-Cleaners-
Out on the streets in Midtown New York are two men, one wearing a hazmat suit and the other in a boiler jumpsuit, reflective penny, and places a rifle down. The one in the hazmat suits inspects a special red incendiary grenade in his hand as they sort through items from a crate on wheels. A truck nearby is packing weapons, incendiary grenades, and other things to ship the supplies away.
"Look at this." The hazmat cleaner says closely inspecting the grenade. "It's a military grade incendiary device. That should burn nicely."
"I hope trusting whoever those people are is worth it." The cleaner in the boiler suit replies.
"Hey," Another cleaner yells as he looks up from his clipboard. "Get a move on, you two. We need you at the subway."
The hazmat and the boiler suit nod and take what they could carry from the cache their mysterious friends at A.I.M gifted them. The foreman grabs a piece of paper and writes down the amount of diet cola and gasoline was added among their arsenal to create their signature weapon, Napalm B. The foreman shoves the crate A.I.M. gifted them into the back of the pickup truck and walks over to his truck to drive it back to base.
-Spider-Man-
Spider-Man walks with agents Borovic and Oxton to the subway morgue with caution. They pass by civilians who are out on the streets on their own looking for something to help them survive, either it be food, water, or medicine. It's moments like this of the nightmare New York has become now and what needs to change for the better. Spider-Man moves his head to Oliver as they get close to the subway entrance a couple of blocks away.
"Just a heads up," Oliver begins. "With a lot of dead bodies, we will not be alone with rescuing Rhodes. There will be a good chance the cleaners will come by and sweep the place."
"Those cleaners." Spider-Man injects. "Any reason why they're called that?"
"I haven't met them, Spidey." Oliver shrugs a little. "But they seem to be attracted to morgues and places where it's likely to be contaminated. John, you got anything to add?"
"I got briefed about what's going on in this city by Commander Lau." Dr. Oxton pauses for a moment. "They're a more serious threat than the rioters. They wear hazmat suits, carry automatic weapons, and are setting New York on fire with explosives and incendiary weapons to clean up the virus."
Spider-Man tenses up from the bit of information. He makes a mental note not to get up close to them in case they deploy their incendiaries. Also, he wonders who could these cleaners be? Arsonists with a hero complex or something far darker than just people taking advantage of the chaos like the Rioters.
As they come around the street corner, Spider-Man spots a group of green and orange garbage trucks pile up in front of the entrance. Oliver pulls out his large machine gun as John pulls out a rifle. Spider-Man takes the lead and steps into the subway entrance. The smell of gasoline and fire hits his nose. The built-in respirators fill his lungs with clean air. Oliver holds a fist into the air, signaling the doctor to stop.
"The cleaners nearby." Oliver notes while stating the obvious. "Spider-Man, mind checking out for us?"
"No problem, Ollie."
Spider-Man slings himself up and forward with his webs and lands on top of a tall beam of steel looming over a set of stairs leading to a tunnel. He quickly spots a group of men in homemade hazmat suits, gas tanks strapped onto their back, gas masks over their faces, and steamer overalls with orange reflective tape. Spider-Man presses a finger on the side of his mask to activate his coms.
"I see a group of them with assault rifles." Spider-Man reports dutifully. "And they are just standing there, menacingly."
"Not for long."
Oliver arrives at the top of the stairs with John Oxton behind him. Oliver moves up to where two Cleaners stand around, talking. Oliver points his light machine gun at the pair and opens fire. They drop to the floor quickly as the shots echo in the air. Down the stairwell, a larger group of cleaners emerge. One of them spots two of their friends on the floor as the others ready their rifles.
"We got company!" A one of the cleaners shouts. "Let's show them what happens when they mess with us."
The rest begin firing. Oliver moves over to get behind an assembly of steel pipes and fires back at the group across the stair well. Spider-Man leaps forward and uses his webs to yank and hoist a cleaner in midair. Spider-Man webs him up with many quick shots and slams him to the side of the wall to make him stick him in place. He withers around as his friends look up and begin firing at the spider.
