PART 1 - Chapter 8: The First Team-up
Where an insect and an arachnid go on an adventure and share stories. Also hot dogs.
Blue Beetle kept the weapon steady, despite the adrenaline still being pumped into his veins.
A couple more tense seconds went by, neither one moving an inch.
"You're… the Spiderman from the news", blue hero guessed.
"Spider. Hyphen. Man.", the other corrected.
The armed hero cracked a smile. "Noted."
"And you must be… actually I have no idea, I'm new in town.", Spider-Man admitted.
"The Blue Beetle, and I'm not from Gotham City either.", the older hero commented. "I was around the vicinity when my 'bad guy' sensor pointed out something dangerous happening in here."
"Huh, what a coincidence, same thing.", Spider-Man remarked. "Could… could you lower the soda-can gun for a moment, it would make things more comfortable?"
"Only if you come down, because it's starting to strain my neck."
The younger hero quickly dropped to the ground, landing on all fours in an almost feline way, if not for the way his body stood, coiled as if ready to attack at any moment, almost insect-like. The older man acquiesced and held his part of the deal, holstering the BB gun back, but keeping the hand low enough to draw it back up. "Good job on neutralizing Lady Spellbinder.", he offered.
"Huh. Then does it mean there is a Mr. Spellbinder out there that is going to be pretty mad with me for it?"
"Not likely", the hero on the ground replied. "The last Spellbinder was her boyfriend, whom she killed in exchange for powers and his villain name."
Spider-Man gave a nod. "Figures she's crazy, the nineties style and wearing shades at night."
"And she is not alone", Blue Beetle declared. "I hacked into the building's security cams, and she had accomplices, three, all supervillains." That made Spider-Man frown.
'The only way Blue Beetle could know that was by hacking not into the normal security cameras, but by getting access straight into the secret security system at the Chrysalis, which I still couldn't do myself due to its elliptic-curve encryption. So, he either has NSA's level of resources to do it, or he got the security codes straight from the main servers in Palmera City, Kord Industries' main security hub.'
So Spider-Man kept this quiet and filed this small important tidbit for later. "Now what, partner?", Spider-man asked.
"Down", Blue Beetle moved forward, pressing a button on the inner frame of the elevator, opening the doors with ease. "There appears to be a massive reading of energy building up many floors below the lower levels of this building."
"Then let's go down!", Spider-Man declared, jumping into the darkness, while grabbing the blue clad hero, who yelled in shock.
"No, we have to stop or we'll die!", Blue Beetle yelled, and with an ease that was nothing short than fantastical, Spider-Man completely stopped their fall by sticking to the wall.
"I get it, I get it!", Spider-Man assured, holding Blue Beetle's weight with one arm, as he kept them steady with the other hand and both feet safely planted on the wall of the shaft. "Wasn't kidding about sensing the bad guys. Got this… call it an 'early danger warning', told me to get into this building and that's how I found Princess Bubblegum in the Lobby. Same warning now is telling me that if I drop a few feet more, we won't like the result."
"You can bet on it. Invisible electric field, designed to progressively increase the charge against anything that tries to get across it."
"And the elevator that can reach the lower levels happens to be a Faraday Cage."
"Precisely.", Beetle agreed, delighted to see that the other hero was at least clever enough to understand the safety measures in place.
"And you seem to know plenty of things at the secret underground levels under a private company."
'Too clever', the older hero admitted to himself.
"So… are you part of Kord Industries?"
'... or maybe not that clever?', Blue Beetle reassessed the other hero. "I admit it, on occasions I have helped develop technologies for Kord Industries. Ted Kord and I have a… close business relationship."
"You work with the guy and that's how you found out about the break-in, he called you."
"Pretty much.", Blue Beetle relaxed, his secret identity still safe. "You can release me now, I am going to deactivate the barrier by myself.
Spider-Man looked at the older hero with suspicion, but, as soon as the blue glove touched the wall, Blue Beetle became stuck to it, almost like himself - just a little less natural. "Microscopic suction cups embedded into the gloves and boots of my suit. Make me stick to hard non-slippery surfaces. I was about to accuse you of imitating me, but yours is the real deal, isn't it?"
