Chapter 21
*Throat clearing noise*
Peter looked up to see a (stone-faced?) red-head standing in front of them.
"MJ?" Peter asked politely.
MJ flashed the group a slight smile before taking a seat right next to Gwen. "Sorry we're late," she said as she's taking a seat with Glory & Betty following after her.
"Yeah, Ms. Douglas's class went on for quite a bit just now," Harry sighed softly as he took a seat right next to Peter. "So, what were you guys talking about?"
"Gwen was aski-," Ned started to reply.
"N-Nothing!" Gwen immediately stood up to stop Ned from continuing his words. "Ahaha, it's nothing really," Gwen waved it away awkwardly.
Peter and the others blinked their eyes in surprise for a few moments at Gwen's antics. For a split-second, Peter thought he caught MJ looking his way, but by the time he turned towards her, MJ continued staring at her fingers expressionlessly.
"So, you have a movie for me?" Liz suddenly chimed in jokingly, turning the groups attention towards MJ.
"Hmm? Oh yeah, sure," MJ smiled as she took a bite out of her lunch momentarily, before turning back towards them.
"You're supposed to reply with 'Yes sir, I do,'," Glory muttered under her breath, which earned a snicker from Ned.
MJ smirked along playfully. "Sorry," she apologized towards Glory, before scrunching up her face and taking a deep breath.
"Guys, I…, uhh, I've been thinking," she hesitated for a moment, trying to find the right words to say. "With Gwen being back and all, and the concert went pretty well, you know," MJ continued. "Oh, uhm, it's about the band,"
"Red, you're not making sense right now," Betty sighed heavily, before taking a bite out of her lunch. "Take a deep breath & calm down girl,"
Gwen tapped her on her shoulders and gave her a reassuring smile. "Take your time, it's cool," she reassured MJ.
MJ chewed her lips for a moment, before letting out a deep sigh. "I wanna go all-in on the band," MJ said firmly. Afterwards, she turned to look at the others to gauge their reactions.
"I might be a bit biased, but I think we've got what it takes to make it big," MJ continued. "I mean, the reviews from what I've heard are great, and the three of you are the most talented girls I've ever played with in my-,"
"That's it?" Glory raised her eyebrows quizzically at the now flushed red-head.
MJ stuttered for a few moments at the sudden interruption. "I-I just thought that if-," she said, looking slightly unsure of herself.
Betty shrugged her shoulders dismissively. "Of courseee…, we all just 'love' to waste all that time playing in your garage, just for 'fun'," she scoffed, which earned her a confused frown from MJ.
MJ opened her mouth slowly, then closed it again, too stunned and confused to say anything.
Gwen chuckled softly at her friends' antics, before chiming in. "I think what she meant is, yes MJ, we think so too," Gwen smirked to herself. "We've always been in it for the long run,"
For a moment, MJ's face turned from one of disbelief, to relief, and then to one of excitement.
"I've been following up on other gig opportunities! And the 'Floorboard' gig really opened up a lot of opportunities for us," she explained hurriedly. "And I've uh, I've been showing the concert reel that Harry & Peter worked on to some of my guys, and I've asked them to show-,"
"Woah, hold up," Betty stopped MJ mid-sentence. "We have a showreel?"
"Oh, uhm, yeah, Peter & Harry worked on it over the weekend," MJ quickly explained.
The other 3 girls blinked in surprise, and turned to look at both of the boys.
Harry started getting flustered at the attention now being given to him. "Uhm, I uh, have it stored on my phone if you want to take a look," he took out his phone & handed it over to the girls.
"I mean, I know you asked Peter to come up with something the other day, but wow…," Gwen trailed off, as she turned her attention towards the video.
"I thought you were involved in that whole accident with Gwen in the lab, no?" Betty asked inquisitively.
"Oh, uh, not really, no," Peter waved away his involvement sheepishly. "I wasn't even there, you know? It's just Gwen that was involved," Peter continued. "And MJ & Harry helped a lot with the video,"
"This is pretty good," Betty nodded along as she watched the 4-minute reel. "How did you get the audio to be so clear?"
"Wait, Harry was recording with his phone, wasn't he? How did he get these shots," Gwen rewinds it to some of the previous angles from before.
