Spider-Man swings through the safe part of New York city. He spots garbage trucks parked nearby as he swings closer to the marked location on the GPS built into his suit's lenses. He takes a breath to calm himself down from all the excitement his body is producing. The Cleaners are about to be put out of business, which means fewer burning buildings and char-grilled corpses. He turns his head around as he's perched on top of a light post, waiting for the agents to show up as the entrance to the Cleaner's HQ is just ahead of him, adjacent to the street.
The wall crawler thought of moving in and start the party without the agents. He could whack, punch, and kick his way while the agents are hustling in the streets. Then again, the Cleaners are more organized and had expertise with fire and explosives, something that Spider-Man hasn't made a suit that would be resistant to the Cleaner's flamethrowers.
His subconscious thoughts are interrupted by a scream of help. Spider-Man turns his head in a snap and swings over to the sound of the scream. He lands on the ground and moves through a back alleyway. He hears a panicked voice and heavy breathing from a gas mask, only indicating that it's a Cleaner. Spider-Man climbs up the wall and gets a closer look at what he sees as one Cleaner pointing his rifle at a civilian on the ground.
"I swear, it's just asthma. Look, here is my inhaler." The man pleaded as he shows his inhaler. "I'm not sick!"
The Cleaner didn't say anything or showed any emotional reaction as he moved closer. The man on the ground was too scared to get up as the Cleaner ignites a little flame on his flamethrower. Spider-Man had seen enough and uses his webs to yank the Cleaner up to the wall. He webs up the Cleaner to the wall and drops onto the ground as the man gets up. Spider-Man finally notices the helpless man is wearing the same gear, boiler suit, and reflective penny as the other cleaner was.
"What were you thinking of joining up with the Cleaners?" Spider-Man scowls the Cleaner.
"I-I thought they were my friends, that we're here to save lives." The former Cleaner mumbled in panic. "Please, don't hurt me."
"He won't."
Spider-Man turns around to see Oliver in his SWAT gear with Freya, John, and Shane entering the alleyway. Spider-Man pulls the Cleaner up to his feet. The Cleaner looks around before coughing a little, due to his asthma. He brings his inhaler to his mouth and presses the button on top to dispense his medicine. The Cleaner looks to Spider-Man and the agents that have followed him into the alley, realizing that the situation has changed.
"You're not going to kill me?" The scared man squeaked.
"That depends on what you're going to do next." Spider-Man says. "You can go to the Farley post office and explain how you made a really bad call of joining the Cleaners. If you want to do some real good, join the JTF."
"I ca-can do that." The former cleaner muttered but raised his voice so Spider-Man and the agents can understand.
"Good." Spider-Man folds his arms across. "You can go."
The man takes his rifle and leaves the alleyway. Oliver shakes his head slowly after the ex-Cleaner walks past the agents and heads west over to the JTF's territory. Spider-Man flickers a smile under his mask, happy to save a New Yorker from being a barbeque from the other Cleaner. He looks up to the other Cleaner being suspended in the air by the webs. Then, Spider-Man exits the alleyway as the agents follow behind him.
"Glad you convince him the error of his ways." Oliver grunts as he pulls the straps of his backpack. "But we got something bigger to look ahead to."
"Yeah." Shane nods. "How are we going to take the Cleaners without using lethal force?"
Spider-Man stops and turns around to glance at Shane. Shane stops walking and puts his weapon away to raise his hands.
"Don't look at me like that, Spidey." Shane scoffs. "It's not like they'll drop their weapons and come out in a fist fight with us."
Spider-Man stops glancing and turns his head back to the entrance of the construction site. He felt like a he's in a sauna as questions arise from his head. The agents trust him to lead them through their mission as they become stronger to stand up to the hostile factions. But how will he take them out nonlethally? Would the Cleaners stop using fire to wipe out the virus and surrender to the Division quietly? The Cleaners have proven themselves to be resilient in their cause to clean and sanitize New York with fire. And what about the JTF who have to come by and sort the misguided New Yorkers out when Spider-Man is done webbing them up. They could go to the Raft where it's secured. They have plenty of open space left in that prison facility.
