The Bite
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Nick groaned in his bed when he heard his alarm clock going off. He spent another day staying up overnight studying for an upcoming test. He reached out and tried to turn it off, but ended up missing. It wasn't until the fifth try that he finally managed to hit the snooze button.
Nick crawled out of his bed and got dressed. Nick Styles was a young man with light short brown hair, wearing a red jacket over a blue shirt, and had white sneakers on. After he finally got dressed, he made his way down stairs to his parents sandwich shop.
Nick and his mom and dad had lived in Gotham for their entire lives and decided to open up a sandwich shop in order to pay the bills. It wasn't a luxurious life, but it was an honest living.
His parents were currently behind the counter of the stores preparing some sandwiches about to be delivered. His mother, Pam Styles, was a woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes, and his father, Billy Styles, was a man who had hair almost like Nick's but he had glasses on.
"Well, look who decided to wake up." Billy said jokingly.
"Sorry, I spent a little too much time studying for a test next week." Nick said as he went in the back where the kitchen was to make a quick batch of toast.
"The test isn't next week, sweetie." Pam said, feeling worried about her son overworking himself. "You really should learn to pace yourself."
"It's like my professor says mom." Nick said as he came out of the kitchen with a toast in his hand. "It's never too early to prepare for success."
"Well, today you should prepare for school." Billy said ruffling his son's hair.
"Got it dad." Nick said as he grabbed his backpack. He checked inside to make sure that he had all his books, and after seeing he did, he made his way to the door. "I'll see you guys when I come home. I'll let you know how the field trip went down."
"Oh, that's right, I forgot you were going on a field trip today." Pam realized. "Where are you and your class visiting again?"
"We're going to the R&D division of the WaynePowers corporation." Nick answered.
"Well, just make sure that you come he on time." Billy said.
"Don't worry dad, I will. Love you!" Nick called out as he exited the sandwich shop. He never noticed the worried glances that his parents gave each other.
Nick hopped onto his scooter and made his way to school. As he was driving, he couldn't help but look around the city that he called home. It was dark and bleak and some people mainly saved up as much money as they could to get out of this city. Still, he couldn't help but enjoy the atmosphere this city had to offer; it just means that the days are never ordinary.
That doesn't always mean it's a good thing though. Crime was always at an all time high and people were sometimes afraid to walk out in the city, whether it be day or night. It's too bad that they don't have Batman watching over them anymore.
He's heard the stories of the mysterious Dark Knight of Gotham that protected this city decades ago, but for some reason he disappeared. Now with him gone, crime has nothing to fear anymore.
Nick stopped pondering these thoughts when he spotted his school, Hamilton Hill High School. He parked his scooter up front and made his way to his class. After making his way to his locker he saw two of his friends Terry McGinnis and his girlfriend Dana Tan.
"Hey Nick!" Dana called.
"Hey guys." Nick greeted as he and Terry fist bumped. "Any of you guys excited about the school trip today?"
"Eh, not really." Terry shrugged.
"What? But this is the chance to see the scientific developments of a lifetime." Nick said, thinking that Terry was crazy.
"Well, we can't all be geniuses like you." Terry said with a smirk.
Nick chuckled as he got out his books and made his way to class, but not long after a foot stretched out in front of him and tripped him up. Nick fell face first with a grunt and grumbled, knowing exactly who did that.
"Guess you wanted to go on that trip early, Styles." Nelson Nash, the school hotshot and bully, said with a chuckle and walked away.
Dana and Terry walked up to Nick and helped him up. "You alright man." Terry asked with concern.
"Nothing I haven't been through before." Nick sighed out.
"Someone needs to do something." Dana said as she frowned at Nelson.
"It's alright, karma gets everyone eventually." Nick said as he got up.
Things throughout the school day went about as normal as it usually did. It wasn't until the day was halfway done when the gathering for the school trip was underway. The students made their way to the school bus and eventually they were off to their destination.
Terry sat down next to Nick and saw that he was working on something on his computer. Terry saw what it was he was looking at and couldn't help but chuckle. "You're still obsessed with that sort of thing?" Terry joked.
Nick couldn't help but pout at his friend's joke. Nick was currently looking up old pictures of when the famous Batman was fighting his greatest rogues, such the Scarecrow, Penguin, and Killer Croc.
"It's not an obsession, it's research." Nick defended.
"Why do you always research this? The Batman hasn't been seen in decades and is probably dead." Terry said.
"If I can at least find out what happened to him, then maybe he can help this city again somehow." Nick said as he looked out the window and stared into the city. "My grandfather used to tell me about the days when this city used to feel safe, back during the days of Batman. Now that he's gone, this city is in pure chaos."
"That's just Gotham, Nick." Terry said. "This city's always going to be a nightmare to live in."
"Yeah, well, hopefully someday that'll change." Nick said without looking away from the window.
It may seem like an obsession, but Nick really did care about looking for any clues about the whereabouts of Batman. He truly cared about this city, from seeing all the history it held and the attitude it held. However, living in this his entire life, he has seen things like the Joker gang running rampant and doing anything they wanted to cause people misery.
