And here we are, one of the biggest moments in the Spider-Man mythos, and what will undoubtedly be one of this story's defining moments as well.

I present to you:

The Clone Saga!

At the same time as the previous arc is ending, between travelling between the school and the nearby shops on a snack run, Momo would be attacked by an unknown assailant, and would form her suit around her, protecting her. Assuming this to be a thug hired by her family's enemies in response to her stance on the Future Foundation, Momo would instead be shocked that the person attacking her was instead dressed in a suit similar to hers, only made of cloth and coloured in blacks and reds, with claws, blades under the wrist, and with a spider logo imprinted on both the front and back. Momo would ask if this was Peter, but the assailant, realising that she wasn't who he thought she was, would flee the scene without another word.

Thinking that her attacker may have been Peter, Momo would march over to F.E.A.S.T., demanding answers as to why Peter would attack her. However, Peter and his friends would express confusion, as he had been with them for the whole day, looking after the seemingly resurrected Uncle Ben, who has been growing sicker and sicker over the past week.

And then, in all the confusion, something bursts through the windows of the building and attacks them. A hideous, eight-limbed, six-armed humanoid with four insectoid eyes, razor-sharp teeth and claws, and dressed in an outfit resembling that of Spider-Man's red and blue suit.

The Doppelganger charges at them all with a roar.

Elsewhere, a mutated creature, coloured in blues and reds and calling itself Spidercide, would stumble through the alleyways, unsure and confused as to what is going on. However, it would soon be found by the black and red Spider-Man from before and, after a long fight, killed by him. However, the black and red Spider-Man would then be ordered to assist the others heading to F.E.A.S.T., as multiple escapees had been spotted going that direction. The man would acknowledge and web-swing away, the corpse dissolving into sludge, then nothingness, behind him.

Back in F.E.A.S.T., everyone inside is forced into a chaotic fight for their lives against the rabid, monstrous Doppelganger, the mutant creature throwing itself at opponent after opponent and taking down each and everyone one of them. Thankfully, Momo is able to quickly defeat the Doppelganger with her new suit, pinning it down with her armour's four bladed arms and slamming it into unconsciousness.

Everyone in F.E.A.S.T. would gather around the incapacitated Doppelganger, utterly confused by the sight of this creature and with no explanation as to what it is or why it exists, or why it's wearing the same suit as Spider-Man used to.

However, before any of them can try to figure out what is going on, a voice from the outside would order everyone in the building to step outside, as they are all under arrest. One Kana Kumaneko, the former villain once called Panda-Mania (she has a name in this fic) would poke her head out, and inform the others in a panic that Hawks, the number three hero, was outside, with a small army of pro heroes and robots.

The gathering of former villains, ex-students, civilians, and one current hero student would realise that they were after the Doppelganger, and that they might have something to do with it. Several former villains refuse to be arrested just because they saw too much and get ready to fight, though the others, still trusting of hero society, would refuse to believe that they would be taken away for such a thing. Momo, for her part, would consider the possibility that they could try to negotiate with the heroes, as she is a hero student herself, but Peter instead takes charge of the situation, and orders everyone to hide. He'll take the Doppelganger and surrender it to the heroes, and try to get them to just go away. The others are worried about this course of action, but Peter simply tells them to keep down, in an uncharacteristic display of dominance over the situation (his Symbiote suit, currently shapeshifted into black casual clothing, would ripple at said display).

However, he would be surprised to see Uncle Ben choosing to go outside with him as well, despite hi ailing health, and no matter how much Peter would protest against this, his uncle would be adamant about going out with him, which he would be forced to relent.

So, as all the others inside F.E.A.S.T. would shelter away and hide from sight, Peter and Uncle Ben would walk out of F.E.A.S.T. into the sight of the many cops, Spider-Slayers, and two top ten heroes, throw the Doppelganger to them, thinking that they had come to recover it, and then demand to know what the hell is going on. However, Hawks would simply demand that Peter and Ben put their hands in the air, as they were both under arrest for vigilantism, as was everyone else inside the building. Peter and Ben would try to bluff them and say that no one was inside the shelter with them, but both Endeavor and Hawks could make out that this was a lie.