As the ideas form in his head, Spider-Man's face grew more optimistic. Then, he continues to walk forward to the gate, but slows down a bit as he talks to Shane.
"There's going to be a way to take on the cleaners nonlethally." Spider-Man walks over to the construction site gates and webs them up before forcefully yanking them open.
The agents look at each other before rushing inside into the construction site. Oliver takes point and pulls his shield up before taking cover on top of a wooden staircase. As the rest follow and plant, themselves in position, a tank filled with Napalm drops from a crane and falls down before exploding into a deep burn pit. Shane shudders as the flames flare up to the sky.
Down below are a group of Cleaners standing beside a giant grey container, which no doubt is storage for napalm B. Oliver takes the moment to think how to tackle this problem. The container could explode if it were shot. But the Cleaners are standing close to the napalm container, so there's no point of setting it off. He looks up to Spider-Man who scales the side wall slowly.
The Cleaners don't seem to notice Spider-Man or the division agents. Oliver glances to Shane who has his sights through his M1A classic rifle on a Cleaner.
"Shane, time to switch out for your flashbang." He orders in a whisper.
Shane raises an eyebrow with a confused look on his face before realizing what his orders are and nods. He pulls out a sticky bomb launcher set to flash any enemy caught in its area of effect.
Spider-Man leaps over from the wall onto a nearby crane and sets himself up perched on top of the crane. Then, he looks down at the Cleaners. The one on the left shifts his position, turning away from his friend and walks up to the guard rail to watch the fire burn from the pit.
Spider-Man grins a little in his mask and uses his webs to yank the Cleaner watching his friend observe the flames up to the crane. A moment later, the Cleaner spectating the flames turns around and notices his friend has vanished. He checks his left and right before muttering into his radio. The other Cleaners walk down the steps and move up to his former friend's position.
Spider-Man glances at the Cleaners before dropping his seeker mine. The Cleaners spot the black ball with a white circle glowing brightly before they could react. The seeker mine jumps into the air and explodes, webbing up the group of cleaners in the process. They fall to the ground stuck. However, that wasn't all of them in the area.
Two more Cleaners, wielding a plexiglass shield and fireman axes, emerge from the stairs and look up to Spider-Man. Shane is quick to react on firing a sticky bomb on the rushers and stabs the button down on the detonator. The flashbang goes off and the group of rushers become blinded from the blast. Spider-Man drops down with a diving kick on one of them. Then, he drives the back of his heel on the other's head, knocking him down spinning.
The agents emerge from the staircase as Spider-Man searches the place for any other hostiles. So far, everyone is down unconscious without a shot fired. Oliver motions everyone to step away and fires an explosive sticky bomb on the napalm container. Then, after everyone gets to a safe distance, Oliver stabs the button down to detonate. The Napalm tank explodes with a thunderous roar, rattling the place a bit.
Just then, there's a crack of the loudspeakers built into the construction site. The speakers boomed with a voice that Spidey assumed is the head honcho of the Cleaners.
"Turner, Burnett. I need you and your people to guard the perimeter. I've got a bad feeling."
A few moments after the announcement was made, another group of Cleaners show up and fire his rifle at the agents. The agents hunker down as rounds flew over their heads. Spider-Man jumps up to the catwalk and pulls a Cleaner's clip off his AK-47 with his webs before tossing it away. The Cleaner tries to reload, but Spider-Man is quick to land several punches to the Cleaner's stomach and sends him down with an uppercut.
"Well, they know something is up." Oliver groans and loads a new magazine to his RPK-47. "We're probably going to have to use lethal force."
"Let's check." Spider-Man points out. "I don't sense anyone coming."
Spider-Man races up the stairs as the rest follow him up. Spider-Man steps out onto the catwalk overlooking a wide-open space with, of course, more Cleaners. One of them stands by a second burn pit as a tank of napalm drops down from a crane. Spider-Man could see the flames scream up to the sky, then die down under a giant sign that caught his eye. It showed a familiar egg-shaped man full of muscle, Wilson Fisk.
