And now we cut to a brief arc in U.A., to which I dub: New Warriors!
Peter and Aunt May would be shocked to see that he is alive and bring him in. Peter's friends would be confused as to why they are so panicky around this man, and Peter would go on to explain that this is his Uncle Ben, who was supposedly murdered years ago by a random mugger in the streets, but is now walking around with them in the wild. As such, the students quickly rally around the elderly man and help him to a bed, where he reveals that his memory is foggy, and that he has no idea why he is here or where he has been. He doesn't even have recollection of the night that he died. However, when Peter and May ask, he is able to reveal intimate details and memories of the two that they had never shared with anyone, and would be tearfully embraced by both his nephew and his wife, happy to see him once again after such a harrowing life without him.
Meanwhile, Momo, away from F.E.A.S.T., would be stuck in U.A. after the events of the violent affair that was now publicly known as Kraven's Last Hunt, where she would face both praise for her actions during the hunt and ridicule for being friends with those who have been expelled from U.A.. Momo's mind, however, would be focused on her own failings and inadequacies, feeling guilty for being too injured to help her friends rescue Peter and also for their expulsion, worrying for their futures before realising that her own is at risk as well.
Worse yet, her role in the Future Foundation, and the Future Foundation at large, would start to come under risk, as people within certain avenues of the government, as well as certain hero agencies, particularly those with a hand in political and commercial agendas, would begin to put pressure on her family to disband the organisation before it can even begin, and as such Momo's parents would order her to break off contact with Peter and her friends outside of U.A. in order to save face and keep their family's reputation intact. Momo would be angst about this, but would be torn between the decision as U.A. also begins to push more and more training onto her and her classmates.
Thanks to the carnage brought about by Kraven's Last Hunt, the license exams had been pushed back until U.A. and the HPSC could verify that it was safe for them to do so, and the aftermath of Kamino has brought about a lot of scrutiny and criticism to U.A., both because of All Might resigning from the school and the expulsion of several students for vigilantism, including Spider-Man, who is slowly becoming a divisive figure within hero society. As such, U.A. is now forcing their students to undergo more rigorous and intense training sessions, which, while strengthening them and toughening them up quicker than they were originally in canon, also has the opposite effect of wearing them down and demoralising them with each passing day, and would lead to the students beginning to resent U.A. for its harsh teaching methods, despite the good intentions of the teachers and their need to make sure that the kids can handle whatever new threats are now beginning to crawl their way out of hiding.
Worse yet, thanks to the investigation that Aizawa had tried to conduct into Spider-Man and his activities, his revelation of there possibly being powers outside of quirks now in advance technologies and magical properties and items (which he doesn't truly believe and is constantly looking for a way to rationalise everything that has happened according to his and hero society's worldview, which only serves to worsen his mental fatigue and paranoia), as well as the coverup of said investigation and how he is not allowed to speak about these things, Aizawa himself has grown paranoid in his fear of losing anymore students or people that he knows like Shirakumo, and has increased their training to an extreme degree to make sure that his students are able to combat them, as well as do his best to make sure that they understand the rules and do not go vigilante like Spider-Man had done. This would strengthen them, yes, but it would also divide the students and make them distrust and dislike him a lot more than before.
There would be two enemies of this arc that Momo would've made during this arc. The first opponent that Momo would have to compete against during this arc is Bakugo. Bakugo, in a meta sense, is like when a side character is aware that they are a side character and resents it. He is outraged, and still somewhat shellshocked, by his poor performance during the Sports Festival, and is angered by how overshadowed he was by Peter and his friends during their time here. Therefore, he is both happy that Peter and his friends have been expelled from the course, as he believes that it will now allow him to shine in the spotlight like he deserves, and angered at the fact that he no longer has to chance to settle his score with any of them, and it is this resentment and rolling anger that is fuelling him for this arc, spurring him to try and force a rivalry first with Todoroki, and then with Momo in order to assure himself of his supremacy.
The second arc villain of this arc would be Asui Tsuyu, who presents are more ideological opponent for Momo. Asui had been shaken by the expulsion of Peter and his friends, particularly Ochako, who had been one of her closest friends whilst she'd been in U.A. (whether or not Asui had eventually developed a crush on Ochako, I'll leave up to the imagination), and as such she is now clinging more to the rules than before. She has seen Iida kicked out of U.A., and has heard of the dark path he has walked down because of it. Because of this, she has decided to become the class' new anchor, someone who will remind them of the rules and the consequences that can come from breaking them.
As such, she is now a lot quicker to criticise Peter and his friends for going against the rules that make up hero society, and would end up having several debates with Momo over the law and procedures, with Asui, who still believes that those who goes against the rules are no better than villains (which is only been made more certain thanks to Peter and his friends being expelled from U.A.), making her stance on the matter clear by sticking to the rules and regularly challenge Momo on them, who herself is beginning to see how restrictive the laws regarding vigilantism and quirk use truly are, and wants to do more for others in spite of them.
During their training, Momo would shrink into her three best friends in the course, that being Sero, Todoroki, and Hatsume, and would express to them her problems and concerns, and Todoroki would reveal that representatives from both the HPSC and other organisations had arrived at his, Natsuo, and Fuyumi's new home in order to put pressure on him to pull out from the Future Foundation. Luckily, in a surprising twist, Endeavour had actually gone out of his way to make a public statement about these advances, forcing the HPSC to back off for the time being, but making it clear their stance on the matter; they wanted the Future Foundation disbanded before it could ever get off the ground.
