A three weeks later

After Peter died that night I vowed that I would do everything in my power to make sure that no one else had to go through what I did, so after that I started going out at night and fighting crime. I remembered a time that Ben told Peter and I something that Peter's father used to say " With great power there must also come great responsibility."Well I had the power to make a difference in my city, so that's what I did. The Saturday that Mary Jane and I went on our date was super strange.

Three weeks ago Saturday

Everything was going well, I had picked her up at her place and then we went for dinner at Mick's and then went to go see a movie. We were walking through Central Park and we were standing in front of one of the statues on the west side of the park when she asked me a strange question. " Hey Ben, can I ask something of you real quick?"

Not thinking anything of it I agreed " Good. Can you close your eyes for me real quick?" Doing so I felt my Spider sense start ringing and opening my eyes just a bit I saw that Mary Jane had started transforming into this really weird creature.

She went pale causing her hair to turn a virent shade of red and her eyes went blood red. I watched as she started closing the distance between us and I noticed that her legs were out of sync and they made a weird noise. It sounded like they were horse hooves clopping on the ground.

Waiting for my Spider sense to reach its loudest I moved when she lashed out faster than a normal person could move. " So what are you?" I asked her curious if she would answer or just keep attacking. She lunged at me with claws aiming for my head and as that was happening I saw that she had a pair of fangs protruding from her mouth. Dodging, I asked her something that pissed her off. " So are you like a vampire or are you some other type of thing that feeds on blood?"

"HOW DARE YOU COMPARE ME TO A PARASITE LIKE THAT!" She roared at me and as I was dodging her I was trying to think of a way to subdue her without killing her. As I was dodging I felt something building up in me and as I threw a right hook I saw orange arcs of

electricity jump around my fist. When I hit her she flew back into the statue and seized up from all of the electricity. " What was that? " I whispered to myself. Feeling my spider sense go off again I looked up and saw her recovering from whatever the hell that was and she looked pissed. "A son of Zeus?" She said, disbelief in her voice and a hint of fear.

' Son of Zeus? What's she talking about? ' I thought to myself.

Rushing to her I put both hands on her shoulders and tried to channel that electricity into her. After a couple of seconds of nothing happening she looked at me and grinned. She moved her hands and grabbed me and threw me before I could react.

Hitting the side of a nearby building I groaned and layed there for a second, eventually getting up and seeing that Mary Jane was rushing towards me. Leaping up I threw a punch as hard as I could at her and right as I hit her the electricity exploded out from my fist and into her adding more power into it sending her flying back.

Keeping an eye on her as I walked up I saw that part of her started to flake off into golden dust just like that thing at the museum a couple of months ago. Grabbing her with my right hand and raising my left hand and clenching it into a fist surrounded by electricity I asked her " What are you? What did you mean by son of Zeus?"

She started laughing after hearing my questions, " You're this old and you still don't know what you are little godling?" she said and went for a swipe at my head, but I moved a little and grabbed it with my left and broke it. "Argh!" She screamed out and I moved my left hand closer to her face and caused it to spark with electricity. "ANSWER ME!" I yelled.

After that she explained about how the gods were still around and that they occasionally had kids with mortals and that I was one of those kids. After getting a location of a place where people like me can live in peace and train to beat them I put my left hand on her face and sent a burst of electricity directly into her brain causing her to dissolve into golden dust.

Looking at my hands as she dissipated into the wind I only had one thought ' I'm gonna have to learn how to trigger this thing at will. That was mostly instinct during the fight.' And so that's how my first date went.

Present

After swinging around the city for a few hours and not finding a lot of crime I was about to start heading home when I heard a disturbance from the tunnel leading into Jersey. Heading over there I saw a bus moving out of control and about to hit the sides of the tunnel. Swinging on top of it I fired multiple web lines behind me sticking to the ground and stuck my feet to the top of it and forced the bus to stop.

Leaping off the side I went to the door and ripped it off and directed people off the bus and looking back inside I saw three kids and three more of those monsters like back at the museum. "Hey! Pick on someone your own size!" I yelled and fired a web at the three monsters and yanked them out of the bus.

Right as I was about to fire a web I heard some mutterings from the crowd of people that got off the bus.

"I thought-"

"Those were-"

"Weren't they old ladies"

Focusing back on the monsters I saw that they were flickering back and forth between monsters and three elderly ladies. ' The hell.' I thought as I shook my head and fired a web at them and zipped over to them and started fighting between them, occasionally sending a burst of, what I later learned through experimenting was, bio-electricity at them via a punch or leaping at them and throwing them with extreme force into the sides of the tunnel.

As I was fighting I saw the three kids that were on the bus running down the tunnel. I recognized two of them, one of them was that kid Percy from the museum two months ago and the other was his friend who had crutches. Never got his name, but the fact that he was running just fine without them I would say that he didn't need them after all.

As for the third person I didn't know, but she looked almost exactly like me in the sense that she had the exact same shade of blonde hair and when on the bus I saw that her eyes were like mine whenever I got into deep thought about something. Feeling my spider sense go off I jumped over the winged thing and stuck to the roof.