However, suddenly, All Might would arrive – he had been called over by Momo during her fight against the Doppelganger – and, upon seeing said Doppelganger on the ground, would demand to know what the hell is going on as well, only to be told that he has no authority here by orders of the president of the HPSC, by agents of said organisation accompanying Hawks and the small army of heroes and Spider-Slayers. All Might would protest that they have no police officers with them, and that they have no claim to make an arrest, but the agents would refute that they, as agents, have more than enough clearance to serve a warrant and make an arrest, and order their pro heroes and Spider-Slayers to enter into F.E.A.S.T. and drag everyone outside.

But then, someone would quickly intervene, webbing up Hawks' feathers and waking up the Doppelganger, sending it attacking the Spider-Slayers around it and ripping them to pieces as a distraction.

A woman in a crimson spider costume with a bright white logo, shooting out organic webbing from her fingertips and grabbing Peter and Ben, pulling them away from the army of heroes and robots. Calling herself Spider-Woman, the masked stranger quickly kicks away Hawks and webs him up, ordering him to stay away from Peter and Uncle Ben.

However, Hawks quickly frees himself from the stranger's webbing and attack the three, sparking a battle between those in F.E.A.S.T. and the army of heroes and robots belonging to the HPSC. During this fight, Aunt May ends up proving herself a badass by using a piece of debris from the fight to knock out Doppelganger with a single swing before it can attack her (I'm pulling inspiration for this version of Aunt May from the Ultimates comic universe. Girl literally once pulled a revolver on Eddie Brock, who was also VENOM at the time, and also shot ELECTRO in the chest. Girl's a badass when she wants to be), but is injured during the fighting, and Momo is forced to take her to a hospital, which All Might helps her with, just as he is able to intimidate the others heroes, save for Hawks, into standing down and leaving the people inside F.E.A.S.T. alone.

But not before F.E.A.S.T. is devastated in the aftermath.

In all the confusion, the unknown spider proclaiming herself to be Spider-Woman quickly grabs Peter and Ben and webs away, fleeing the scene with her fellow spider and his uncle in tow. Hawks goes after them, but loses their trail.

Elsewhere, the president of the HPSC is angered at Hawks' report of having lost track of Peter Parker and the clones, and ordered them to be put on the wanted lists, using his previous activity as a vigilante to do so. She is then prompted by the man sitting next to her to have Hawks find the injured May Parker and use her as bait to bring them all together.

Meanwhile, on a rooftop far away from them, Spider-Woman looks around, and finds Ochako and Felicia stumbling through an alleyway and trying to make their way to the F.E.A.S.T. shelter, a bloody man in a red jumpsuit with a blue hoodie in their arms. Jumping down to greet them, and with Peter and Uncle Ben in turn, the Spider-Woman would refer to the man in the jumpsuit as 'Ben' as well, calling him brother, and pulling off his mask to make sure he was still breathing.

He was. He was still alive, and he was still conscious, if only wounded.

He is also almost completely identical to Peter Parker, save for the blonde hair atop his head.

Peter and the others are shocked by this, and Felicia even more so by the sight of Uncle Ben being amongst the living and breathing, to which Peter explains his confusion at that to her as well. Peter and Ochako would then demand answers as to what is going on, and Spider-Woman would begin by pulling down her mask and showing her face.

Hers was a face like Peter Parker's as well, only as a woman.

The others would be hopelessly confused as to what is going on, and the woman that looked so much like Peter Parker would instead direct them inside one of the empty buildings inside, as Hawks and someone by the name of 'Kaine' was hunting them down.

They would slink away inside, and when looking out through the window, they would spot someone web-swinging through the streets. A man dressed in a scarlet and black spider suit. Peter would guess that this was the guy who attacked Momo, and was also this Kaine person. Inside the building now, they would set down the young Peter-lookalike by the name of Ben Reilly (as the female Peter-lookalike would call him), and the female Peter-lookalike would begin to explain.

Her name is Jessica Drew… and she is a clone of Peter. The same as Ben Reilly, the same as the Doppelganger, and the same as Spidercide, Man-Spider, and the dozen other clones that their fellow clone Kaine has been wiping out.