Spider-Man nearly lets out a chuckle to himself. The Cleaners took over one of Wilson Fisk's construction sites as their main base of operations to produce napalm and test out any flammable chemicals. He jumped and turned around to find the agents are close and behind him. Oliver looks forward to the Cleaners testing out the napalm. This group was definitely bigger than the last one. Oliver thinks for a minute how to take them out. Spider-Man couldn't do what he did with the first group since there are too many people watching and there's no point of using lethal force, yet.
"I'm going to get a better view." Shane whispers to Oliver.
Shane walks over on the catwalk and lays down on the cold metal platform. He doesn't scope in and instead glances to Oliver awaiting further orders. Spider-Man climbs along the tall thick concrete wall surrounding the construction site. He spots a Cleaner moving up the stairs for a better view of the napalm.
As he reaches the top of the steps, Spider-Man leaps down and whacks him in the face with a wind-up punch, knocking the lights out of him. Another Cleaner turns around and notices Spider-Man. He pulls out his rifle and starts firing, making Spider-Man flip to dodge the bullets. The other Cleaners in the area snap their heads to the sound of the gunfire and move to where Spider-Man was spotted. Two engineers hunker down and deploy their makeshift sentry guns to scan for Spider-Man.
Spider-Man leaps over to the wall, nearly avoiding the bullets. As the time to go loud became clear, Shane gulps a breath and fires a single shot. An engineer spins to the ground as he's hit in the shoulder. Freya throws her seeker mine over the railing and lands near a group of Cleaners firing in a line. The seeker mine rolls over to the group before they notice and blows up, taking the group out with them.
As Freya pulls out her Vector .45 ACP and sprays at the remaining Cleaners who realized by now Spider-Man has some friends who are now firing back at the Cleaners on the open area. Spider-Man swings down and kicks a Cleaner out of the way while the second engineer's sentry gun continues to track and fire at Spider-Man. Spider-Man leaps over behind the wall as the sentry gun targets him.
Oliver rushes over with a covering him and fires at the sentry gun with a revolver from his free hand. The engineer runs over to Oliver and tries to smack at Oliver from the side. Oliver turns around as the shield takes the blow. Oliver swings the barrel around and fires two shots at the engineer, making him slump to the ground. Oliver turns around and fires a couple shots at a Napalm tank from a distance until it started bursting into flames and explodes.
Spider-Man drops to the ground after taking out the last Cleaner. He looks around as Shane fires shots at the remaining Napalm tanks in the area, blowing them up one shot at a time. Spider-Man sees Shane giving a thumbs up, saying the area is clear. Oliver circles the air with his hand to tell the agents to regroup on him. Spider-Man swings over to another gate as the agents run over to him. Then, Spider-Man turns on the generator to open the fenced gate as the loudspeakers came back on.
"Heads up, people, we got company! Drop what you're doing and kill those sons of bitches!"
As the fenced gate swings open, Shane uses his pulse to scan the area. The pulse highlighted the Cleaners at the other side of the fence running away and slide behind cover along the sides of the site with a wide, long, open area in the middle. The Division agents move forward and took cover by a shipping container.
"Keep them away from the tank! You hear me?" Ferro shouts through the intercom. "You can't let them get to the tank."
The wall crawler leaps onto the wall as more engineers set up more sentry guns to shoot him down. Spider-Man runs across the wall and shoots a series of webs at the engineers to ensnare them in webs. The engineers struggle in the webbing as the sentry guns target Spider-Man.
"The sentry is down." Spider-Man's eyes widen. Something about this area is off. "Wait, something isn't right…"
Suddenly, a single shot pierces Spider-Man in the shoulder. It was enough to make him fall off the wall and land behind a concrete barrier. John runs forward, ducking under gunfire, and slides behind cover as Spider-Man groans and looks up to the doctor checking up on his wound. The doctor drops a healing box and fires a volley of rounds at a group of people ducking down at the catwalk faraway. Spider-Man turns his head and notices a light glimmering off from the catwalk before a sniper shot snaps over the barrier. John turns his head around to the agents.
"Snipers on the far catwalk!" He calls out as he sprays his assault rifle blindly to keep them down. "Don't go through the middle."