Under constant pressure from the HPSC and her parents to disband the Future Foundation, Momo would eventually disclose her part in taking down Muscular to her friends, and wonders as to why she wasn't expelled with everyone else for her part in what was obviously a very vigilante action. However, Bakugo ends up stumbling upon this conversation and, wanting to rile her up in order to get a good rival out of her, reveals that not only did everyone figure out that she helped to take down Muscular, but that the only reason that she was still in U.A. instead of being kicked out was because her family name was really old money and influential, and that to kick her out would upset a lot of U.A.'s business partners. The only reason that she was still in U.A. was because of her family connections.
Momo is angst about this, and begins to speculate that the only reason that she was even allowed into U.A. was because of her family name instead of her own skill. However, Todoroki would soon talk her out of this, revealing that he'd been thinking the same thing about himself before, and when she goes to Midnight for advice, the older heroine would lay it out on the table for her: she could either go the easy, safest way and disband the Future Foundation, ensuring that she still had a successful future in heroics without any additional hassle, or she could keep it together, and face the struggles from all sides that would come with it.
And soon, after a long conversation between her friends, and with a flash of inspiration from Hatsume and advice from Sero and Todoroki, she would decide to go with her heart, and she and Hatsume - who has been tasked, along with the rest of the support department, with trying to replicate the technology of the Sinister Six, that being Scorpion, Rhino, and Mysterio, as well as the forcefield tech that Kraven used - would begin to work on a new project, copying Scorpion and Rhino's exo-shit mechanics to create something magnificent...
A week later, Bakugo and Momo would be paired up for a sparring match, and Bakugo would enter the ring in his hero costume, eager to put Momo in her place and reclaim his position in the class as the top dog.
However, Momo would then enter the ring in a new, shorter hairstyle and a new, armoured costume, one in reds and golds like her old colours, and one with four spiked arms, like spider limbs, jutting from her back.
A helmet would form around her head, and everyone would realise that her new costume was made to mimic that of Spider-Man.
The match would begin and Bakugo would attack, but Momo, protected by her new armoured suit and how its magnetic properties and clawed grips allowed her to stick to walls and other surfaces, and assisted by training that she had received both from Peter in the past and Sero in the present on how to swing around on cables and webs (Hatsume had designed the suit with replicas of Spider-Man's web shooters), the additional defences that the suit gave her in the form of the mechanical limbs on her back, and the guidance of an A.I. that Hatsume had spent her life developing by the name of Karen, Momo would end up running rings around Bakugo and defeating him, claiming victory for the match and gaining her confidence once more.
Her classmates would express a mixture of amazement and befuddlement at her new suit and its design, whilst Aizawa would be angered at this blatant disregard of his wishes with Momo's suit. Asui, meanwhile, would express discontent and worry at its design and the implications behind it. However, when she informs Momo that this would only lead to problems in the future and it would be better to just change it, Momo would not be deterred. Instead, she would be ready to face the challenge head-on. Momo would declare her stance on the matter, declaring that she was not going to disband the Future Foundation, that she wasn't going to bend over for the likes of Bakugo, Asui, the HPSC, or others, and that she would face the challenges that would come to her in the future.
She would declare herself not as Creati, but as Iron Spider, the Creative Hero.
Hey, she already fits the colour scheme, don't you think?
And no, she isn't using the MCU Iron Spider suit, she's using the classic comic book suit. I've never particularly liked the MCU version of the suit, as, to me personally, it has way too much of Spider-Man's original look and colour scheme to differentiate itself, and looks more like someone just replaced the cloth of Peter's old suit with metal and decided to call it a day. The comic book version of the Iron Spider suit looks much more original, so I'm sticking with it.
This arc was focused more on Momo than on Peter or the others outside of U.A. because I really wanted to show Momo coming into her own and becoming her own character outside of Peter. Yes, I know that she decided to do this by adopting Peter's look as a Spider and declaring herself as a Spider as well, so one could consider that she is still a satellite character that revolves around Peter (which I don't want her to be), but I figured that she could make it into her own identity rather then it just tying to Peter as an inspiration from Spider-Man, and it also serves as a statement, a declaration about how she feels about the situation that she has been forced into and how she still considers her friends heroes, even when no one else will.
Plus, I never liked her canon costume, so I figured that I'd give her a nice makeover as well.
Also, one of the key ideas of Momo's little arc here is the deconstruction of the training from hell trope, in that while such rigorous and intensive training does produce excellent warriors, it also imparts onto them a lot of trauma and stress, is generally unhealthy to participate in, and only serves to make the students resent the teachers and mentors who put them through it. Personally, I've never liked the idea of 'training from hell', as I feel that it's very unhealthy and self-destructive, which is why I've always felt some discomfort from the lengths that the students in Class 1-A will go to in order to better themselves, so I thought that I might express them here.
(Also, once again, thank you MadTitan9 for the suggestion about Asui! I've only just realised how much potential she has as a possible antagonist in terms of ideological beliefs and thoughts regarding the rules, as well as a narrative foil to the likes of Peter and his friends as someone who thinks that those who goes against the rules are villains, thanks to them!)
But anyway, let's move on to the next arc, where we shift from one leading lady to another...