"I've got several spider-like abilities, proportionate to my size."
"Which means you can also probably leap tall buildings in a single bound." Blue Beetle guessed, as he crawled to the side, touching the concrete wall in several unremarkable spots until a cleverly hidden panel near them popped open.
"More like five floors with ease, ten if I push it.", Spider-Man observed the man at work, pulling a set of small tools from his golden belt and quickly disassembling the circuitry that kept the field active. "So, these criminals, how 'super' are we talking about?", Spider-Man asked, instead.
Blue Beetle touched the side of his left lens, not interrupting his work. "Lionmane, real name unknown. TL classification as LA."
"He's from California?"
Blue Beetle actually paused and gave the younger hero a hard stare. "TL means 'Threat Level', LA is 'Local Area'. Big guy, well-cared bushy hair, lots of muscles but mainly just above human level of strength and possessing natural claws."
"Big bad kitty, got it."
"The Disruptor, Michael Beldon, TL is LA as well. Wears a tech suit created by his father, 'Brains' Beldon, actual genius and self-declared master of crime. The suit can, according to the Teen Titans, 'disrupt the natural order of things', whatever that means. No, wait a second…", Blue Beetle paused, focused on something only he could see. "Yeah, Robin - the first one - made notes on the guy. Inferiority complex because of his abusive father, suit actually does what is said, Beldon can consciously affect probability in a very small scale and at close proximity, and just one target at a time, but with that, he can be deadly."
"And the last one?"
"Unknown, calls himself 'Overthrow', wears a tech suit, no abilities shown, but since he appears to be calling the shots, it's reasonable to say he might be a threat."
"Noted, a new bad guy on the scene, hate new bad guys. And how about you?"
"What about me?"
"Have you never had a team-up before?", asked Spider-Man in confusion. "Two heroes meeting for the first time, fighting against bad guys, one hero doesn't disclose some shocking and fantastic abilities they have, and next thing we know, we get into each other way and the bad guys either captures us or one of us has to make a dramatic choice over saving their impromptu partner or stopping the villains."
"... I thought you were new to the world of heroics."
"I'm actually from another dimension entirely.", Spider-Man replied. Peter had long since decided that he would not be trying to get himself into problems by being too full of secrets amongst other superheroes on this Earth.
Blue Beetle was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, let's go with that."
"You believe me?"
Blue Beetle shrugged. "Honestly, I can't say I'm surprised. I bowl every month with the greatest escape artist in at least three different worlds and his wife, the strongest woman of their home planets, and watch Sunday football with a time-traveler from the 25th-century Gotham City. Dimensional tourism is actually par for the course."
"Well, when you say it like that it almost makes it sound silly."
"And the forcefield is deactivated.", Blue Beetle concluded his work, Spider-Man's tingling much less focused on their proximity. "And I have several gadgets with me to help me take down my enemies, like traps, bolas, smokescreen, besides my trusty BB gun.", he patted the holsted 'soda-can' gun. "It has both a blinding flash mode and a pressure air shot mode."
"No shooty-shooty-bang-bang mode?", Spider-Man asked, and the other hero shook his head, making the younger one smile. "Awesome! I do have my own equipment, these web-shooters, which are fueled by web-cartridges that I keep in my web-belt."
"You've met Batman and his family, I presume."
"Not yet, why?"
"Nothing, nothing…"
The Chrysalis - Underground
The mostly unknown Level Negative 13 inside Kord Industries Gotham Branch is one of the marvels of Ted Kord's planning. Created originally as a safe haven for his superheroic exploits, it had later been converted to be used by the Justice League International as an emergency base of operations.
Then, after the JLI had disbanded, Ted had the great idea of setting up, in each secret hideout like it, a Lucciola-Hotaru Non-Nuclear Prototype Energy Generatorm the idea bwing that not only would it provide clean energy to his company's installations, they could be used to help the cities where they had been installed, Gotham City being one of the prime locations for said plan.