"So what brings you uglies to New York? General Mayhem or sightseeing?" I quipped and jumped for the one stuck to the wall and sent a lot of bio-electricity into her body killing her. Seeing one of them go to fly after the three kids I fired a web at it and yanked it to me and hit it with a full strength punch and caused her to explode into gold dust.

"And then there was one." I said to the last one, who had just stayed where it was observing me. "You have no idea about what you interfere with godling." It rasped out and tried to hit me with its flaming whip. "Oh, I think I do. See you were trying to kill those kids back there and I stopped you and caused your friends to go poof."

Screaming at me in rage it flew at me and sent a barrage of swipes at me that moved almost as fast I did. Dodging some of them, but still get hit by a few of them causing my suit to get torn up. " Hey! You think making suits is cheap." I said to it and bull rushed it and fired a web into its face, blinding it and then leaped up and kicked it as hard as I could down to the ground and fired a thick web over it.

Getting close to it I could hear it screaming in a language that I couldn't understand, so I webbed its mouth shut. "Finally some silence." I said, " Now what did you want with those kids?" I asked it and ripped the webbing off of its mouth.

"Zeus will have your soul, mortal." It screamed at me, causing me to sigh and punch it in the head bouncing it off the ground. "Why. Did. You. Want the kids?" I said afterwards and caused my hand to spark with my newly dubbed venom. Seeing fear enter its eyes I put my hand closer to it and saw a few sparks fly off and strike it in the face.

" We wanted them because they have something that belongs to my master." it said and after that it spilled everything it knew and after listening to its heart with my enhanced hearing I confirmed that it was telling the truth, so I sent a jolt of venom through it for a few seconds causing it to disintegrate.

Sighing I looked around and not seeing the kids anywhere around I helped put out the fires and made sure that there was no one trapped in any debris. As soon as I heard sirens I took off down the tunnel and leaped into the sky and headed home to make some repairs to my suit and

figure out a way to explain to Aunt May and Uncle Ben why I have a bunch of cuts all over my body.

Olympus Temple of Athena

Watching Ben swing away she watched with pride and a little bit of anger. "ANANASI!" She screamed out loud and in the corner of her temple a giant web with multiple colored lines of webbing formed and out stepped a man standing at 6' 10" and was only wearing a loincloth made out of spider webs. He was devastatingly handsome and had skin the color of dark chocolate and eyes that were hazel in color. "Yes?" He said with a smirk on his face.

"How dare you make my son your champion." She yelled at him and formed armor around herself getting ready to fight him. "Mmm, oh that. Well if he didn't push young mister Parker away from the display of spiders then this wouldn't have happened. He altered his cousin's fate, so I thought it fitting that he would be the one to take his place." He explained.

"Besides you know as well as I do that there must always be a spider totem to keep the growing darkness at bay." He said with a seriousness that gave Athena pause. Lowering her spear she sighed and dismissed her weapon and armor and said "His siblings won't accept him for his… abilities, but if it comes down to it I will intervene."

Nodding, Ananasi looked down at his champion swinging through the city wearing a torn and tattered suit and smiled, proud of what his champion had accomplished so far. "I think it's time to send him to camp, so he knows exactly what he's dealing with, don't you think?"

Nodding, she sent a owl with a message tied to its leg to Chiron to send a satyr to Queens, New York.

Queens, New York 1:30 p.m. June 14. 2006

Ben PoV

After swinging around for a few more hours looking for crime I headed home. When I made it across the bridge I found myself having to hop from rooftop to rooftop. ' Note to self: Make something to maneuver around in low building areas.' I thought as I got home after spending another ten minutes just going around Queens so as to not give people an area of where I live.

Making it to my bedroom window, I opened it and as I was switching into regular clothes the doorknob started turning. " Ben, is that you, dear? " Aunt May said, the door partially cracked open.

" Yes, Aunt May. " I said a little louder than I meant to and lightly shoved the door closed; coming up with an excuse, " I just came back from a jog and was getting changed."

"Oh, Okay, Dear. When you're done there's someone at the door for you."

"Thanks, Aunt May." I said, slumping up against the door. Hearing her walk away I finished getting out of my suit and putting it under the loose floorboard.

Downstairs

Walking downstairs I heard Aunt May talking with someone, who sounded about my age or maybe a little older. " So, where is this summer camp exactly? " I heard Aunt May ask. Hearing that my blood froze and I rushed down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen. Seeing a person sitting at the table with a pair of crutches leaning up against the back of the chair I calmed down and looking at them I took in as many details as possible before they turned to me.

The person was wearing a sports jacket, blue jeans and a pair of Nike's. They had lightly tanned skin and long curly hair that raised a little at the top. The person was male and as they both went to stand they grabbed their crutches and I saw that if they didn't need crutches then they would be at least 6' even.

"Hello, you must be Ben. My name is Daniel Root." He said " And I'm here to talk to you about a special summer camp out on Long island sound."