"I asked MJ to check if the place had recordings of the show that we could use. Turns out 'Married with Sea Monsters' already set up their recording gear, so we just asked if we could borrow some of their footage for us to use," Harry explained
"They were pretty chill about it," MJ nodded along, her arms crossed on her body.
"Woah this is sick. Keep this up, and you'll have another hottie crushing on you my dude," Glory chuckled playfully as she watched the video.
"Yeah well, I talked to Harry over the weekend, and we thought maybe we could help you set up your own recording setup for your next gig. Cause, you know, I think we got lucky that the band after you was recording," Peter explained. "Cause otherwise, all we'd have is some choppy, shaky phone recording, eh?" Peter joked around playfully.
The awkward silence after, was almost physically painful for him. Gwen sat there with her eyes glued towards the phone (her cheeks turning slightly red?), and MJ having turned towards the other table, her face completely hidden from Peter, seemingly missing his joke entirely.
Harry inexplicably blinked back at him in confusion, seemingly distracted, before laughing awkwardly at Peter, joined by another awkward laugh coming from Liz.
"A-haha, y-yeah, uhm, yeah Pete," Harry mumbled along.
Peter turned towards Ned in confusion, who shrugged his shoulders, looking as oblivious and confused as he was.
Glory, who eventually realized the slightly awkward air around them, raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Was it something I said?"
*Computer Beeping Noise*
"Yo, did you see the TGS announcement last weekend?" Ned asked. "Crisis Core Reunion looks sick,"
Peter chuckled along. "Yeah, I did. But I'm more hyped by the SF6 trailer," Peter remarked, as he plopped down onto Ned's bed. "The full roster looks fun,"
Ned turned excitedly towards Peter. "Bro! Juri man! She looks sick as-,"
"Boys, here's some orange juice," Ned's grandmother suddenly entered the room with a tray of orange juices.
"Lola, you don't have to," Ned groaned as he sees his grandmother enter their room. "If we wanted drinks, we could go & get it ourselves downstairs,"
"Nonsense," Ned's grandmother brushed him away. "In this house, we serve our guests, the correct way,"
"It's really okay Lola, I don't mind," Peter smiled sheepishly as he takes the tray of drinks from her hands. "I think Ned's just worried about you,"
"He's 60 years too early to start worrying about someone like me," she firmly waved away their concern before turning to leave the pair of them in the room.
"Anong gusto mong kainin?" she turned towards them before leaving.
"Ah, Salamat pero kakakain ko lang," Peter answered.
"Ooh, Mabilis kang matuto," Ned's grandmother beamed towards him, impressed. "Ipagpatuloy mo lang 'yan,"
"Okay Lola, Salamat," Ned said as he shoos his grandmother away. "I need to work on something with Peter now," he continued, before closing the door.
Peter chuckled away at his friend's antics, as Ned plopped down onto his chair, in front of the computer.
"Now then, where's the USB you wanted me to decrypt," Ned said, spinning around on his chair.
"Ooh, yeah, sure," Peter said, as he took a sip from the juice. He took out the drive from his bag pack and passed it to Ned. "There you go,"
Ned casually rolls it on his hand to get a better look at it. "Is this full of porn Pete? Is that why its encrypted," Ned snickered at his own off-handed remark. "Encryption, hah," Ned muttered under his breath, shaking his head.
Peter quickly got up from the bed and leaned over Ned's shoulder to get a better look the screen.
"Someone's eager," Ned remarked, whilst casually accessing a program he had installed on his computer. "We'll just run it through a reverse RSA algorithm decryption software. That should do the trick," Ned explained whilst typing on his keyboard.
"I thought you can't decrypt a public key without the private key?" Peter asked.
"Hmmm? No no, the public key is used to encrypt the message, you need the private key to decrypt whatever message that you then received from the public key encryption," Ned explained.
"Right, but you'd still need the private key to break an encryption, no?"
Ned nodded, before turning to take a sip from the juice that was served. "Well, yeah, but that's just an issue with cracking the algorithm. If you can crack the RSA Algorithm, you can figure out the paired keys generated," Ned explained. "It doesn't automatically cracks the encryption though, but it does reduce the amount of time needed to break it," he continued. "Cause now instead of going through 2 sextillion possibilities, you're already narrowing it down to around to a few millions,"
Peter nodded along; his eyes firmly glued on the monitor in front of him. "Right, so tht means, a few hours?"