Spider-Man drops down in front of the group of cleaners. Suddenly, one of them flips a switch on the side of the rifle and steps forward. Spider-Man smells gasoline and quickly backflips away the scorching flames spewing out from the underside of his AK-47. The one using the flamethrower starts going after the web slinger.
"Hey, this costume isn't exactly as fireproof as yours."
"Afraid of fire, son?" The cleaner laughs. "We'll take you and your friends down!"
"Hey, enough talking." Another cleaner switches to his flamethrower. "We've got a job to do."
"Like he said." Oliver shouts.
The SWAT sergeant pulls out his shield and starts firing his pistol. Oxton moves behind Oliver as the bullets bounce off the shield. Oliver takes out a cleaner blasting his AK-47 quickly with a headshot before another charges in and sprays his flames at the shield. Spider-Man swings in and kicks the last cleaner back until he hits the wall. The cleaner collapses as Oxton separates himself from the SWAT sergeant.
"Nice work." John Oxton remarks with satisfaction. "Let's get moving."
Spider-Man climbs alongside a wall sideways as the two agents walk down the stairs and pass by the fallen Cleaners. John presses his watch and speaks to Faye Lau on the coms.
"We've made contact with some cleaners." John reports. "Moving down into the subway levels. Any idea we'll find Rhodes?"
"He should be in the morgue. For now, just help get the power back on." Faye replies quickly. "ISAC should give you a location any second now."
ISAC: Locating Auxiliary Relay. Target acquired. Sublevel 3.
"Good ol ISAC." Oliver remarks a bit impressed. "Anyways, remind me why we are rescuing Rhodes when we can just get the power back on. The Cleaners kind of freak me out."
"Word is Rhodes is a bit of a wild card. He's got the skills we need but is a little eccentric." Faye begins. "Which is a nice way of saying he's a paranoid jackass."
"What a friendly gentleman." Spider-Man mutters to himself. "Come on, let's get to Rhodes and get the base lighting up."
The three head down through one series of steps after another. As they climb down the subway construction site, the agents sweep their surroundings by fanning the barrels of their guns from left to right and back. After climbing down from some construction equipment
Using room sweeping procedure, they navigate down to where ISAC guides them to restore power; Sublevel 3. Oliver sweeps the room with a shotgun brandished and gives an all-clear signal with his hand. Spider-Man and John enter the room. Spider-Man glances at the console and pulls the switch to activate the auxiliary relay. The lights flicker on around them as machines start to whirl and whine. Then, ISAC intercepts a transmission
"Whoever just turned on the lights, you're either JTF or you're really fucking lost. Either way, thanks."
"Was that Rhodes?" John asks before replying to the sarcastic speaker. "I assuming you're Rhodes."
"Guess we never met before." Rhodes says with little enthusiasm. "Wonderful."
"This is Faye Lau patching in. We have help on the way, Rhodes." The commander announces.
"Good. Then whoever is down here can head to the secondary relay room. Once you see the dead bodies, put your masks on quick. Otherwise, you're dead."
Oliver and John grab their masks and slip it over their mouths as a heavy metal door starts to slide open. Oliver takes a breath of fresh air before exiting the room. As they walk across a catwalk, they can see the subway construction site was used as a morgue for the massive number of dead bodies laid in caskets. Spider-Man's mask starts to supply clean air into his lungs as they head into the next room.
-Miles Morales-
Miles walks into a room with a group of several JTF volunteers who have been called by the base's security team for a meeting. Miles sits down on a chair with a group of three volunteers. Among the JTF soldiers is the Division's acting senior commander, Faye Lau. She lays some equipment on the table, a quadrotor drone, a spherical device, and a green electronic box. She manages to stand up before the crowd and give her speech.
"Hello, I'm Faye Lau." She begins. "I'm the acting senior commander of the division and I'm currently looking for one volunteer to help with our efforts to regain control of the city. I've read your profiles when you signed up to volunteer for the JTF and chose you into this room for, in short, tryouts. What I'm looking for is someone who work with our tech to repair and upgrade them to reach greater potential. We need people to ensure our agent's tech is in good condition when it comes to fighting on the streets and getting food and supplies to the bases and safehouses. Miles, Debra, and Andrew; good luck."
