A/N: We interrupt your regularly scheduled angst/ridicule with a special update - Patently, I've been watching too much Ultimate Spider-Man. I completely blame this on that show.

The doors to the Helecarrier's training room opened and Fury swooped inside, followed by Spiderman, White Tiger, Powerman, Nova and Iron Fist.

They hadn't been really briefed on a new training exercise - Peter suspected this had something to do with the fact that the others had been bragging that the training robots had become too easy for them.

Fury had a very nasty sense of humour. He knew.

However, instead of the hundreds of heavily armed robots he'd been expecting ready to do everything but tear them limb from limb - the space was empty, save for one little red-headed girl, drawing with crayons in the centre of the room.

She looked up at their approach and he felt his spidey-senses go into overdrive. Something wasn't right here, but he couldn't pin down exactly what.

'Team, I'd like you to meet Praying Mantis.' Fury introduced. 'Mantis, this is the team I was telling you about.'

'Aw I'm great with kids!' Nova boasted and dropped down to squat and talk to her. 'Hi there! What're you - wait - is that the inside of the hele-'

The paper was hastily shuffled under another pile with a crude picture of Phil Coulson worshipping Captain America. Fury chuckled and pulled it from the pile to inspect it. 'Keeping busy, I see. How are the crayons?'

'I'd prefer pencils.' Mantis replied huffily.

'After you stabbed Johnson through the hand with one, you lost that privilege.' Fury replied.

'He called me "Cupcake".' Mantis growled.

Okay, not your normal little girl. Peter could tell that much - because she was here, on the Helecarrier and making some very creepy remarks - but why was Fury introducing them to her? Did he expect the team to mentor her as he mentored them?

'Mantis here is staying with us while her mother is on top-secret assignment in Slovakia.'

'Awww, you miss your mummy? It's okay to miss your mummy.' Nova murmured.

The little girl twitched and gave the boy a look that should have seared across his helmet.

'What exactly do you want us to do with her, sir?' Tiger asked.

'Entertain her, Ms Ayala.' Fury replied. 'If you can last an entire match with her, then we'll consider upgrading your clearance. If you fail, then Mantis will get her pencils back.'

'What?!' Luke burst out. 'But she's a kid!'

'She's Black Widow's kid.' Fury replied.

All five people turned to look at where the child had been - but now the floorspace was empty. Peter's spidey-senses went into overdrive again - every cell screaming out "this won't end well". He hated the thought that they'd never been wrong yet.

Fury smirked at their faces of disbelief. 'You have five minutes to impress me. Good luck, and Mantis -' He raised his voice slightly to make sure she heard him. 'No flesh wounds.'

That sounded ominous. With a self-satisfied chuckle, Fury walked away. The doors shut and then locked behind him as training commenced.

As one, the group huddled together, looking out around the room. All wary, all on high alert - but seconds ticked by and nothing freakishly abnormal happened. Was she...watching them from somewhere?

'He can't be serious!' Luke burst out. 'Setting a kid on us!'

'He's deadly serious, dude.' Nova replied. 'When is he not? I told you it was a bad idea to ask for an upgraded clearance level!'

'You wanted it as bad as I did!' Tiger hissed. 'It was Powerman that told him training was getting too easy!'

'Hey! It was!' Luke defended. 'I didn't know we'd have to beat up a little kid though.'

'Attacking one as young and innocent as a child?' Danny brooded. 'It does not sit easily within my heart.'

'It's one kid!' Tiger defended 'And we're five well trained SHIELD agents, aren't we? I want that new clearance level!'

There was a giggle from one dark corner of the room that seemed to horrify all five people. Simultaneously, they all tried to huddle closer to each other. Peter looked, but couldn't see anything in the semi-gloom of the empty training room. Oh this was going to end super well. He knew that even without his jangling senses.

'How much trouble could one kid be?' Luke asked after another thirty seconds of nothing happening.

'Plenty.' Peter replied. He'd heard horror stories about Mary-Jane's various babysitting jobs. Kids were complete brats. There was the babysitting job for Mr and Mrs Mason - she'd left the kids at the table with their hotdogs to answer the phone and when she came back - fresco on the wall in mustard and ketchup. Or the Davenport twins who had locked her in the bathroom for an hour. Then there was the time she watched Ms Kernynsky's little "angel" Gino. She'd turned her back for five minutes and he'd shaved the cat. He told his mother that Mary-Jane had dared him to do it. Kids were evil and inventive.

'We're wasting time!' Tiger snapped. 'We've got five minutes to catch this kid.'

'Maybe we should apologise to Fury?' Nova questioned warily.

'If you do not try - then you will assuredly fail.' Danny replied.

That was when the lights suddenly dimmed - just to make it that little bit harder for the group - the training room was now in near darkness. All five of them stiffened up at the sudden loss of vision.

'Aren't kids scared of the dark?' Nova asked after a few seconds of nothing happening.

'I don't think anything scares this kid.' Peter warned.