Ned cocked his head to one-side to consider Peter's words. "Probably not. Public Encryption has a few standard algorithm that we can plug in first to try & reverse it," Ned shrugged. "It probably wont take any longer than a few mins,"
*phone beeping noise*
"Yeah, what is it, Ned?" Peter said, his voice slightly strained from swinging through the streets.
"I cracked it, finally," Ned said, sounding a bit smug from over the phone.
"Nice!"
"Man, I don't know what your blind friend is telling you, but this shit is insane," Ned remarked. "This is PMC level encryption. This is military-grade stuff Pete," he continued, sounding a bit worried.
Peter felt a pang of guilt, fearing that he might've involved his best friend into something dangerous.
"Listen Ned-,"
"But whatever it was, it's a dud," Ned continued, seemingly chewing some snacks from behind the phone.
Peter scrunched up his face in confusion from behind his mask. "A dud?"
"Yeah, there's nothing in here," Ned said casually. "To be more exact, this is a private key generator,"
"Huh?" Peter blinked in surprise, momentarily losing his concentration as he misjudged a swing and almost slammed into a glass.
"Sorry lady!" He yelled back apologetically at the surprised lady who was looking over her balcony.
"You okay there Pete?"
"Y-yeah, peachy," Peter reassured his friend, before perching on top of a nearby building. "Don't worry, I wanna talk more about the drive,"
"O-Oh, ok," Ned sounded a bit doubtful, before continuing. "What it means is that this drive is only usable, to access some other encryption, at some other places,"
"What? Why?"
"I don't know, you tell me," Ned replied. "You're the one that took this from some blind friend of yours. Ask him where he got this from," Ned continued. "Ohh, do you think its some kind of company investment secret that your friend stole from his workplace? Man, this is so sick,"
Peter lets out a soft sigh, before shaking his head. "I doubt it," Peter said defeatedly. "He, uhh, also got it from someone else, but we don't know where the original owner is for us to ask anything,"
"Huh, I see," Ned replied, a slight unsure tone seeping into his voice.
"Listen Ned, can you, uhh, hold onto it for now, I'll drop by & take it back la-,"
"It's ok, I'll just hand it back to you tomorrow morning," Ned said off-handedly. "During class,"
For a moment, Peter hesitated, before eventually agreeing with Ned. "Ok sure, tomorrow morning then," Peter relented.
"Ok Pete, I'll see you tomorrow then," Ned said dismissively before hanging up the phone.
Peter took a few moments to weigh the risk towards Ned, before letting out a deep sigh, and swinged away from his perch. He started to consider the information Ned had given him while instinctively swinging to his preferred rooftop perch.
'If its something Fisk is trying to steal, I doubt its from his own company,' Peter started thinking to himself. 'Rival company? The Maggia? No, they're too old-fashioned for something this hi-tech,'
Peter landed on his favorite rooftop and scanned the surroundings for any ongoing crimes nearby. At the same time, his mind slowly considered the possibilities to crack the issue Ned had presented to him.
'What if we just gave it back to Fisk? Would that work? In the first place, is it even necessary to meddle into this?' Peter mulled over his thought process. 'Maybe Daredevil knows better about this…,'
*Thwip*
Suddenly, a blur of black & white flashed in front of him, catching him by surprise.
Peter blinked in surprise for a few moments, before recognising the girl in front of him.
"Woah, almost didn't recognise you there," Peter remarked, silently admiring the new costume she had on her.
"Thanks, you like it?" the girl replied, before leaping acrobatically over the web-slinger, allowing him to get a better look at her brand-new costume.
"Not bad," Peter pretended to keep his cool. "So, are we ready to go Spider-Lady?"
"Seriously?" the girl replied, sounding annoyed.
"S-spider-girl? Woman?" Peter offered awkwardly.
"No. Call me… 'Ghost-Spider',"
"So, I take it this means that you're okay with the heroing stuff then?" Peter asked inquisitively.
Ghost-Spider took a few moments to answer before letting a soft sigh.
"I'll give it a try," Ghost-Spider said softly. "I still don't think I'm cut-out for this kind of thing, but I wanna at least give it a go,"
Peter beamed excitedly from underneath his mask. "Great! Wow!" Peter beamed. "So, uhh, does that mean we'll be working together now, or what?"