Oliver nods and gesture the remaining agents to follow him through an open shipping container box connected to a building under construction. A few moments later, the snipers begin firing at the shield as it walks out through the middle. John looks through the shoulder Spider-Man was shot at and gives a thumbs up.
"The bullet went through." Doctor Oxton remarks while he pulls out a length of bandage. "Stay here and…"
"I got to take out those snip-"
"You're. Staying. Here." John repeats with a stern firm tone.
Not wanting to argue with the doctor who's practically applying a bandage onto his wound, Spider-Man sighs and looks over to Oliver standing in the middle of the construction site taking all the sniper fire. He then notices Shane poking his rifle through a hole of the unfinished structure and fires a single round. One of the snipers slumps to the side as a black with a red circle ball is tossed next to Oliver. The snipers turn their attention to Shane and begin firing at his position as the seeker mine races up the catwalk to where the snipers are hunkering down at and explodes.
As the dust settles, the healing box fully repairs Spider-Man of his wounds before John picks it up to recharge. Oliver folds his shield down and circles the air with his hand to tell the agents to form up on him. The SWAT operator points to the tanker resting by the door leading into the tower.
"This tanker contains a hefty amount of Napalm." Oliver observes. "It would be a shame if someone blew it up."
"Isn't that the running theme of this mission?" Spider-Man sighs.
"Yep. A lot of people are going to thank us once we do this." Oliver says as he primes an explosive to detonate.
Shane gets on the catwalk and collects sniper rifle ammo from the bodies. He then spins around and trains his sniper rifle to the other side of the site where a group of trailers are. The doors swing open, letting out Cleaners with shields and fire axes as the intercom rallies everyone in the yard.
"You all know what we're doing here and how important it is." Joe Ferro began from the intercom. "You all know what's going to happen if we don't burn this thing out. There's people counting on us. Our families, our friends, the whole damn world. So that's why we got to hold the line against anyone. And I don't care if they say they're from the government, you know they're lying. We stop them here; we can still save the city. We let them through, then everything we've done is for nothing. And we ain't going to let that happen."
Spider-Man felt his body electrocuted by those words spoken from the leader of the Cleaners. He was too shocked to reflect on how desperate and paranoid these Cleaners have become to try to save the world from a virus. He nearly felt sorry for them. However, his mind replayed the image of people being fried to a crisp, places burned down, and how their efforts are causing more harm than good. He looks up as the shields make their way closer. Shane puts one after another down one shot at a time as Oliver lays down suppressive fire with his LMG. Spider-Man swings over and webs a shield's foot on the ground and pulls the shield off his hands.
He swings the shield and smacks a Cleaner next to him in the head, knocking him down. Then, he looks ahead and sees more Cleaners charging for the wall crawler. A sniper shot nails a Cleaner carrying an AK-47 in the head, making him drop to the floor as Spider-Man webs up a group of Cleaners.
The agents run away from the tanker before it explodes. The flames shoot up into the sky in a massive fireball as parts of metal and shrapnel went flying everywhere. Then, Spider-Man can hear Roy Benitez speaking to him in his mask from the coms.
"Just so you know we could see the explosion from here. Now, there's probably more napalm tanks in the building. Take care of them first, then see what you can do about Ferro."
"Roger that." Oliver mutters before Roy Benitez cuts his coms. "Freya, John, Shane, how are you guys?"
"Good to go." Freya loads a new fresh clip into her submachine gun.
"My support station is ready to go."
"Good as ever." Shane holsters his sniper rifle and pulls out a FAL assault rifle.
"Alright, let's go." The tactical SWAT helmet turns over to Spider-Man. "How about you?"
"I could scout ahead and see what's inside." Spider-Man offers quickly. "That way I can help you guys locate this Ferro guy."
"I would be grateful. Let us know when you find him." The SWAT officer motions his team to the team before they run inside.
Spider-Man runs forward and jumps before web swinging around the tower. The wall crawler predicted the Division would take this slow and clear the site leading up to the watchtower with many hostile Cleaners. He starts to run his head if he were the leader of the Cleaners, where would he be in the construction site. He looks up to the watchtower, realizing he's got to be there preparing for a last stand. Perhaps he could talk him out of fighting and dying a losing battle and surrender.