Ted remembered the chaos that had been the "No-Man's Land Incident", years prior. And now… now a group of criminals were inside that secret hideout of his, right now, doing who-knows-what with the generator.
Spider-Man and Blue Beetle got inside the elevator through the emergency ceiling hatch, then, after hatching a plan, opened up the doors and moved into the floor.
First, several small beetle-themed devices were tossed forward, creating a thick cover of smoke that would impair sight and breathing of the invaders.
Second, Spider-Man, while holding his breath, and Blue Beetle, using a filtering mouthpiece, dashed through the smoke, ready to take down anyone on their path.
Third, Blue Beetle… got hit by a large flailing object, while Spider-Man miscalculated a jump and crashed onto the ceiling, falling down disoriented.
Before Blue Beetle could comprehend what had happened, something hit him from the side and made him crash against the wall, breathing apparatus flying off. The years of ever-developing better supersuits paid off, as instead of breaking all bones in his torso, Ted Kord could feel them only cracking.
'That was a kick', he realized. 'Lionmane, probably, but he is not registered as being that strong.'
Spider-Man did not seem to be faring any better, as he quickly rolled to the side and started spraying his web, only for the web-shooters to splutter and get clogged up by their own web. Then, the newer hero bent backwards, as if he was a puppet and his strings had been pulled from behind.
The air system quickly flushed out the fumes, revealing the Disruptor in front of the red and blue hero, palms forward while doing something to Spider-Man's body.
In front of himself, Blue Beetle saw the large form of Lionmane, only now shirtless and much bigger than he had ever been before, even his facial features seemed more animalistic than he once was.
"I did not expect any interference tonight, but that doesn't mean I was not prepared for it." Said the man who called himself Overthrow, without turning his back, as he kept messing with the generator's console.
"That… actually makes no sense.", replied Blue Beetle, trying to regain his strength. "If you say you are not expecting an interference to happen, you cannot say that you are prepared for it, because if you were prepared then it means you expected something like it to happen."
"Maybe it's like the guy who always carries an umbrella?", Spider-Man wondered, seemingly unable to move from the awkward position. " The 'I don't expect rain, but I'm ready for it' kind of mentality?"
"Quiet!", ordered Overthrow. The Disruptor twisted his hands, and now Spider-Man's body was twisting in different and painful ways
"But carrying an umbrella means… that you are keeping yourself protected… from the rain… even while it is still not raining.", Blue Beetle countered.
"I said quiet! Lionmane!"
The large feline-hybrid grabbed the blue themed hero from the ground and held him against the concrete wall that was around the elevator doors.
"Maybe… it's a metaphor?!", Spider-Man half-guessed, half-yelled. "With… aaargh! Expectations! You don't focus… on your preparation!"
"You think yourselves smart?", said the Disruptor, in pure enjoyment. "This is what you heroes get, thinking that you are so smart, but you're not! We are! We might fail, but we get better! We evolve, like Lionmane did, and we can get upgrades, like my suit did! Now I can interfere with things even without touching them!"
The beast man grinned. "And I can see, hear and smell better than before, like I could smell you both approaching from the elevator!"
"Damn…", replied the Blue Beetle. "I knew… I should have stopped wearing cologne."
"You heroes think you are so funny", said Overthrow, finally turning to give them attention. "You look at all of us from above, at your ivory towers, too good for the rest of humanity, thinking yourselves just like gods. Like Ted Kord, Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne do."
"Seriously? I … understand not liking… the one p-percent… but Ted Kord?", asked Spider-Man, gritting his teeth. "Or… Bruce Wayne, the r-richest doofus… in the country?" Then Spider-Man stopped speaking, just grunts and restrained yells, but that wouldn't stop him from adding: "Luthor though…"
"You are one stubborn idiot, you know that?", wondered The Disruptor. "Right now, I'm making chaos out of your synapses, but I could do so much more with my gloves, like make you swallow your own tongue - the only reason I'm not, is because I'm just having a little fun."