Maybe, just maybe, he might find a clue on how to help this city from the legendary Batman. He wasn't thinking about becoming a vigilante like Batman, but he might know a way to help this city.
The bus finally stopped at the WaynePowers building and were being escorted through the R&D department. They were being introduced to all the different forms of new technology they were developing.
The head scientist turned towards the students to address. "And right here is an old project of ours, but a rather interesting one." He gestured his hands to multiple glass containers, each of them containing a spider. "These spiders have been genetically engineered to not only enhance their natural capabilities, but install some new ones as well."
"What are these new capabilities?" Nick asked.
"An excellent question young man."
Everyone turned to the direction that voice came from and spotted the chairman of the board himself, Derek Powers. "These spiders have been given various genetic changes that help them become stronger, faster, healthier. Imagine what humanity can do if we somehow give them these exact changes."
"That sounds amazing, but how will you be able to safely recreate the procedure so that it safely accepts the human DNA and not the spider DNA?"
"Sadly, we're not at that stage yet." Powers said in disappointment. "These thirty-two are still being tested on."
"Excuse me, sir?" A blonde-haired girl standing next to Dana, Chelsea if Nick remembered correctly. "But I counted, and I only see thirty-one spiders."
Powers looked genuinely surprised and inspected one of the containers. Sure enough, one of the spiders was missing. "Well, I'm sure that one of my workers must have taken it for research."
During all of this, no one noticed that up above, on a web on the ceiling, was the missing spider. It was a large blue and red spider and it just stayed on its web completely motionless. It's eyes moved from one student to the next, but it stopped when it's multiple eyes spotted Nick and locked onto him. It shot out a web and slowly climbed down to Nick's level. It crawled along his shoulder, made its way down his arm, and stopped at the base of his hand. Nick never noticed it, and when the spider saw the boy's flesh, it jabbed its fangs into the boy's flesh.
"Ow!" Nick cried out and swiped his hand. Nick gazed at the bite mark and saw the dead spider lying down onto the ground. Nick's vision started to blurry and he began feeling woozy. It was so bad that he felt like he was about to throw up, but luckily, he was able to control himself.
"Hey man, you okay?" Terry said as he saw his friend leaning on the wall all sweaty. "You don't look so good."
"Yeah...I'm fine. I just need to rest up." Nick groaned out.
"Well come on, everyone's getting back on the bus. You can rest up there." Terry said as he pointed to the students leaving the building.
"Yeah, sure." Nick groaned out as he made his way out with the others.
/
After finally making his way home, though it was difficult to ride his scooter due to how he was feeling, Nick walked through the front door of his family's sandwich shop.
He saw his mother just finishing up an order for a customer. "Here you go. One turkey, roast beef, and tuna sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise." She said after giving the guy his sandwich. She saw her sin walk in, but grew concerned when she saw him not looking well. "Welcome home Nick, are you feeling alright?"
"Not really mom." Nick said as he went upstairs and made his way to his room. "I think I'm just going to go lay down and turn in for the night."
"Alright, but don't you want me to make you something?" Pam asked in concern.
"No thanks, but thank you though." Nick said as he finally made his way to his room.
The moment he entered his room he just dropped his backpack without any care and slumped into his bed. He pulled the covers over him even though he was feeling extremely sweaty. He felt like his entire body numb, yet it was on fire at the same time. After what felt like a painful eternity, he finally was able to get some sleep.
/
Derek Powers stared at the group of scientists that studied the dead body of one of his genetically engineered spiders. After the student of that field trip pointed out that one of them was missing, he sent his workers to try and find it.
"And you have no idea how this one perished." Powers asked stoically.
"I'm sorry sir, but the data is unknown. It may have been too old, or the genetic change may have slowly deteriorated it." The scientist said with a hint of fear. The scientist was a little heavy, had brown combed over hair, and had goggles over his head. He knew what his boss would do if he failed, so it was no wonder he was a little afraid if his boss became disappointed.
But to his surprise, his boss just sighed and didn't even raise his voice like he didn't care. "Oh well, easy come easy go."
"Sir?" The scientist asked in confusion.
"Otto, that project was doomed to fail from the beginning. Even the old staff back when Wayne used to be in charge couldn't crack the code. It was all in the past, we must look to the future." Powers said as he walked away. "Speaking of, how goes our other little project?"
"We have just finished the plant testing stage, and it was a success." Otto said.
"Excellent, it's time we move up in the testing." Powers said with an evil smirk. "I've got a lot of buyers looking forward to this, and I would hate to disappoint them."
/
In honor of Stan Lee. Excelsior!
Hey everybody, I've got a new story here for you guys. This story came to mind when I saw Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, which was glorious! And so, I decided to take my own spin on my own different Spider-Man.
This story will take place in the Batman Beyond show, but before Batman appears my OC character will take on the mantle of Spider-Man. I love stories where Batman and Spider-Man team up, so I thought I would try my hand at it, but instead of traditional Bruce Wayne I wanted to try Terry instead.
So get ready everybody, this is going to be a wild ride. Join us next time on chapter 2...Great Power.