"ISAC." Spider-Man says as he taps the side of his mask. "Find a path to Joe Ferro."
ISAC: Highlighting expedient route
ISAC highlights where Ferro is, inside of the watchtower. He latches onto the side of the watchtower and notices a vent above him. Spider-Man opens the lid and crawls his way inside. As he quietly crawls through the vents, he hears voices coming from below him. There are probably Cleaners getting their marching orders to defend the watchtower. Then, he hears a heavy New York accent commanding his soldiers. He can see Ferro alone in a small room talking to them through a microphone as he is wearing a heavily armored boiler suit. He had yet to put on his gas mask.
"Okay people, here's what we're going to do. We're gonna fall back, we're going to meet up at the watchtower and hold them there! You hear me? That's where we're going to make our final stand, and that's where they're gonna wish they never mess with us."
Spider-Man tears the vent open and descends down to the floor as quiet and slow as possible while Ferro releases the button to talk through the intercom. As Spider-Man's feet gently touch the floor, Ferro turns around to the door and grabs the doorknob. Spider-Man quickly shoots a wad of webbing to stick Ferro's hand to the door. Joe snaps his head around to see Spider-Man walking toward him before sighing.
"Surprised?" Spider-Man asks.
"You caught me at a bad time, Spider-Man." Ferro growls before inspecting the superhero. "I expected you to be older. It doesn't matter. I need to get down there and suit up or what we're trying to accomplish is all for nothing."
"I'm sorry, but what does burning people up and setting the city on fire going to accomplish?" Spider-Man snaps. "You can't continue to go down this path. There's a group of federal agents who don't have the complexion of being as polite as I am and they're entering this building."
"You're young, kid. You just don't understand what we're trying to do." Ferro replies. He stops struggling and looks at Spider-Man. "We're making sure the virus gets burned out here so people outside of the city won't suffer and die. My wife was the first to go and there's no better way than to use fire to clean up this city."
"There's another way." Spider-Man holds out his hand. "Just surrender now and turn yourself in. You don't want to throw your life away."
There's a knock at the door. Ferro turns his head to the door as a Cleaner speaks through the door.
"Hey boss, you ok in there?" A Cleaner ask from the other side. "They're almost at the watchtower. It's time to suit up."
Ferro ignores the Cleaner and turns his head back around to Spider-Man. The wall crawler wonders what's going on through Ferro's head as he glances at his makeshift flamethrower resting at the far corner of the room as he tries to pry his hand off of the door one more time. Then, he looks to Spider-Man once again.
"I get you want to help me. I see why my niece looks up to you." A tear trickles down from his eye before his pyromania self takes over. "But I've got no time to argue philosophy with you. I need to get down and be with my boys for our last stand. We won't stop until we see this thing through."
"You're sick." Spider-Man holds out his hand. "Let me help you."
"No, I have all the help I need." Ferro grips the door tight before he turns his head to the door. "Get in here, boys! Spider-Man is in here with me!"
Joe forcibly yanks the door open to let a small group of Cleaners inside and point at the costumed crime fighter. Some of the Cleaners pull the levers back on their assault rifles as one cuts Ferro loose from the door and hurries him out of the room. Spider-Man is quick to hop into the vents before the Cleaners spray the room with their assault rifles. The wall crawler climbs out of the watchtower and swings around the building before spotting the agents taking on the Cleaners guarding the entrance to the watchtower. He drops down and lands a kick on an engineer. John looks up and changes targets.
"Glad you're back with us." John deploys his support station to heal up his teammates. Oliver slowly walks forward in front of the group with his shield raised and his pistol out. The towering shield takes the incoming bullets as Oliver fires back at the remaining Cleaners. Spider-Man yanks a Cleaner back and webs him up while Oliver takes out the last Cleaner with one shot to the head.
"I've been trying to call you, kid." Oliver says as he folds his shield. "Did you find Ferro?"
"Of course." Spider-Man's tone changes from optimistic to glum and somber. He more than spotted Ferro. "He's preparing for his last stand with a huge group of his guys in the watchtower."