The hooded girl chuckled softly from underneath her mask. "For now, sure," she replied. "Can't think of a better person to teach me about my powers. Oh, but only if you don't mind of course,"
"No no no no no, I don't mind," Peter hurriedly assured her. "In fact, this is great. Wow, I've never had a partner before,"
"Partner?" she replied, sounding amused.
"Would you prefer, Sidekick?" Peter joked around, (Hey!) which earned him a shove from the girl. "I'm joking, I'm joking,"
Ghost-Spider leaned over the railings on the roof, and peeked over onto the streets below. "This never gets old huh,"
Peter joined her and looked at the busy streets of night-time New York. "Not really, no," he replied, a smirk creeping underneath the mask as he admired the streets & lights of the city. "But some company every now & then helps spice things up even further," Peter joked.
"What about Daredevil?" Ghost-Spider asked.
"What about him?" Peter asked back, for a moment, his mind snapping back to the drive he left back at Ned's.
"I mean, aren't you & him like, partners or something?"
"Huh?" Peter made an overly exaggerated surprised reaction to Ghost-Spider's remarks. "Double D? The Red-Man himself? You kidding me?"
Ghost-Spider stuttered for a few moments, slightly unsure of what to say.
"I'm joking," Peter chuckled. "But nah, Daredevil isn't really the team-up kind of guy. He prefers to go solo," Peter continued. "Also, bad conversation partner," Peter joked. "Which is a pity too, I've already thought of some sick team-up names for us,"
Ghost-Spider leaned over the railing, and started to balance herself upside-down on top of the railings with her hands.
"Yeah? Like what?" she asked, while slowly moving across the railing on the handstand.
"Huh?" Peter was slightly taken aback by the question, having said all that as a joke previously. "Ohh, uhm, I don't know, something like, Spider-Devil, or Spi-Dare-Man, or something,"
Ghost-Spider started to snicker at the suggestions. "Seriously? Dare-Man?"
Peter smirked along at with her. "Yeah, then we can make like a youtube channel, and make some cringe life lessons videos about society or something," he joked.
"Blegh, maybe Daredevil had the right idea all along," Ghost-Spider started. "Maybe I should've picked him to teach me instead,"
"No idea what you're talking about," Peter pretended to be oblivious. "Can't imagine anyone daring to miss out on this cool, dashing, charming neighbourhood spider,"
Peter could almost physically feel the pained groan coming from Ghost-Spider, before she suddenly threw something from her pockets at him.
Peter nimbly grabbed the bracelet she threw at him.
"My web-shooters?" Peter looked at the device in his hand, before turning back towards Ghost-Spider.
Ghost-Spider pulled back the sleeves to her costume & showed him her own set of Web-Shooters strapped on her wrist.
"I kinda used your bracelet as a model to make my own," she said sheepishly.
Peter looked over at her in awe, before quickly strapping the bracelet onto his left hand. "You did all that in two nights? That's sick!"
"Y-yeah, but I kinda spent the entire Sunday on this," she said, flexing her wrist to aim the shooters. "Also, I kinda made my own modifications on it,"
"Hmm? Really? What did you do?"
"Uhm, well, I kinda had this project that I was working on, that collected surrounding moisture in the air," she explained. "And I thought, you know, if I could break down Ethane to produce the NH2 radical-,"
"Ohh, so you then use the moisture collecting device to bring in the H20 element, and then have the chemical mixture, as they're being fired?! That's genius!" Peter exclaimed in awe. "That means you don't have to have like, web-fluids on hand, and you can just plug in some Ethane cartridges. That's infinitely more efficient!"
"Y-yeah," Ghost-Spider replied excitedly. "The ethane cartridges are way smaller, and about this much, is easily worth around 100 cartridges worth of web-fluids,"
Peter bit his lip as he considers her words. "Yeah, of course, coz you're already taking out the H20 blocks from the equation, and its not bonded yet, so its still in a crystalline structure…,"
"Yeah, I made it so the moisture device is small enough to be fitted into the basic framework," Ghost-Spider continued. "The only downside is I need surrounding moisture for my webs to work," she grumbled slightly. "Meaning, it wont work in arid or hot areas,"
"That's okay though, it's not like we're planning on fighting in the desert anytime soon," Peter joked, still focused on the much sleeker 'web-shooters' on Ghost-Spider's wrists.