Miles's eyes are glued to the technology presented in front of him as Faye presses her watch a couple of times. At once, the drone starts to hover up into the air and moves from side to side, the seeker mine hops and turns green, ready to seek a target out and explode, and the support station lights up and creates a glowing green zone around it. Miles claps quietly as Faye Lau stands up.
"You'll be assigned to a piece of SHD tech by the JTF. I'll give you a couple of days to repair and upgrade the tech's capabilities."
Lau gets on her crutches to head back to her post. A familiar face in the JTF takes over the show.
"Alright, we'll call you up at once and assign you to piece of tech." The gunsmith points to a woman in the front row. "Debra Sanders, you'll be working with the quadrotor. Miles Morales, you'll be working with the seeker mine…"
Miles gulps. Did he call that cute, advanced silver ball a seeker mine, as in an explosive weapon? The gunsmith watches Miles slowly walk up and take the seeker mine in his hands and then go back to seat. The third JTF technician took the support station and sat back down. The group of volunteers are dismissed and sent back to work. Miles retreats to his small, cramped office to figure out what to do with this.
-Spider-Man-
Back down in the Subway Morgue, Spider-Man carries a heavy circuit breaker with his super strength as John and Oliver clear the room of cleaners. Spider-Man then places the circuit breaker down and jumps into the fray. The SWAT captain grabs the circuit breaker and carries it up the stairs as more cleaners kick the doors away and storm into the substation.
One of the cleaners runs in without a gun, but instead a shield made of plexiglass and a fireman's axe. Spider-Man snaps his head to the man charging at the doctor who is firing away at him, all blocked by the shield. Spider-Man uses his webs to yank the rusher back, making his target stumble before landing a punch right to the face. The rusher spins around until he hits the ground, knocked out cold.
"Jesus," John exclaims. "He nearly got me."
"I know." Spider-Man shook his head slowly. "I thought I saw everything."
John looks up as more cleaners storm in and shoots them with his assault rifle as Oliver walks by and slides the circuit breaker into the socket. The lights go out for a few seconds before coming back on. John and Oliver sweep the room for more cleaner teams until Oliver gives an all clear. A giant metal door starts sliding open on its own. The coms squeak an alert with an incoming message.
"There we go. Hope you can see in the dark, because I need you to wrap this whole thing up." Rhodes sighs. "Sooner we get out of this crypt, the better."
Spider-Man looks at John and Oliver. Oliver chuckles a little at Rhodes remark before he heads through the dark hallway and into the next room. Inside the next room was huge. Up on the control room is a single bearded man in a heavy grey coat, black scarf, and a white baseball cap. He types something onto the keyboard before looking up at the friends that have cleaned the sewers of cleaners. He sees Oliver, John, and then Spider-Man. His eyebrows widen a little as he sees the hero of New York standing with the Division agents.
"Hold on… hang on a second." Rhodes says.
He moves to a microphone in the room and taps it lightly before speaking.
"Testing… testing." Rhodes then backs away and cringes a little as his voice booms and echoes across the room. "Jesus, this thing is loud. Ok, getting to work in the control room. Just want to give you a heads up, it's going to get real dark real fast. Can't get power to the base unless I do a reboot, so everything's going to shut down for a minute."
Rhodes presses a few buttons. The main lights shut off while the backup lights flicker on for a few moments. Then, the main lights come back on as the generators start to make a whirling sound. Rhodes puts his hands together and tries not to get too excited.
"Well, they went top of the line with the generators. I guess Sandy taught someone in procurement a lesson because these suckers can stand up to anything. They're a bitch to retool, but maybe we'll get lucky."
Paul Rhodes look up at the security camera to find A group of cleaners walking down the hallway with rifles in the hands into, ready to shoot and burn. Behind their gas masks show they're determined to get the job done. Paul groans from the control room.
"Crap, cleaners. I thought you took care of these guys."
"Jesus, they don't give up." Oliver says. "Where they're coming in from?"
"Everywhere." Rhodes says.
Three doors are kicked open, letting in groups of cleaners. The group of cleaners pick an agent or hero and start firing. John drops a support station to heal up from any injuries as Oliver ducks behind cover and pulls out his RPK machine gun. He trains it on the rushers charging at him and opens fire, aiming for the head or leg. They fall one by one.
