first time in my life. They were the ones who took my powers and started the domino effect that decimated the mutant population and I finally had the opportunity to get revenge against them. The thing that bugged me was that I wasn't a vengeful person. I made my decision.
I kicked Demise in the jaw and dislocated it. He howled in pain. "That's for taking my powers," I told him.
"Ooh, harsh;" Deadpool commented before he stabbed him in the back with his two swords. X-23 clawed his eyes out next. It was only a matter of minutes before Demise and Ruin were nothing more than a few dismembered pieces scattered across the ground of the desert.
*3 hours later on the ship...* I was still awake. I wondered why I wasn't that tired yet. Was it really the adrenaline running through my veins? Knowing that I was helping to reclaim the Earth one step at a time. I had just recruited the help of X-Force and the Crimson Warlock, I made an alliance with Wakanda, and I stole every useful weapon and gadget Reshef had in his possession. In my head I knew I should be tired. If only Vision was around. Too bad he was in one of Reshef's prisons. He had two of them. We needed to plan break outs for each one.
"Jason, I think you should sleep," Laura walked into the room whie I was on the computer mapping out the locations of potential allies.
"I'm fine," I lied.
"No you're not. I can tell you've been up at least the past 48 hours. You really should sleep;" Laura continued. "We can't defeat Reshef with an insomniac leading us."
"Fine. I'll try sleeping," I told Laura as I got up. She followed me and made sure I got in bed. I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. I layed there for 2 hours before finally falling asleep. For 3 hours. Good enough.
When I got up I organized pairs to go out and recruit the heroes we knew the locations of. I went alone, since there was an odd number of us, to find Shadowcat. She was in Illinois, near her hometown. Threever teleported me there.
I walked out of the alley I materialized in and across the street to the near empty diner Kitty was a waitress in. Isat down at a table at the far side of the restaraunt, away from the other customers, and waited for Kitty.
When she saw my face her reaction wasn't quite as I expected it would be. She looked scared, "I'll do what you want if you don't hurt any of these people."
"What?" I asked her. "Kitty, it's me. Jason."
"Yeah, I know. It was kind of hard not to notice you and Rachel killing-"
"That wasn't me. It was-"
"I saw. I was there. It was you but-"
"But it was a clone that Reshef made of me. He-"
"Then where were you all that time? How do I know that he really cloned you and that you didn't just switch sides? You could be-"
"Okay, stop interrupting," I told Kitty before taking a deep breath. Her face relaxed. "Reshef used the DNA sample he took from me years ago, the one he used to decimate the mutant population with, to clone me. He altered the clone, as you can see, and that's the guy you've been seeing with Rachel. He didn't let anyone know about my clone until after he captured me. He sent to me another planet, sold me as a gladiator and I didn't break out recently. Now, I'm trying to stop Reshef. I'm gathering every last superhero I can find to take him down. Are you in?"
"Duh," she replied and smiled. "Joe, I'm taking my lunch break now!"
Kitty and I walked back into the alley I appeared in. "Scotty beam us up," I called Threever on my wristband communicator.
"What?" he inquired.
"Teleport us back to the ship," I said. I guess he didn't watch Star Trek.
We spent the next half hour waiting for everyone to get back with the new recruits: Shadowcat, Nico, Molly, Xavin, Luke Cage, Jewel, Pixie, Surge, Cloak, Dagger, Captain America, Ronin and Moon Knight. Everyone obviously wasn't the same. Luke Cage and Jewel had a daughter, three years old. Molly wasn't a little girl anymore, she was 17 and clearly had grown up a bit since we last saw each other. Captain America, wasn't Captain America, he was just Steve Rogers. On top of that he was paralyzed from the waist down. He couldn't fight. All in all though we had a solid line up. There were 25 of us.
"Wow, you sure did grow up since I last saw you," I commented to Molly.
"Yeah, well puberty..." Molly replied shyly.
"I'm sorry I was gone for so long."
"It's not your fault. I understand. I'm just happy that you're back now and we're a family again," she told me before hugging me. She was right. We were together again as a family. A two person family, but a family nonetheless. We were each others' responsibility.
"How are your powers? Did they get stronger or something?" I asked finally.
"Yeah! My super strength's like a thousand times stronger and I don't get tired at all after I use it and I figured out this energy blast trick I have," Molly answered proudly.
"That's great!" I congratulated her. "Now all you need is a costume and a codename and you're set. Unless you still like the name 'Princess Powerful' that is."
"Hey! I was 12. I didn't know how stupid the name sounded," Molly laughed slightly. "What about you? Aracnor isn't exactly the coolest name in the world either."
"Well I wasn't the one who came up with it. The newspapers did. And I'm actually calling myself Spider-Man from now on," I revealed to her.
"Oh... well I wanna be Ms Marvel then."
"Molly, this isn't a game. I picked Spider-Man because he was a role model that I looked up to and he taught me a few things before he died. I'm honoring him by it."
"I looked up to Ms Marvel... And She-Hulk. But yeah, I wanna be Ms Marvel. I'll honor her. I promise," Molly explained. I let the thought digest for a few seconds before Molly said, "PLEASE?"