"Yeah, it's probably fine," Ghost-Spider grumbled softly. "I'm also facing some trouble with the atmospheric pressure changes and the different water content in the environment," she sighed "The other day, the spinneret was clogged up because the salt in seawater messed up the electrostatic-,"
"Ohh, coz you're having the reaction mid-shot, instead of having the turbine & spinneret as just launchers of a pre-mixed compound," Peter finished.
"Yeah, I guess that's something that I need to work on," she conceded, before firing a few shots of webbings on a nearby wall. "But the basic framework is still yours though, especially the spinneret settings, those are pretty amazing,"
Peter smirked happily underneath his mask, feeling happy at finding a person of shared interest with him. "I'm sure you'll work it out eventually," he replied confidently.
"T-thanks," Ghost-Spider turned away from him. "Ohh, uhm, would you like me to made the modifications on your shooters as well?" she offered.
Peter considered the suggestion for a few moments. "Nah, it's fine. I like them a bit weighty, feels familiar you know,"
"Uhm, y-yeah, sure," she nodded. "So, uhm, shall we?" she said, a hint of excitement laced in her voice.
"Right, Spider Training," Peter mulled it over for a few moments. "How are you with physics?" Peter asked.
"Physics?" Ghost-Spider paused for a few moments, slightly caught out by surprise. "Uhm, I guess I'm ok with it,"
Peter nodded along. "What about Calculus?"
"Sureee," Ghost-Spider answered back hesitantly. "Wait, why are you asking me this?"
"Spider-Training," Peter smiled from underneath his mask, before leaping off of the roof, and swinging away. "You coming?" he yelled back at her.
A few moments later, Ghost-Spider was swinging next to him, keeping up with him as he swinged across the neighbourhood.
"Quiz time, if a pendulum is 40 meters long, and attached in a 45 angle, how far will the pendulum fall at its lowest point," Peter yelled whilst leaping from his webs.
"H-huh?" Ghost-Spider started to do the calculations in her head, as she awkwardly swung with her new web-shooters. "11.72 meters? But, why does that matter?"
"It matters a lot if you're the pendulum," Peter yelled, smirking from underneath his mask.
"What? Ohhh…, Wait! So, you do all these equations in your head?" Ghost-Spider yelled back at him in awe. "Like, while you're swinging through the city?"
"I have to, and so will you if you wanna get good at it," Peter said, a hint of smugness in his voice, as he raced in front of her, and launched himself in between a set of steel bars holding up a water tank.
"Wow, I had no idea," Ghost-Spider whispered to herself, a mix of awe & regret at her superhero life choices now.
"You ok?" Peter asked, panting slightly from the exertion from the swinging lesson he just conducted.
Ghost-Spider was panting more heavily, hands on her knees, as she tries to catch her breath.
"This is tough," she panted in between breaths. "Having to calculate my trajectory mid-flight is, *pant* its murder on the brain man," she continued. "I'm more mentally burned, than I am physically,"
Peter chuckled softly, as he leaned onto a nearby railing. "You'll get used to it," he assured her. "It took me a while, but eventually, the calculations come more naturally,"
"Is it too late to quit now?" Ghost-Spider joked, chuckling softly underneath her mask.
"Sure, just hand over the…, Spider-powers, web-shooters…, oh and the secret identity please, can't have that," Peter joked.
"Hey, the web-shooters are my own make," Ghost-Spider argued.
"No no, they're patented," Peter shrugged his shoulders. "You can look it up on, www dot made up nonsense dot com,"
Ghost-Spider took aim and fired small web ball at Peter's face, which he evaded with ease.
"God, you're annoying," she chuckled, as she picks herself up.
"You wanna do some more training," Peter perks up when he sees her standing up.
"Nah, I wanna practice swinging on my own for a bit," Ghost-Spider held her hand up.
"Ohh, ok," Peter said slowly, feeling slightly disappointed.
"You can do some…, crime fighting, or some Spider-Man stuff," she re-assured him. "Don't want you to waste too much of your time on me," she continued, before leaping down from the rooftop and swinging away to a nearby rooftop.