Spider-Man rushes up to the nearest group and webs up one of them. The cleaner squirms before Spider-Man lifts him off the ground and hurls him at his friends, knocking them away like bowling pins. One gets up and runs toward the web slinger. Spider-Man jumps and flips over the rusher as he charges and plows the cleaner's back with a kick. The cleaner fall forward and hits his head against the railing.
Spider-Man jerks his head up to spot the doctor dealing with a group of cleaners coming after him. Spider-Man slings himself upward as John shoots one of the cleaners down and whacks the other in the face. Another cleaner quickly gets a shot out of him, making Spider-Man flinch and jump back. The doctor quickly puts a support station before tapping Spider-Man's shoulder.
"Stay there for a second." John grabs onto Spider-Man's shoulder. "It'll take care of your wounds."
"You sure about it? Because I don't…"
Spider-Man looks back down at his arm and notices the support station healing up his wounds slowly, but at a steady pace. As his flesh wound is healed up, he springs back into the action with John. A cleaner in a white hazmat suit pulls out a grenade and tosses it to John's position. Spider-Man leaps over and shoves John out of the way before it explodes into flames. John coughs a couple of times before getting back up and pulls out his rifle.
The hazmat suit prepares to toss another one but doesn't pull the pin. Spider-Man quickly webs up the thrower's throwing hand, making the incendiary grenade stuck. He tries to rip it out of the webbing, only to make both of his hands stuck together. John shoots the hazmat's friend in the head after a couple of misses from the rifle, making the target fall down.
All the cleaners in the room are killed by the agents or knocked out by Spider-Man. Then, a elevator at the end of the room begins to lower itself down. Rhodes sighs behind the microphone.
"Tell me that's more of your people in the elevator."
"We don't have anyone else on site." Faye Lau replies.
"Then it's cleaners." Rhodes rolls his eyes with a sigh. "And I'm fucked."
The elevator touches the ground. John backs away and places himself in an elevated position with John. The door opens to let out a couple of soldiers and one massive heavily armored man carrying a flamethrower, an incinerator. The cronies go after Spider-Man as the big man charges for the two division agents. Spider-Man glares at the two men charging in with their axes and shields.
"You know, your shields can't block webs." Spider-Man strings a web and yanks the shield away with ease.
That didn't stop them from turning around and run for the elevators. They move closer to the web slinger. Spider-Man sighs again before leaping over the one with a shield and starts beating down the other with punches and kicks. Spider-Man senses a charge coming from behind and jumps back, making the axe wielding psycho whiff the air.
"Almost got me." Spider-Man quipped before striking back with three punches and a strong forward kick to the rusher's back. They lay on the ground and try to get back up. However, Spider-Man webs the two together on the ground. The one grabs his axe and cuts away at the webbing. Spider-Man sighs and sends a spinning kick to the stomach. The axe wielding cleaner falls to the ground and struggles to get up.
Spider-Man looks around and sees Oliver going head-to-head with the fumigator. The fumigator walks forward and sprays a long hose of flames at the shield. Oliver starts shooting from another area in the room and barely makes a dent in the armor plating. Spider-Man leaps in and kicks the fumigator in the face. The incinerator groans.
Oliver puts the shield away and fires selectively with his LMG as Spider-Man tries to beat down the massive cleaner. The incinerator growls and throws a Molotov cocktail at Spider-Man. He jumps back and retreats to John as he deploys a healing station to heal the hero up.
"Alright, I got to help him." Spider-Man shouts to John.
"Don't. You'll be hit in the crossfire." John says.
Oliver shoots again at the massive target. The massive flamethrower soldier laughs as his armored plating tanks the bullets. He grabs another Molotov cocktail and tosses it at Oliver. Oliver jumps and rolls away to evade the cocktail. He gets behind a metal box and keeps shooting at the massive man. He then directs fire to the side of his legs.
"Keep wasting bullets." The cleaner laughs. "I'll cleanse you all with fire!"