Months ago, when Spider-Man had arrived in Japan, one of his villains had been able to grab some of his blood, some of his DNA, and approached the HPSC with an offer. At first, they had refused and thought the man to be mad, seeing no power in whatever he was preaching when compared to quirks, just as the rest of hero society. But, when they saw Spider-Man defeating the massive colossus that was the mind-controlled Sandman, then seeing the power of the Infinity Gauntlet by the Green Goblin and the technological prowess of the Sinister Six and their minions, they decided to entertain his offer, and gave him the gear and funds that he needed to pursue his aims, as long as he gave them what they wanted, that being an army of programmable, superpowered soldiers and assassins, used to keep the peace in Japan when Hawks and Lady Nagant could not. Nicknaming it the Winter Soldier project, they had not truly thought the villain, nor the project in turn, would ever produce them any results.

But then he did. His science started producing results. He began to grow fully fleshed out clones of Spider-Man, of Peter Parker, clone after clone after clone, all produced one after the other like a factory line.

However, there came a problem with the clone bodies, as while they were physically healthy, that would only last for so long, as the clone bodies would become molecularly unstable and disintegrate into sludge and then nothing after a week without the right medication. Worse yet, while the clones were alive for the short period of time that they had, they also had no brain activity, and were braindead for the time that they were alive.

The HPSC, seeking to find a way to take over the project themselves and not become dependent on the villain's science alone, would try to find their own ways to circumvent their work and try to sort out the issue on their own, first sending David Shield a sample of Green Goblin's blood to see if the mutagenic properties within it could yield an answer to their problems, and when that failed, they kidnapped the mutated David Shield when he arrived on Japan's shores and gave him a temporary version of the antidote to his mutations, with the threat that unless he worked with them to discover how to perfect the cloning process, they would withdraw these treatments and leave him to turn back into the Lizard.

But then, the villain in charge of the project would discover something to help him circumvent the problem.

The Soul Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, which the villain used to awaken and activate the dormant traces of Peter Parker within, turning them into living, breathing, and thinking clones.

However, the newfound sentience within the clones began to cause its own problems as well, as the cognitive dissonance that the clones held over being both Peter Parker and clones of him began to lead to psychological breakdowns on top of the physical, and would lead to various mutations within the clones, such as the case with the Doppelganger and Man-Spider, as well as psychological deviations such as Spidercide. Many of these clones would either have to be put down by the HPSC's guards, or were simply denied the medicines that they needed to survive and were left to wither and rot away.

Only three clones were considered successes, that being Ben Reilly, Kaine Parker, and Jessica Drew, and even then they had their own set of problems. Ben Reilly, while still a good guy and holding himself up to Peter's values, has lost a few of his marbles thanks to the cognitive dissonance between having Peter's memories and knowing that he is a clone of him, Kaine has developed sociopathic tendencies and had become the villain's lackey in guarding and killing the other clones should they step out of line, and Jessica had developed body dysphoria thanks to holding memories of being a boy for years and yet suddenly being a girl now, as well as confusion as to what her identity is and whether anything she feels, like her attraction to women, her various likes and ways of talking and thinking and speaking, and even her entire personality, are her own or inherited from Peter as well, leading to her to adopt a depressive, dour personality.

But then, one day, about a week ago, David, in one of his bouts of lucidity after being given another dose of his temporary cure, succumbed to the guilt of what he was doing and freed the clones from their captivity, causing them to go on a rampage and escape from the facility that was holding them. Many of the clones had died during the escape, but the rest had been able to flee into the urban jungle of the city around them, including Ben and Jessica (though they got separated after a while), and had been trying to hide from Kaine and Hawks ever since.

It is only then that Peter notices how the skin of his clones is beginning to rot and degrade.

At Musufatu's hospital, Momo and All Might stay by Aunt May's side, watching over her as she is treated by the doctors, and All Might takes the time to discuss Momo's choice of name and costume, that being the Iron Spider suit and name. Momo once again states her intentions to keep with the name, as well as her intentions to keep the Future Foundation intact, and All Might congratulates her for her conviction and devotion to her ideals. Soon enough, Inko joins them, as she works as a nurse alongside working at F.E.A.S.T., and All Might and Momo console her on both her friend's injuries and the loss of the F.E.A.S.T. shelter. It is here where we get some teasing of a possible relationship between Inko and All Might, which Momo and even the injured May Parker are able to pick up on.