"Heh! T-th-think you're f-funny?", was the web-crawler's response. "At… least… I'm not…"
The Disruptor smirked, "At least, you're not… what?"
"At least…", Spider-Man gritted harder. "I'm n-not… s-s-tanding… on a… bomb."
At that moment, Lionmane and Overthrow stopped and stared at the Disruptor.
The criminal in question looked down, realizing the small blue device right next to his right foot, the lights blinking dangerously fast. "Oh, you son of a-", as a reflex, the Disruptor extended his hand down in shock-
"Don't!", Overthrow yelled, but it was too late, as Spider-Man quickly grabbed the Disruptor's hands, pulling him close and, in a fluid motion, rise up and kicked him on the back of his head, knocking him out.
Lionmane turned towards the seemingly bigger threat, when his attention was caught by Blue Beetle saying: "Hey, listen!" The beast man turned back to his original captive, only to stare straight at the comically large gun barrel aimed back at his face. "Made you look", the hero pulled the trigger, the blinding flash making the villain roar in pain.
Blue Beetle, free from the larger man's grapple, pulled something from his belt and tossed at Lionmane's face, a small pellet that erupted in a small cloud of red smoke. "Heightened senses are not all that great when you get eight megacandelas of light into your retinas… or a stench bomb straight to your nose and mouth."
The bigger man fell to his knees and started retching, eyes burning from the flash shot and incapable to breathe properly, Blue Beetle uppercutting him on the chin and mercifully putting him to sleep.
"How are you doing… Spider-Man?", asked Blue Beetle, nursing his aching hand, before the other hero had tackled him - out of a large ball of flame that nearly toasted him.
"You think yourselves so smart, but you are just mindless morons!", proclaimed Overthrow, as two scoop-like appendages had popped off from his forearms' guards. A bright sphere began to grow on the scoop on his left arm, and when it had grown to the size of a softball, the villain tossed it forward, suddenly becoming a much larger blazing inferno as big as the heroes.
Spider-Man and Blue Beetle dodged again, each to opposite directions.
"Dude, TRON fan, much?", asked Spider-Man, pulling strands of the clogged up material out of his web-shooters. "I know, I know, we all want them to produce the third movie, but that is going a tad overboard."
"Silence!", yelled Overthrow, now charging another blazing sphere from each arm's 'cesta'. "The capitalist empire you are protecting doesn't care about the awful state of our world! They should all BURN!"
A volley of flames kept the two heroes on their toes, Spider-Man realizing that Blue Beetle was running back to his previous position… as the knocked out form of Lionmane was on the path of one of those fireballs. The older hero pulled his BB gun and blasted a powerful airshot that changed the fireball's trajectory enough to prevent their death.
Spider-Man ran towards them, but stopped at a few feet, as his spider-sense tingled stronger than before.
"Industries, Enterprises, Corporations, they hide their true nature behind elaborate names, comfortable in their excesses, safe from Justice… It's my mission…"
Overthrow joined both cestas, a much, much larger ball of plasma appearing between them.
"... to turn them all INTO ASHES!"
And as many times before, Peter could see the world slowing down to a crawl, his senses attuned to the impending doom about to strike him, Blue Beetle and Overthrow's own companion.
Peter could clearly see it now. 'There, an opening as the fireball's approach! It's going to be the smallest window of opportunity, but I could use it by leaping over the flames and striking Overthrow from above!'
He just had to evade the flames.
The large ball of fire that would be going straight to Blue Beetle and Lionmane.
'Beetle's BB gun barely deflected the smaller fireball before.'
Spider-Man's chance to take down the enemy was evident. So, he made his choice.
Ted Kord had been caught in fire drafts and explosions before.
They really, really hurt.
The older hero tried to protect the criminal he had knocked out before once more, this time with his own body.
He had developed his suit after many trials and several near-death experiences, so he was almost certain that it could withstand the heat.
The man inside the suit… probably wouldn't.
His last thoughts before the fireball hit were on his pupil, Jaime, and the hope that his friends could help train the young teen in his stead.