"Listen up, whoever you are." Joe calls out on the intercom. "I'm guessing you're Feds, but really it don't matter. You're doing the wrong thing, and you're going to die because of it. The men you're facing, they're here to do what no one else had the stones to do. They could have left. They could have gone home to their families. But they stayed to burn this thing out, to make sure it got stopped here. They sacrificed themselves, and then you. You come along and try to fuck it all up because you're not hard enough to do what's gotta be done? It ain't going to work. My boys are better than that. And we're going to see this through over your. Dead. Body."
"Jesus, this guy is insane." Shane mutters before shaking his head. "What's the plan, Oliver?"
Oliver walks towards the elevators while Freya searches through a Cleaner and pulls out a police modeled M4. Shane grins as Freya loads a clip onto the assault rifle. Oliver thinks for a moment to come up with a plan as the rest of the party step to the threshold of the elevator. Then, he nods and pulls out his large machine gun.
"We're going in with a large handful of Cleaners along with Joe Ferro himself along with god knows what ever surprises they have in store for us." Oliver began. "Watch your fire because we're going to apprehend Joe Ferro. Anyone else can either be pacified or killed. Let's take this carefully and watch for each other so we can wrap this up and make the Cleaners easier to manage."
"Sounds like a great plan." John mutters.
Spider-Man and the agents step into the elevator and press the button to take them to the top floor. Once the elevator lets out a ding and opens its doors, Spider-Man and the agents walk out. Spider-Man senses something is off as he steps off of the elevator. Oliver holds out his hand, then points to the set of explosives planted on the wall. The SWAT Captain shakes his head slowly as he slowly walks past the explosives.
"We need to be quick on taking Ferro dead or alive." Oliver notes out loud. "This maniac has set the building to blow."
"Hopefully I can get to Ferro before he blows up the building." Spider-Man says out loud.
Freya, John, and Shane nod in acknowledgement before they head for the stairs. As the quietly walk down, they stumble upon an open area with sets of stairs reaching to the 3rd and 1st floor of the top of the watchtower. A man stands behind a pair of glass doors wearing a heavy boiler suit and carrying a powerful flamethrower, likely being Joe Ferro. He stands with a guard who is working on the fuel tanks connected to his suit. Ferro spots the Division agents as they spread out and Spider-Man staring back at him.
"What are you waiting for?" Joe shouts. "Get in there!"
On cue, a group of his guards run down the stairs and start shooting at the Division agents and Spider-Man. Freya slides behind cover as the guards move and shoot their way to her. She quickly pokes her head out of cover and fires an explosive sticky bomb. The guards freeze and turn to run after it lands by their feet. Freya stabs the button to take four of the Cleaners out in a single deafening and powerful blast. A shield charges over to Freya and swings his axe, making Freya jump and roll backwards as the axe strikes her in the leg.
John pops out of cover and fires a couple of semi-automatic shots at the shields head. Then, he deploys a support station to patch Freya up of her flesh wounds. John looks around and spots Spider-Man swinging over to the glass doors. Spider-Man quickly watches the agents take out the set of guards with deafening and unrelenting gunfire before looking up to Joe.
"You know I can see you, right?" Spider-Man says in a joking manner.
"No holding back!" Joe shouts as he ignores the wall crawler. "Everyone is going in!"
The elevator at the first floor lets out a ding, announcing it's reached the floor and letting out another wave of Cleaner. They run up the stairs for Spider-Man and the Division agents. Spider-Man sighs as two shields run up the stairs for him. He drops a seeker mine and leaps away as the seeker mine rolls toward the two men carrying shields. The seeker mine jumps and pops a glob of web fluid on top of them. Ferro smacks the heavy glass door and growls as the agents finishing up taking out the rest of his guards.
"You done yet?" Joe asks to his subordinate.
"Almost. Just give me one second…" A Cleaner says while patching up Joe's suit.
"I need to be out there." Joe growls. "What's taking so goddamn long?"
"Sorry, had a problem with the tank straps." The Cleaner steps away and cocks his rifle. "Should be all good now."
"About fucking time."