However, suddenly Hawks arrives at May's room, and announces that he is there to take May into the HPSC's custody. All Might, Inko, and Momo rebel against this and declare that May has done nothing wrong, and even when Hawks makes it clear that this isn't something that he wants to do, the others do not relent. However, they are given no choice, and Hawks takes the still injured May away…

All Might, in his shrunken, disguised form, moves to follow him.

Back with Peter and his friends and clones, Ochako is horrified to think that the HPSC could ever do anything like this, and even Peter and Ben are shaken by this. However, Black Cat is able to spring herself onto her feet from this revelation and ask what they are supposed to do next. Jessica explains that they need to find out who the villain in charge of this operation is and expose them and their connection to the HPSC, but Uncle Ben quickly cuts in and says that they need to get Ben Reilly's wound treated first and foremost. Jessica explains to him that without any of the pills that he and the other clones need to starve off their degradation, Ben will die anyway, but Uncle Ben then insists that they then find the pills, and then they get him treated. Moved by his words, the group decide to do what he says, and they head for the place in which the clones had escaped from, the old cloning facility in the middle of the city.

However, when they arrive, they find that the facility has been destroyed, and that the HPSC has blamed it on a gas explosion, completely destroying all evidence of what has happened within. Worse yet, they cannot find any pills or medicine to help quell the accelerating decay of the clones, meaning that if they don't find anything within the next few hours, they will die.

However, then they are suddenly attacked by Kaine, who goes to town on Peter, Ochako, Felicia, and the clones, tossing Uncle Ben to the side and moving on to beat up the rest, planning on killing the clones and the others to prevent anyone else from speaking out about what they've seen and done tonight. However, the group are able to fend off the attacking clone long enough for him to eventually exhaust himself, all the while they are trying to talk him down.

(During this fight, Uncle Ben displays a confusing amount of strength when he pushes Kaine away from him, throwing him against a wall and leaving a large dent in it. Everyone, even Uncle Ben, had been confused by this, but had little to no time to think about it.)

However, the situation is complicated further by the sudden discovery of one David Shield, halfway through his Lizard transformation, having been locked in the facility when it exploded as punishment for betraying them. David is halfway to rabid, fighting hard against the Lizard's animalistic personality as he tries to flee the sight. However, he is able to grit out to the gathering, still fighting against Kaine, that there is something that he has been making that might help the clones starve off their degradation.

Suddenly, Kaine gets a call on his mask's HUD, and he stops fighting the group and throws out a phone to them. Peter catches it, just as Hawks arrives, emptyhanded, and they are greeted by the sight of the HPSC president addressing them, telling them to surrender themselves into the HPSC's custody immediately…

Or else, May Parker will suffer the consequences.

Realising that the HPSC had their Aunt May hostage, Peter and the others would be forced to surrender, and they would be led away by Hawks and Kaine (dragging an unconscious Lizard by the tail behind him). Arriving at the HPSC, they would be forced onto their knees and dragged in front of a small army of Spider-Slayers and the HPSC president herself…

And the man standing beside her, the villain in charge of the entire cloning operation.

One Doctor Otto Octavius, or rather, Doctor Octopus.

Peter and the others are shocked by this, and ask why the hell the HPSC are working with a criminal mastermind. Otto simply replies that he is no criminal mastermind, but simply a scientist hoping to further his knowledge of the world. The HPSC president, seeing that their victory over the group was assured, would go on to reiterate what Jessica had told them, that Otto Octavius had been brought in to create for them a new breed of hero and super soldier for them to use, and that their Winter Soldier project was to be the next step in heralding in a new age of peace once All Might either retires of dies. However, Ben, in his loopy and quite delirious (blame the blood loss. Partly) state, would correctly guess that, beside just the fact that she and the rest of the Hero Public Safety Commission were perfectly willing to murder people for their own ends, that simply meant killing everyone that stood against the HPSC. They wouldn't even be killing people for the sake of Japan or hero society. Just for the HPSC, and just for herself. The HPSC president would deny this, though in a way that made it clear that she was lying out of the skin of her teeth, but Otto wouldn't even bother to deny it, stating that he doesn't care how the clones are used, only that he himself gets what he wants.