"This guy is insane." Spider-Man notes to himself. "How is Ollie going to take on a man like that?"
Oliver tosses a flashbang. The Cleaner is dazed for a couple of seconds. He stares at the former SWAT officer before pressing the trigger to cook the target. Nothing comes out but a click. He tries pressing it again and again.
"The flamethrower not working?" Oliver sneers. "You may want to check your pouches."
The incinerator finally hears a hissing sound coming from his hips. He then sees his gas tank has a punctured hole and has caught on fire. He screams and runs for the agent. It explodes before he could get close and sends the incinerator flying forward before hitting the ground dead. Oliver emerges from cover and rubs his helmet with his hands.
"That was definitely too close." Oliver takes off his SWAT helmet and wipes down his head.
"Glad you're ok." Spider-Man looks up to the control room. "How is the power coming along, Rhodes?"
"Yeah, just give me a second. Fucking thing." Rhodes curses to himself. "Alright, that's a wrap. System's green, borders green, and we got enough juice to light this place up like Vegas. I'm goanna lock everything down so no one can come in behind us and fuck this up. You can't help me with that so… might as well get your ass topside. I'll follow you when I'm done. And that's all she wrote."
Oliver steps into the elevator and presses a button before Spider-Man and John step in to take a quick trip back up to the surface. As they reach the top, they get a call from Faye Lau.
"Agents, looks like the power grid is a lot more stable. Thanks to you, we're back in business." Lau reports with satisfaction. "Rhodes is already on his way back to base, so no need to give him an escort. I'll see you when you get here."
Oliver checks his map quickly before pointing toward where the base is in the dark city of New York. Spider-Man starts swinging on his web as John and Oliver follow him.
-At the Chop Shop-
"Why are we here?" A Riker whispers. "We should waste him."
"Shut up!" Another Riker hushes back. "You have any idea who we're talking to? He'll kill you and good luck trying to shoot him. Besides, we need him on our side if we want Spider-Man gone."
The first Riker nods and steps back from the front.
The entire room falls silent in the run-down motorcycle repair shop. A large Albino man sits back in his soft leather chair and glances at a man wearing strange suit and his face covered in a face mask. He had a group of hard-hitting convicts behind him. The man in the officer's cap is a ringleader, nothing but a representative of the one who actually leads the convicts. However, the Albino man also has his crew, and they watch the leader and his people carefully. The Albino man breaks the silence.
"So, what brings her enforcer out here for?" The Albino man begins. "And it better not be a recruitment drive. I have no business with your club."
"But we do have something in common." The shot caller says. "You can stand up to Spider-Man and have beaten him in a couple of occasions."
"I thought he was dead."
"We lost a shipment of guns to the JTF. Some of my men got webbed up. We all know the JTF can't do something like that."
The massive biker raises his hands. "Alright, so we aren't so lucky. But why do you need me? I could just kill you right now."
"We know you are still taking that special dust to remain invincible." The shot caller explains. "We personally don't need the dust, but Larae wants to know if we can count on your people when the infestation problem gets worse. She's got someone special keeping an eye for the Spider, but you can provide something better than men, the grave dust. Also, I bet deep inside; you desire a proper rematch with Spidey since he put you away to Rikers."
"I like how you're sweetening the deal." Tombstone laughs a little. "But I think I have an offer that would work for both of us."
"Larae isn't up for negotiation. You're either with us or against us."
"How about an alliance?" Tombstone clasps his hands together. "We can make it work. I run with my crew alongside with you guys and provide protection from Spider-Man with my Grave Dust. In return, Larae better have me as her other lieutenant, and I only answer to her only. Don't expect me to wear an orange jumpsuit, we are not prisoners. Just Kings and Queens
"You're right, we're not prisoners anymore." The Ringleader laughed. "Let me call Larae to let her know."
It took a couple of minutes for the ringleader to get on the phone with Larae to talk about the deal Tombstone proposed. Then, the Riker negotiator gives a thumbs up. The shot caller holds out his hand, waiting for the Albino man to shake hands. Tombstone puts down his cigar and shakes hands with shot caller, starting a beautiful relationship between the brutal Rikers and Tombstone's powerful biker gang.