Spider-Man taps on the glass and waves to Joe Ferro as Joe brandishes his heavy flamethrower. The leader of the Cleaners steps out between the two doors and turns to Spider-Man. The agents hold their fire on Joe. Shane uses his pulse to scan the area, picking up another group of Cleaners entering the watchtower as Ferro stares down at Spider-Man.
"Look, we don't have to fight." Spider-Man says. "Why don't we just drop this and hug it out, big guy."
"I'm not letting this thing be all for nothing. Hold still and I'll make this quick." Ferro points the flamethrower at Spider-Man's direction.
Spider-Man jumps to the ceiling and latches on as Ferro fires a massive and long streak of flames. Ferro points the flamethrower up as Spider-Man swings down onto Ferro. He tries to kick Ferro back, but the massive man doesn't fall over. Spider-Man tries to leap off of Ferro, but the leader of the Cleaners grabs Spider-Man by the leg and slams him down onto the floor. Spider-Man quickly gets up and dodges a swing of Joe Ferro's flamethrower.
Shane quickly switches out for his FAL assault rifle to take out a shield Cleaner with a burst of gunfire before snapping his head to Spider-Man engaged in a fistfight with Joe Ferro. Shane swaps for his sniper rifle, takes a breath, and aims for one of the gas tanks Ferro was lugging around on his suit. He was about to fire, but he realizes it could kill Ferro. He instead pops his flash sticky bomb launcher and fires it at Ferro.
Ferro blocks another punch from Spider-Man and headbutts the wall crawler. He grabs Spider-Man's arm and prepares to punch him until a sticky bomb land on his chest. Ferro lets go of Spider-Man and tries to scrape it off with his hand. Spider-Man backflips away before Shane detonates the sticky bomb. Ferro growls and sprays his flamethrower blindly while Oliver moves up with a shield in front of his body.
"All the Cleaners are down." Oliver reports from his observations. "It's just you and him."
Spider-Man nods and jumps back into the fray to beat up Joe Ferro with a series of punches to his abdomen. As Spider-Man slowly wears down the juggernaut with fast punches and kicks, Ferro begins to regain his senses. Suddenly, Ferro rushes forward and grabs Spider-Man. The web slinger struggles in his grasp before Ferro tosses him toward a pillar. Spider-Man's head bounces off of the pillar, knocking him out.
ISAC: Attention! Agent requires assistance.
John quickly runs over to grab Peter as Oliver cover John with his shield. Freya drops a turret on the railing and fires her submachine gun at Joe as the turret targets Joe and fires. The bullets bounce off the heavy armor on Ferro's suit. John sits Spider-Man up and tries to get Spider-Man back into the fight, making Ferro laugh and turns his attention to Oliver and John.
"You guys are nothing without that annoying kid." Ferro says. "I'll make this quick."
Oliver growls under the ballistic helmet and pulls out his pistol. Taking Ferro alive was no longer an option to him. He points his revolver at the fuel tank and fires a couple of shots. The .357 rounds puncture a hole into the fuel tank on the side, making it leak out napalm. Then, it explodes, making Ferro stumble as a huge chunk of his armor was blown away.
"Shane, take out the fuel tanks." Oliver shouts quickly as he takes a streak of flame with his shield. "Ferro needs to be taken down."
"Wait, didn't Spider-Man want Ferro alive?" Freya asks.
"Calm down." Oliver snaps back. "We just need to take out the fuel tank. Shane, the sooner the better."
Shane nods and pulls out the classic M1A rifle. The sniper scope attached to the weapon points to the fuel tank. Shane fires a couple of times until the fuel tanks begin to set on fire and explodes. The explosions rock Ferro as all the armor falls apart in his suit. The massive man in the boiler suit growls and tosses a Molotov at Freya and Shane, making them jump and roll out of the way before her spot was set on fire. Oliver reloads his revolver and aims at Ferro.
From all the explosions the leader took from his busted fuel tanks, Ferro falls back and drop his flamethrower. Then, Oliver points his revolver at Ferro as he gets up close and presses his foot on the leader of the Cleaners. To Oliver, it felt like another arrest at a drug lab. Ferro looks up at the man in the ballistic armor as the revolver points back at him.