And when Peter asks him what it really is that he wants, Otto simply replies that he wants to make Peter suffer. For too long, Peter had been ruining all his plans back during the days of their own home. Now, he wished to make Spider-Man pay for all of it, and had sought to do so, using the Soul Stone, by making an army of clones for him and using them not just to torture him both mentally and physically, but also discredit him and make him into a villain by using his clones to commit horrific crimes in his name.

He is also the reason why there were so many mutations for the clones. As it turns out, the freak monsters that the Winter Soldier programme had made, such as Doppelganger, Man-Spider, and Spidercide hadn't been accidental. Otto was just feeling spiteful and petty, and wanted to take it out on the clones. He then reveals that one of the clones, who he had rapidly aged just for kicks, had completely broken mentally, and used the acquired memories of Peter Parker within him to create a new identity for himself…

Or rather, mimic an old one, as he indicates to the sickly Uncle Ben.

Uncle Ben is not the real Uncle Ben, but another clone of Peter Parker.

Both Peter, May, and Uncle Ben are horrified by the news of this, and Otto takes the chance to relish the sight of Uncle Ben, Jessica, and Ben Reilly slowly decaying from clone degradation and dying, all the while Kaine, standing at his side, does nothing. Said clone degradation hadn't been his doing, simply a scientific hurdle that he had yet to overcome, but also a good way of controlling the clones if they ever get out of line, but now, if it meant that Peter got to watch not just those that wear his face die, but also see his Uncle Ben wither and die for a second time before his friends and himself dies, then he'd consider it a happy bonus.

Ochako spits out that they will never get away with this, but the HPSC asks that even if anyone of them were able to escape, who would even believe them and their outlandish stories against them?

And then All Might bursts through the room, eyes narrowed and his face in a frown, stating that he will believe them.

Behind them, an army of heroes are at his back, alongside Momo in her Iron Spider suit, and leading them is Adriana Soria, who states that under the orders of the Japanese Diet, the HPSC president and all her staff are to be arrested.

The president panics, and orders Hawks to defend her. However, Hawks, seeing as he no longer has anything tying himself down to the HPSC, abandons her and speeds away. In anger, the president orders all the heroes and fighters still under the HPSC's command, as well as the Spider-Slayers that David Shield and Otto Octavius had designed together, to defend her as she escapes.

Soon enough, a battle between the heroes would begin, resulting in a brief Hero Civil War (all caps, it's that serious). In the confusion, the HPSC president is grabbed by All Might and detained before he takes May and gets her to safety, whilst Otto grabs both the Lizard and Kaine and flees, prompting Peter and his friends and clones, now including Momo, chase after them.

Down in the lower basement levels of the HPSC's main headquarters, Otto Octavius moves to escape with his research, but is cut off by Peter and his friends. Peter, enraged at Otto and with the Symbiote now covering him in his black suit and fuelling his strength and emotions, attacks the mad scientist whilst Kaine, the Spider-Slayers down below, and a worsening David Shield attacks the others.

However, during the fight, David Shield, in one last bout of lucidity, is able to get out to Uncle Ben that, in their backup lab in the HPSC's building, he had been able to do what Otto couldn't and create a cure to the clone's degradation, and that if injected into them, it could preserve the clones and stop their decay forever, saving their lives. Then, he is completely consumed by the Lizard's personality and attacks, whilst Uncle Ben, with this new hope in mind, races to David's secondary lab to grab the cure.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus continue to wail on each other, with Peter even using the Symbiote suit to tear off one of Otto's four metal arms and hit him with it. It is then that Otto reveals that making Peter suffer wasn't the only reason that he'd been making clones of him.

Otto has been diagnosed with cancer, and he had been hoping to transfer his consciousness into a clone body, take Peter Parker's place, and prove that he could be a better Spider-Man, a superior Spider-Man, than Peter ever could be.

Enraged even further at this, Peter ends up giving the symbiote further control over himself to wail on Otto, but is stopped by Momo before he can give any finishing blow, lethal or nonlethal, and reminded that they needed to cure David to give Izuku back the Symbiote suit, give him back One for All, and that she couldn't fight the Lizard on her own. She then reveals that in the time since I-Island, she had been working with the support department to engineer a cure for David's condition, and that she had swung by U.A. to grab it on her way to the HPSC building.