'Nothing's happened so far.'

That seemed to have settled the group somewhat. They relaxed. 'What's she playing? Hide and seek?' Luke wondered. 'I was always good at hide and seek.'

'Well, we're not going to find her just huddled together like this.'

The five broke apart.

Each person chose to explore an area of the room in front of them. Peter's senses were jangling out of control with every step. He'd told them, hadn't he? Told them Fury didn't take well to boasting.

There was a sound to his left. He whipped around to watch a crayon roll across the floor and into his spandex covered shoe. Oh man, where was she? No kid should be this invisible.

Another crayon clattered to his right and he whipped around, web-shooters at the ready when she landed on him and yanked his mask further down so he couldn't see. Peter yelped as he felt her slide to the floor and then through his legs like a snake rather than a mantis.

The mask was righted just as Tiger and Fist ran into his line of sight. 'What happened?' Ava demanded in outrage as Peter realized what else Mantis had done.

'She stole my webshooters!' He bemoaned and held up his bare gloveless hands.

There was a yell in the gloom from Nova, followed by a crash and the sounds of Powerman in trouble.

'This is not good.' Danny brooded.

'That brat can't possibly know how to use them!' Ava defended. The three suddenly huddled closer to one-another as Nova's empty helmet - sticky with residue, rolled towards them.

'You were saying?'

Ava cursed. Peter would have to have agreed with her - this kid had identified and taken out the powerhouse members of the group within the first two minutes using his shooters. This wasn't a test - this was torture.

He'd tried to warn them.

'Boo!'

Danny whirled around and Peter just managed to glimpse Tiger's surprised face in the glow from his mystical fist as he laid her out - quite accidentally.

There was a giggle from the gloom as Peter backed off from the unconscious Tiger. She was trying to psyche them out - turning the remaining members against each other.

It was working. 'Ava?' He whispered harshly. 'Wakey-wakey kitty! Like right now!'

'I am sorry, Spiderman.' Fist sounded so guilty in the darkness.

He knew it wasn't Danny's fault, she had deliberately done it to make him attack Ava. Not only was this kid smart enough to take out the power houses, she was now using their hyper-alertness to target the other members of the group. Three down and two to go.

'Just stick with me, Danny. Two against one - right?'

Silence from Iron Fist. Was he doing the whole brooding warrior thing or had something more sinister happened to him?

'Fist? Danny this is no time to be working on your smoulder.'

Peter turned, but Danny was no longer behind him. He had to assume that he too had been taken out by this mysterious Mantis. She could give Blade a run for his money. This kid was silent and smart.

Peter backed off until his back registered a wall. Good - his ass was safe at the very least. Now he just had to either wait for the time to expire or-

Click-Clank.

His gloves landed in the semi-gloom near his feet as a childlike drawl asked 'Do you ever keep them stocked up?'

Well...There were a few incidents. He had a lot on his plate! With school, Fury, the team, Fury, Coulson, Fury-

He wasn't sure what made him ask it - but it came tumbling out anyway. 'What are you?'

For the first time, she paused and looked genuinely annoyed with the question. 'I'm the six year old that's going to kick your ass!'

She reared back to throw a punch as his Spidey-senses reached a crescendo - and the lights suddenly came back on. Both of them were blinded for a moment by the sudden brightness but Peter's vision recovered first. Being genetically more like a spider had it's perks.

For the first time he was able to see what Mantis had done to the rest of the team. Power Man was liberally webbed to one wall with his mouth glued shut - struggling still, despite it all - Nova was hanging from the ceiling by his butt - helmet not too far away but unreachable and in any case, it looked like he was unconscious - Tiger was lying on the ground, also out cold thanks to Danny and Danny had been subdued by webbing his fists to his own body in what looked like a webbed straightjacket.

It had to be said - this little demented six year old had trashed them.

Loud clapping was ringing from the opening bulkhead doors as Fury entered the training room, followed by Coulson. 'Well done. You lasted quite a bit longer than what I was expecting.'

Mantis relaxed but didn't turn away from Spiderman just yet. She kept him firmly in her view - too.

Fury glanced from team member to team member as though inspecting her work. His head tipped to Coulson and stage-whispered 'Didn't you bet on the team to win?'

'Yeah, I did.' Coulson looked as stoic as he always did, but Peter knew that he was slightly embarrassed and angry that the team he'd carefully mentored was torn apart by Mantis in five minutes.

'That's a shame.' Fury replied and tossed a shiny packet onto the floor by their feet. It was a packet of pencils. 'Try not to stab anyone with these, Florence. At least - nowhere vital.'

Of that entire sentence, Peter only picked up one word. 'Your name is Florence?' He choke-laughed.

She gut punched him.

He sank to the floor, trying not to hurl as Fury asked Coulson rather casually 'Did you see that, Agent Coulson?'

'See what, sir?'

'My thoughts exactly.'

Should have seen that coming. Stupid Spidey-senses going crazy.