The flames surrounded him, his body tensed over the large feline man, hopefully keeping him mostly safe.
'Dan, was I worthy of your legacy?'
Blue Beetle didn't get an answer to his last question… because suddenly the full brunt of the heat was blocked by an expanding mass that came between them and certain incineration.
Spider-Man stood in front of him, hands raised and web shooting out of his wrists in the form of a shield, seemingly enough to protect them all. But that very shield started to tear itself apart, and the younger hero grabbed hold onto it, the impromptu barrier breaking apart and Spider-Man taking the brunt of the force of the explosion in the place of the two downed men.
"Spider-Man?", the older hero asked in worry, smoke surrounding the web-slinger..
"Fool!", Overthrow declared, lowering his cestas. "My plasma bombs are enough to topple buildings, and you still think you could withstand them?!"
The smoke started to subside, revealing the still standing hero, though barely. His suit had been torn apart with the blunt force of the blast. His arms, chest and top half of his head were exposed to the world.
Then came the almost whispered "ouch."
"Meaningless feat", Overthrow remarked with disdain. "Do you know what you are trying to stop? We came here to blow up Kord's reactor, bringing down this whole monument to his ego to rubble."
"What… about… the innocent… people inside…?", Spider-Man's raspy voice came out, sounding more tired than ever.
"They work for a multimillionaire. There are no innocents here."
My head… spinning. The air is hot. Can't focus.
Focus!
Everything is beginning to whirl around. Every muscle aches. My skin… is it still there?
I might fall down. I think I'm about to- I can't!
The strain… it… it's unbearable!
… don't you dare close your eyes, Parker!
Don't! You heard what this monster just said!
The psycho in front of me wants to take down a building full of innocents.
For what?
I don't care.
Does it matter?
It really doesn't.
Do you see it, Parker? It's about to happen, just like before.
I can't let this happen again!
If I go down, I'll be standing to the side... I'll be letting another criminal slip away.
Again.
Not again.
NEVER again!
Overthrow raised both his cestas-gauntlets, gathering energy for another attack like the last one.
Blue Beetle knew he had to take the chance, left hand already pulling his other gun from his belt.
'50 feet of distance between us. The Beetle-rappel gun fires the beetle-grapnel at around 65 feet per second. If I can hit him in his leg, maybe I could- but that would risk the explosion going off to the ceiling, maybe even killing Overthrow or causing damage to the Generator', Ted estimated, in half the time he knew it would take for Overthrow to release his most powerful attack.
And, as soon as he finished thinking that, two things happened.
One, the smoke still surrounding Spider-Man suddenly dispersed.
Two, the younger hero now stood in front of Overthrow, holding both his raised arms.
"When did you get here?!", Overthrow shouted, then seeing Spider-Man grabbing his armplates with shaking hands. "It doesn't matter, you idiot, my armor is crafted from carbon-ceramic plates and it's-"
Crack!
The forming fiery ball spluttered out of existence, tongues of flames licking harmlessly the ceiling, as pieces of very tough material fell to the floor between Spider-Man naked fingers.
Overthrow fell to his knees, yelling at the pain of most definitely broken bones in both arms.
Spider-Man stopped his scream with a quick jab, cracking Overthrow's mask and making him fall back, unconscious.
Silence.
Ted Kord's brain was catching up with the sudden occurrence, and the facts were astounding.
'Jaime takes around a third of a second to change into his Armor - literally at the speed of an eye blinking. My lens' sensors clocked Spider-Man's crossing the fifty feet distance at 219 feet per second - around point 22 seconds. That's even faster, no, that's wrong! Spider-Man had to stop in front of Overthrow, which meant that he had to decelerate to do that, which means…'
He spotted the pieces of purple equipment scattered. 'And what about the carbon-ceramic armor, to break something like that with just his bare hands - Spider-Man did say something about proportionate strength, we might be talking about crushing steel girders kind of strength.
Spider-Man turned around, staring at Blue Beetle. "I'm sorry", his voice sounded tired and regretful. "I feel like I should have said something."