I smiled, "Why not?"
By the end of the week we had assembled a small army and had taken out 10 more of Reshef's soldiers. He had to have noticed us by now. He just didn't know what to do. He had no way of finding us. He thought we were still on Earth. Perfect.
My plan for our next move was a simple enough one. Divide and conquer. One team would go to one of his prisons and free the heroes there. The other team, or teams, I hadn't decided yet, would distract the bulk of Reshef's forces soemwhere else and hopefully take a large number of them out. Each team would have two teleporters in addition to contact with Threever on the ship to teleport them back. To make the teleportation process easier we built "anchors". Essentially these bracelets served two purposes. The main one was to ensure we would be able to safely return to the ship in the event of an emergency. If we pulled it off, we would instantly be teleported back onto the ship. The problem was it wouldn't bring anyone with us, it was mainly for if we were fighting and had no chance of winning. The other purpose was to enhance the teleportation capibilities of teleporters. It would make it much easier for them to teleport directly back to the ship and wouldn't require them to be touching those who they're teleporting with them.
I decided that my team would be the team that goes to the prisons and would consist of myself, Shadowcat, Crimson Warlock, Luxzaria, Ms Marvel, Wolverine, Surge, Deadpool, Armory, Xavin, Luke Cage, Multiple Man, Nightcrawler, and Psylocke. I tried to keep my team small but efficient. Optimisticlly I expected some of the prisoners to be able to fight once liberated. Our distraction teams wouldn't have any chance of backup though so they needed to have everyone they could get from the start.
"You ready for this Molly?" I asked her the night before we planned to make the break. She had been staring at her costume for a while. It was Ms. Marvel's original costume.
"Yeah... I'm just a little nervous... I can't believe we're saving the world," she replied.
"I know. It's... surreal. I was gone for so long... I haven't even seen a familiar place since I've gotten back. It's like I'm still on another planet," I explained. "It's going to take ages to get everything back on its feet after this..."
"It doesn't matter how long it takes as long as we do it. We can do it Jason. I believe in you. I think you know what you're doing, even if you don't realize it yet," Molly encouraged me.
*The next day...* "Everyone knows the plan, right?" I asked as my team prepared to be teleported to Earth. The other two teams had just teleported. "We go in, we break open every cell and get everyone out of their restraints or power inhibitors or whatever it is and we take out all of the guards and teleport back. If you're really injured use your anchor. Avoid it though. Teleporters: Warlock and Nightcrawler, get the prisoners back here ASAP. Most of them won't be in fighting condition."
"Teleporting Alpha Team to Reshef's prison in Seattle, Washington in 3, 2, 1..." Threever said as he typed in commands to the teleporter as Jewel and Cap watched.
The next thing we knew, we were inside the gates of the prison. Right in front of two guards. One was a lizard with two heads and six arms. The other was an eight foot tall rock golem. Perfect.
"Reservation for Avengers. Party of 14," Deadpool said before we lept into action. Deadpool, Luke Cage, Multiple Man, Psylocke, Luxzaria, and Xavin stayed behind to fight them while the rest of us ran to the cells.
Surge blasted the electronic lock to a few of the cells. I kicked in the door to one and ran in to what looked like an empty room until my spider-sense went off. I rolled forward and saw that Kate Bishop had attempted to hit me.
"Kate, relax! This is your rescue!" I told her.
"Jason?" she asked.
"I'll explain everything later, just move."
The next cell I opened up contained Tommy Shepard, aka Speed. Unlike Kate, who was simply left in her cell due to a lack of actual superpowers, Tommy had a power inhibitor collar on and was chained at the feet and hands. I wasted no time in pulling them off, "Follow everyone outside, we're busting out of here."
A few minutes later we had released everyone from their cells. The eight of us led the newly liberated heroes back towards the gates where the others were fighting the two guards when we ran into three more guards.
Wolverine wasted no time and quickly turned one inside out while Shadowcat phased out the vital organs of another and Armory shot an energy blast that disintegrated the last one. Based on how weak these guards were I could tell Reshef didn't expect this to happen. He didn't think we would be able to pull it off but we showed him that X-Force was just the beginnig.
When we got outside the others had taken out the two guards already. "Threever, get ready to get us out of here," I contacted him. Nightcrawler and Crismon Warlocke went on opposite ends of the huddle we had formed when suddenly my spider-sense went off. I looked back and saw 4 more guards rushing out and someone swing in on a web. My clone.
"Where you guys all going? The party's just starting," he told us.
"Threever... get everyone else out of here. I've got something to take care of here," I corrected myself.
Threever hesitated, "Roger that." An energy glow started to form around the others as I stepped forward to face my clone and his lackies. There was a bright burst of light and everyone disappeared. Or so I thought. Ms Marvel had lept out of the range of Threever's teleportation at the last second.
"Thought I'd help even the odds," she told me.
I wanted to scold her but she had a good point. Two against five was a lot better than one against five.
"How cute. A Wheeler family reunion. Too bad I'll be killing the two of you," my clone taunted us.
"We'll see about that," I shot back at him as Ms Marvel and I clenched our fists and prepared to fight.