But then Peter snatches the cure away from her and moves to take on the Lizard himself, and Momo is forced to content with Otto whilst the Jessica and Ben battle against Kaine and Ochako, Momo, and Felicia deal with the remaining Spider-Slayers.

Meanwhile, Uncle Ben is busy in David's lab, practically tearing open the walls to try and find the cure. Thankfully, soon he finds it.

However, there's only enough of the serum to fit into three injectors. Making his choice, Uncle Ben runs out into the battlefield with the injectors, saying to Jess and Ben that he's taken one himself and handing them their own.

They inject the serum into themselves, and they feel their cellular degeneration not just stop, but also begin to reverse itself, bringing them back up to strength. Resolving to save their fellow clone, essentially their brother, the clones try to stab Kaine with the injector, but he fights back against them, not believing them and still believing that Otto is the only person that holds the possibility of being able to keep living.

However, eventually, they are able to inject Kaine with the serum, and when he feels the cellular degeneration reverse him to a healthy state, he realizes that he is no longer beholden to Otto or the HPSC, and joins his fellow clones in assisting Momo in beating down Doctor Octopus.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man continues to battle against the rampaging Lizard, at first trying to appeal to David's good nature, trying to remind him about who he once was and his daughter, Melissa, as well, but then, as the battle continues, he begins to chastise David for his lack of strength, and how he was too weak to stop himself from becoming the Lizard, shocking those who hear it.

Finally, Spider-Man is able to administer Momo's cure to the Lizard, pacifying him and knocking him unconscious. Unfortunately, it only has a partial effect, as while it restores his mental faculties to what it once was, it does not restore his body to its natural state, and he is stuck in his Lizard form for possibly the rest of his life.

With the fight over, the heroes finish off the rest of the Spider-Slayers, just as the clones finish beating down and incapacitating Doctor Octopus. Momo quickly begins to chastise Peter, demanding to know why she had left him on his own to fight against Otto Octavius, a villain who could've killed her, even with her new Iron Spider suit, only to be shocked when Peter coldly remarks that he knew she could handle it, which is definitely uncharacteristic of Peter.

But then, before the conversation can go anywhere, the elderly clone that wears the face of Uncle Ben kneels over and begins to cough, the cellular degeneration finally beginning to take its toll. As it turns out, he had lied about having taken a injector of the serum to cure his decay, or that there was a fourth injector as well. He just didn't want to worry the others, and he wanted to save them.

In the confusion, Otto makes his move and escapes, fleeing into the lower depths of the building and then out, where no one can find him. Momo, Ochako, and Felicia try to chase after him, but eventually lose him, forcing them to come back up and carry the incapacitated David, still in his mutant Lizard form, back to the surface of the building.

Peter and his clones pull up the rapidly decaying Uncle Ben, and follow them upwards.

Meanwhile, up on the surface, the battle between the HPSC's men and robots and All Might's army of heroes continues on, with both All Might and Adriana forced to contend with the many grunts of the now defunct agency. However, Adriana is able to (somehow) compel the heroes working with the HPSC into standing down and surrendering, and once All Might destroys the last of the Spider-Slayers, they end the battle, allowing All Might to jump back into the HPSC's headquarters and search for the Spiders.

He doesn't have to go far, as they all come out through the central entrance to the building, carrying an unconscious Lizard and a dying Uncle Ben in their arms.

As May Parker rushes to join them up at the front of the cooling battlefield, Peter and his clones cry out to get their not-uncle to a hospital, only for him to gently ask them to put him down onto the ground. They do, and he simply tells them that there's nothing that can be done about it now, and that they shouldn't blame themselves for things that aren't their fault.

As he dies, Uncle Ben tells Aunt May that he is sorry that he isn't the real Uncle Ben, but he knows that he is looking down on her, and is with her and loving her from even beyond the grave. He tells his fellow clones, Jessica, Ben, and Kaine, that even though they started out differently than others, that they can still be great with the new freedom that they have. And then he tells Peter that, even know he's not the real one, that Uncle Ben would be proud of the man that he has become, but reminds him that, whenever he sinks away to those darkest corners of his mind, that he is not alone, and that there are people out there willing to stand in his corner.