"Give it up." Oliver says while he pulls the hammer back on his revolver. "Your days of burning people are done."
Ferro doesn't say anything, but he grunts and wheezes as he quickly reaches down into his pocket.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Oliver leans in and grabs Ferro's arm. "What did you do?"
It took a great feat of strength to pull Ferro's arm out of his pouch. Oliver sees Ferro's finger squeezing the button on the detonator. Oliver's eyes widened and backed away from Ferro before the building starts to rumble, rattling the agents. ISAC comes to life with an alert.
ISAC: Warning; Detonation sequence triggered.
Oliver clenches his fist before turning around and fires a bullet into Ferro's head. Freya's mouth drops in shock as Oliver holsters his revolver into his holster and folds his shield. Freya and Shane run back to Oliver and John as the explosives begin detonating. Oliver heaves Spider-Man onto his shoulder and looks around as the room begin to set on fire.
"What happened to keeping him alive?" Freya asks with a couple of coughs.
"He decided to blow the building up." Oliver grunts as he carries Spider-Man on his shoulders. "Like it or not, we're fucked."
"Wait," Shane calls out as he looks down the stairs. "I see elevators below us. Perhaps we can take them to the first floor."
"Isn't taking an elevator during a fire unsafe?" John points out.
"No time for fire safety." Oliver shouts. "Let's go before the building collapses!"
The agents nod and head down the stairs as more charges continue to detonate and set the third and second floor ablaze. They all step into the elevator quickly as John stabs the first floor button with his thumb rapidly. The doors close and the elevator begins to go down while the floor above them shakes violently.
A few moments later, the elevator stops at the first floor and the doors open. John pokes his head out before exiting out of the elevator with Oliver heaving Spider-Man on his shoulders.
Oliver then sets Spider-Man down on the ground gently while John runs up to the hero with a first aid launcher in his hand. He presses the barrel on Spider-Man's neck and pulls the trigger. A split second later, Spider-Man sits up quickly and breathes in and out quickly before it slowly goes down in tempo.
"Good to have you back, Spidey." Freya flashes a smile before it faded.
"Where are we?" Spider-Man asks.
"We just escaped from their watchtower." John replies. "Or what's left of it. You took a nasty hit from Ferro."
Spider-Man nods in acknowledgement before rubbing his head and turns to his left before checking his right. The world around him felt topsy turvy for his senses.
John squats in front of the hero and pulls out a flashlight. He doesn't turn it on and asks Spider-Man to follow the flashlight with his eyes without turning his head. After completing the task successfully, John concludes that Spider-Man doesn't have a concussion. Then, Spider-Man stretches his arms out before looking at Oliver.
"What happened to Ferro?" Spider-Man asks. "And what do you mean what's left of it? What happened to the watchtower?"
Freya bites her lip and awkwardly moves his foot. John shakes his head and sits next to Spider-Man on the stack of concrete bags.
"We did everything we could." John says as he looks to Oliver. "But it didn't work out in the end. Let's get out of here and we can talk about it along the way back to base."
Spider-Man hesitates at first, but then nods before John gets up and holds out his hand. Spider-Man grabs his hand and allows him to pull him up onto his feet. Oliver takes the lead and steps on the catwalk before fast roping down to the streets. Spider-Man jumps down before Freya descends on her rope to the streets. Then, the four group up and head their way back to base.
A/N: Incoming Transmission!
So… I've got some explaining to do on why I was gone for about two months. I wanted to take a break from writing, and I took it without letting you peeps know. Well, I won't let that happen again so from now on, when I need a break, I'll let you know. And don't worry, the chances of me abandoning this fiction story are very low.
Now, I want to emphasize that the world of the Division and Spider-Man is being carefully constructed. I may want to take a break so I can get this software that allows me to plan this story so I can give the villains, the friends of Peter Parker, and maybe more from the Marvel universe a story. Anyways, that's all I have to say.
John Oxton:
Oliver Borkovic:
Freya Springfield:
Shane O'Connor:
Spider-Man/Peter Parker: Stan Lee, Marvel Comics
All the elements of the Division are owned by Tom Clancy and Massive Entertainment.