He looked back at Overthrow. Then back at Blue Beetle.
"Maybe, 'time to disarm you'?" Blue Beetle blinked. "Or 'Not so hot now, are you?' - you know, because of the fireballs?"
"Don't be too hard on yourself. You did just get almost blown up.", Blue Beetle helped.
"Yeah, there is that.", Spider-Man agreed, smoke still coming from several parts of his costume. "So… you up for hot-dogs?"
Blue Beetle saw the result of their fight, four villains captured and zero buildings toppled.
"I know a place."
"But you know, one thing still bothers me.", Spider-Man said, suit still in tatters, taking a bite out of his hot-dog, all apparent burns on his skin having almost healed up.
"Yeah? What?", Blue Beetle asked back, wiping his own mouth and taking a sip of Soder Cola.
The heroes were resting at a 'Nate-Man's' Stand, and Peter had to admit, that was actually a pretty decent hot dog outside Coney Island.
They had left all the Chrysalis' invaders at the lobby, at the hands of not Gotham City PD, but some government officials that, according to Blue Beetle, would take care of all the paperwork and the indiscreet questions about Ted Kord's power plant basement.
(When questioned by Spider-Man, Blue Beetle just reminded that Kord industries had 'some very good contacts and contracts' in high places.)
"Why not just call herself Spellbinder, then? I mean, adding the 'Lady' part makes it feel like she is a deviation, as if that's the most important part of the name."
"On the other hand, she might be making a statement, with the bright hair color and the name as 'Lady', people have to acknowledge that she is her own person, the embodiment of feminine aspects and thus separate from the male predecessor."
"Huh. Maybe I need to reexamine my personal biases. Or maybe we are just overcomplicating things.", and he took a final bite of his third hot dog, a couple more still warm on the paper plate.
Blue Beetle adjusted himself forward, swirling the inside of the bottle with the straw. "You said that you came from another dimension. It's not the most absurd thing I've heard.", said Beetle, not exactly showing any real disbelief in the explanation. "How did you get to our world?"
"Exploding battery of evil science."
"Ah. That would do it, hate when that happens." Blue Beetle acquiesced.
"Me too.", Spider-Man grew quiet. "I hope everyone back home is safe. Heh, they probably are, knowing my luck I'm just worrying too much about nothing."
The older hero saw it, though. Spider-Man's body language was far from relaxed. Overthrow had messed up with something in him. 'Maybe some trauma', he reckoned, taking a bite out of his kielbasa.
"Last time something like that happened to me", he said after swallowing, "the previous Blue Beetle died."
Spider-Man readjusted himself. He recognized that tone of voice from the Beetle. "Family of yours?"
"Actually not. But I considered him as such. Which is ironic, since the bad guy who got him killed... was my own uncle." Ted reminisced, not seeing Spider-Man's complete focus on him. "When I was just a teen and too full of myself, my uncle cajoled me into helping him create the blueprint for a dangerous weapon, a nearly invincible robot."
The older hero mimicked robotic movement, to Spider-Man's entertainment. "The Blue Beetle, well, the first guy, he caused a reactor core eruption in my uncle's secret hideout on an undisclosed island, taking out with him my villain uncle and his robot army that could have taken over the world. I was the only witness of his sacrifice, and the only survivor."
The Blue Beetle took another sip from his cold soft drink.
"Because of me, the first Blue Beetle, a mentor who had been like a father to me when my own was so absent, died. If I had been smarter, he would still be alive. His death left a great hole, so I adopted his name, created my own crime-fighting gadgets and I've been trying to live up to his legacy ever since. I hope I have succeeded."
"Big mistake, dead uncle, dead father figure, living up to someone because of a mistake. Man, there must be some kind of cosmic joke being played on us, right now.", Spider-Man said, exasperated, to the older hero's surprise. "You see, one day, after I got my powers, my first idea was to make money…"
To be Continued!
Author's notes:
Another mid-week post! I'll probably do this for next week, then... well, we'll see.
Next Chapter: Intermission stories, and let us get ready for the bigger chapters of Part 1!