And finally, he tells Peter, to always remember, above all else, that great power comes with great responsibility.

And then, he dies, fading away to ash, and then to nothing.

And Peter Parker cries out to the heavens, having lost Uncle Ben for a second time…

In the aftermath of the battle and the reveal of the Winter Soldier programme, the Hero Public Safety Commission is disbanded and swallowed whole by the Japanese Diet, and dozens of heroes and staff involved with the organisation, including the HPSC president herself, are tried and arrested. Meanwhile, Hawks is investigated for his part in the HPSC's crimes, but upon seeing his backstory and how he was sold to the HPSC as a child and trained to become their private assassin, he is acquitted for their crimes, but moved down the hero rankings considerably (which Hawks doesn't mind, as he hated being in the top ten heroes anyway).

Elsewhere, the remaining assets of the HPSC, including the Mind Stone, are gathered by the government, whilst their research into cloning and genetic manipulation are put under analysis by scientists and representatives from I-Island, with the intent to use it in hospitals for regrowing limbs and organs for patients. However, this has received pushback by certain circles of doctors, mostly those who use their quirks for such things, as such technology might put them out of a job. The Winter Soldier programme is dissolved and covered up, though rumour begins to spread about said project amongst the people of hero society. However, when the people hear the whispers of cloning beyond quirks and the power that a gem stone had given to those in charge of it, they were quickly dismissed as unbelievable.

The Mind Stone, meanwhile, is taken away to somewhere that only a few people will know.

Meanwhile, the Lizard, David Shield, is placed in confinement until the authorities can determine whether he is lucid enough for questioning. His daughter, Melissa, is contacted to let her know that she has been found, and she travels to Japan, with the intent on moving into All Might's apartment until her father can either recover or be cured of his mutations.

All across Japan, the repercussions of the HPSC's corruption, and the battle between heroes that followed in its wake, has shaken Japan's faith in hero society to its very core. In response, the media has highlighted All Might's participation in the battle and how he had fought against the HPSC's corruption, shifting even more faith back onto him as their symbol of peace, and pillar of society. Time will tell if this is a good or bad thing.

Doctor Otto Octavius has not been found. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

In the meantime, for her part in the battle and convincing the HPSC's heroes to surrender to the authorities, Adriana Soria has been promoted up the ranks once more, and placed in charge of reorganising the remaining assets and personnel that had once belonged to the HPSC, both its army of Spider-Slayers and all its heroes and staff who were judged as liable to walk, and told to assist in rebuilding the connections that the defunct agency once had with both the government and the various hero agencies across the country and abroad. This may very well have made her into one of the most powerful individuals in Japan, and her reach will only continue to grow as her operation begins.

But none of that is on the minds of all the people who have worked at the F.E.A.S.T. shelter as they gather around and pick through its remains. All they can think about is whatever they are supposed to do now.

For his part, Kaine is furious at how so many people in the HPSC were allowed to walk without any trial, and considers Adriana to be as corrupt as the rest of them, just another politician seeking to manipulate those around her for her own gain. He also expresses disgust at how the whole of Japan seems to be blindly worshiping All Might and the heroes, and how so many of them seem to be unwilling to ask any questions about them should the need arise, even when the evidence of how wrong they are is revealed, such as when the heroes battled against each other, or how a villain was running part of their operations. When they discover that the president of the HPSC is receiving only a mere ten years in prison due to her connections, he decides that he wants no part in playing by hero society's rules and calls out Peter for doing so, declaring that Uncle Ben died a second time because of them, and he wasn't going to stand by and let anymore injustice continue just because Peter had gone soft. He takes his red and scarlet costume and leaves, and Peter, locked in a depressive state, can only tell Kaine good luck, and ask him not to kill anyone.

Kaine gives him no promises and leaves, eventually meeting up with Shocker and his Enforcers, and becoming their leader.