Peter kept his eyes glued on her rapidly shrinking figure, whilst she swung around from rooftops to rooftops. He then lets out a heavy sigh while scanning the nearby streets for any crime.
"But there's nothing happening tonight," Peter sighed out softly, turning his attention back towards Ghost-Spider.
*tingle*
Suddenly, Peter felt his spider-sense tingle and quickly turned around to see a figure, clad in bright-red approaching him from across the roof.
"Oh, Daredevil," Peter sighed in relief, slightly perplexed by his Spider-Sense firing off just now.
'Guess I still don't 100% know how this spider-tingle thing works,' he thought to himself.
Daredevil stood in front of him, before scanning(?) their surroundings. Once he was sure it was safe, he turned towards Peter.
"Spider-Man, I'm glad I finally found you," he said gruffly.
Peter raised his eyebrow curiously. "Uhm, ookaay…, glad to see you too man," Peter joked.
Daredevil smiled warmly at him, which for some reason crept Peter out.
"Listen, I've been looking into Fisk's involvement with that drive we found yesterday. I think I know how to use it," Daredevil continued.
Peter perks up excitedly at the revelation. "Seriously? That's awesome! I've also cracked the encryption on my end," he continued excitedly. "That means we can go ahead and use it once we get to where you said we needed to,"
"Yeah, I-," Daredevil paused for a few moments, before looking seriously at him. "You mean, you've actually cracked the encryption?" he asked, his tone slightly threatening.
Peter blinked back in confusion, slightly stunned by Daredevil's antics. "Uhm, y-yeah, is that a bad thing?"
For a moment, Daredevil inexplicably paused, before suddenly holding Peter by the shoulders.
"This is even more dangerous Spider-Man, that means the Kingpin's man are already after you!" Daredevil insisted.
"W-what? Why?"
"The drive had a built-in tracking beacon," Daredevil explained. "Now that you've cracked it, his men can now trace the signal back to the drive!"
Peter started to feel panicked, as he starts to worry about Ned's safety. "I-I left it at a friend's house…," he said softly.
"Go & take it, now!" Daredevil warned. "There's no telling how much time your friend has left before the Kingpin's men gets to him,"
Peter started to panic. "I was going to have him hand it to me at school tomorrow," He immediately nods & readies to leap & swing towards Ned's house.
"W-wait, you're not coming with me?" Peter asked Daredevil quickly.
"Hmm? Oh, no, I, have some business I need to take care of at Devil's Kitchen," Daredevil replied. "Some of the Kingpin's men followed me here, so I should take care of that,"
"R-right," Peter said, as he perched at the edge of the rooftop.
"Let's meet back up here once you've got it," Daredevil said.
"W-wo-Woah!" a voice yelled out from behind Daredevil.
Suddenly, Ghost-Spider crashed her way towards Daredevil, bundling into him as she swung wildly and missed her landing.
Peter immediately leapt towards the two, slightly worried if they had injured themselves.
"Ghost! Daredevil! Are you guys ok?" Peter asked, worried.
Ghost-Spider slowly picks herself up, rubbing her head as she does so.
"Ouch, oof, sorry about that," she apologized, before turning towards Peter. "I'm ok, I just misjudged the speed of that last swing,"
Peter breathed a sigh of relief when he sees Ghost-Spider picking herself up. "Ok, great," Peter smiled to himself. "That's some speed you were coming in at Ghost. Daredevil here is usually, never caught out," Peter chuckled. "Coz, he has this kind of super hea-… ring…,"
Peter immediately turned his attention towards the prone Daredevil, when suddenly the man sprung up and threw a set of bombs at the pair.
Peter immediately jumped between Ghost & the bomb to shield her from the explosion, but the bomb exploded into a bright white flash, and blinded the pair for a few moments. When he came to, he immediately scanned his surroundings and sees the fire escape being dropped down.
Peter immediately leaned over towards the street, and scanned the streets for the bright red costume. Immediately, Ghost-Spider did the same and helped him scan the streets.
"He's gone…," Peter mumbled frustratingly under his breath.
"What happened?" Ghost asked him as she landed gracefully next to him.
"He's an impostor," Peter gritted his teeth. "The Kingpin's on to us,"