Back at the ruins of F.E.A.S.T., Peter leaves, and Momo trails after him to find him on a nearby rooftop, completely covered in his Symbiote suit and looking over the remains of the shelter where so many people had stayed. Momo tries to talk to him, but he coldly interrupts her by recounting the first death of Uncle Ben, how, in his early days, he had used his powers for selfish gain as a cage wrestler, only for him to let go of a mugger that would then shoot and kill Uncle Ben. He recounts how he had held his uncle in his arms as he died, and then had tracked down the man who shot him and had almost beaten him to death for it. Momo assumes that that meant that he had realised how wrong it was to kill someone and how he was better than that, only for Peter to correct her and say that it was Harry and Gwen, the two people that he'd known since they were children, who stopped him, not himself, and gave him that revelation. Momo tries to tell him that it was because they knew him, but Peter simply, darkly, asks if all they did was hold him back.

Direct action, that's what he calls it… and wonders if Kaine was right. He wonders if he should be more like that now, if he should stop being so soft.

Momo is shocked to hear this, and Peter declares that he's done being beholden to hero society's rules, that from now on, he was going to save people no matter what, and he was going to do it his way, regardless of the consequences.

He was going to make sure that any villain or criminal that ever tried to hurt another person would know nothing but pain.

Momo, in her shocked state, tries to talk him down, but it's too late. Peter invites her to try and stop him, and swings away, his black suit masking him in the darkness of the night, and making him seem more menacing than ever.

And elsewhere, Ochako is approached by two police officers, and told some horrifying news:

Her mother and father are dead. A villain by the name of the Tinkerer has killed them.

Plot twist after plot twist after plot twist, they all just keep piling up!

Yeah, so, Ochako's parents are dead now. Big oop. Let's hope that this doesn't possibly drive her down a dark path in the future...

But anyway, moving on, one can tell that a lot of this arc's inspiration came not from the original Clone Saga storyline, but from the Ultimate Spider-Man continuity (a lot of inspiration for this universe and its rendition of the characters came from the Ultimates Spider-Man universe, actually. Think of this universe as a blend between the Ultimates and the 616 main timeline), with Jessica being a clone and Doctor Octopus being the one behind it all, and the circumstances that led to the clones escaping before rallying back to battle Doctor Octopus, as well as Peter's home being attacked by Spider-Slayers and the like.

However, there are also some differences that I added to make it more interesting, such as the HPSC being brought down, Felicia, Ochako, and Momo's involvement in the madness, Uncle Ben being here instead of Richard Parker, Ben Reilly and Kaine being part of the action as versions of their 616 counterparts, the Lizard being thrown into the mix, the heroes fighting against each other, F.E.A.S.T., Adriana Soria's part to play in all of this, Doctor Octopus' additional motivation, other clones being thrown into the mix like Spidercide and Doppelganger, Man-Spider being made into a clone, and, most importantly, the idea of the clones degrading and the addition of the Black Suit into the mix.

But yeah, in this arc, I've introduced Uncle Ben to Peter and May, only to kill him again later on. Now if that isn't some next tier level Parker suffering, then I don't know what is. Jokes aside, this choice in the narrative is important to Peter's story. Need I remind you all that he is wearing the Black Suit? This part of the story is going to affect a lot of his decision making in the near future, trust me.

This arc was fun to write out, as I had to do quite a bit of research and background checking to look up the different clones of Spider-Man and how they could play into this rendition of the arc. It was inevitable that, in a story like this, that we would have to cover the Clone Saga, or at least something similar to this, so let's hope that I did it as much justice as I could.

There was a part of me early on that was going to have the Jackal, Miles Warren, being the antagonist of this arc like he was in the original Clone Saga, but that idea didn't work well in my head, as I had plans for Doctor Octopus in the future that I feel wouldn't have been earned if he wasn't in this arc, and it would've also meant dealing with the Jackal's baggage as he had been a professor in love with Gwen Stacy, his student, and- you see why I didn't bother with including Jackal, there's just way too much there for me to want to deal with.

But anyway, keep your eyes sharp, as this arc is going to have long term consequences for the entirety of the rest of the story. There're still possibly a clone or two out there that's unaccounted for, the HPSC has been disbanded, more and more faith is being pushed onto All Might, and the players in the background are beginning to peer through the cracks of hero society in order to take advantage of the chaos that is to come...

But first, Peter and the Black Suit needs to be dealt with.

(I've got to disappear for a day or two to get the next few batch of arc-chapters sorted out, but I'll be back soon enough, don't worry.)