We begin series four proper now, with the first opening arc: Public Scrutiny!
Meanwhile, Aunt May, Inko Midoriya, Keemia, and Ochako, and the others from F.E.A.S.T., from Kirishima and Tetsutetsu, to Twice and Magne, to Jessica Drew and Ben Reilly, and finally Panda-Mania and Gibbon and Hippo, are heading to their former shelter, tools in hand, and are eager to get started on rebuilding the shelter that many of them and other former villains and homeless had once called home…
Only to find that the area has been barred off from them, and a construction company building over it.
Confused and demanding to know what is going on, the group soon learn that the building site that they had been using before had been brought out by Detnerat, and was currently in the process of being turned into a high-class meeting place for a social club. When Inko objects, saying that she owned the grounds, she was simply told that her ownership had been revoked, and was turned away, alongside the rest of their group, by the local heroes and private security.
Disheartened, the group would return to Inko's home, only to find that a letter had been put through their letter box, from Detnerat. It was all respects and smiles, but the group could tell that they were asking for Inko to hand over the rights to F.E.A.S.T., for whatever reasons they might have.
Inko and the others would tear up the letter, and try to figure out another way to get F.E.A.S.T. back up and running.
Thankfully, they wouldn't have to wait for long. One of Kazuho's old contacts, Soga Kugisaki and his two fellows, Rapt Tokage and Moyuru Tochi, would end up showing them to an old site filled with warehouses downtown of Musufatu, a perfect place for them to set up F.E.A.S.T. once more.
However, there was a major problem with that, in that a group of villains, a gang of former members of Kraven's hunters consisting of USJ villains such as Victor, Chomper, the Needle and Martial-Hair duo, Berserker, Gorilla, Sharp Blade, Sharkyonara, Oyx-Man, and led by the intimidating thug known as Tesla, had moved in and claimed the warehouses as their own turf. Worse yet, the local heroes weren't doing anything to stop them, simply walking by and looking the other way. They'd obviously been paid off.
As so, it would fall to the newly formed Spider-Gang to clear them out.
But before any of them can even make a move, they would look over the news, and would be horrified by what they see:
The attempted breakout from Tartarus, and the subsequent deaths of all its prisoners.
Outside of Tartarus, Adriana Soria, alongside All Might and Detective Naomasa, look over the bodies being pulled out of the prison-turned graveyard, and asks the police officer, alongside All Might, what the hell even happened. Naomasa confirms from his reviewing of the security cameras that one of the villains contained within, presumably All for One, had tried to initiate a breakout, which led to a riot, and the prison's automatic riot suppression systems had kicked in to quell the riot, the gas killing everyone inside, whilst the fire systems inside All for One's cell burnt him alive, killing him as well. All Might asks for what he had been able to learn from the guards, but Naomasa regretfully confirms that the guards had been killed by the gas as well, despite them supposedly having the gasmasks and equipment necessary to counter it.
All Might watches All for One's charred corpse, now left as nothing more than a skeleton, being carted out, and asks about the holes in the skull and chest, to which Aizawa, who has just arrived, confirms to have been made from the automatic sentry guns that had been guarding All for One inside his cell. When it came to the fabled, self-proclaimed Demon Lord (Adriana snorts at the title), they hadn't been taking any chances.
Adriana watches the bodies being wheeled out, and is saddened to see the former hero Lady Nagant amongst the dead. She had been planning on seeing to the woman's release after the HPSC's crimes were exposed, but she'd been swamped with dealing with the aftermath of that particular event, then the War of the Symbiotes, and the general chaos that was beginning to consume hero society to see it through, especially now that the corruption within said society was beginning to become more overt and people were beginning to become disillusioned with the power of quirks. All Might would be disturbed by the first point, asking how far that corruption went, and Adriana explains that the reason she'd been able to rise up as far as she had in the government was because she had exposed so many people and heroes for their dirty dealings that needed replacing that all she'd needed to do was slip in to fill the power vacuum.
Naomasa, however, would ask about her last point, and Adriana would explain to the gathering that, thanks to not only the introduction of the Symbiotes, but the various technological powers and abilities that had been artificially produced and given to villains such as Kraven with his forcefield, Mysterio's drug-inducing hallucinations and projectors for his illusions, Scorpion, Vulture, and Rhino's exo-suits and weapons, how the Green Goblin's blood had mutated David Shield into the Lizard, and what Doctor Octopus had been able to accomplish with his cloning technology back when he was working for the HPSC, people were beginning to realise that there were more powers available to them than quirks, powers that were stronger than quirks themselves on top of that. Quirks had become so ingrained into people's lives and hero society's conscious and general ideology over the years that the idea of there being any other power than quirks themselves was not only unthinkable, but almost heretical.
As such, with more powers beyond quirks being revealed to the world, and with many emerging villains being quirkless people who had made power for themselves, it was leading to many quirk-related groups splitting up and falling apart, whilst others began to radicalise and rally. Hero society as it stands is being split down the middle, with one side becoming disillusioned over the power of quirks being broken, and the other side acting in denial of it and trying to dismiss any power beyond it. It all seemed to be fine at the surface, but underneath it was beginning to boil over. She'd lost count of the amount of times she's had to have her agents dispatched to prevent a quirkless person from being taken and lynched by Meta Liberation Army believers and quirklist mobs, apparently trying to prevent them from 'Gaining power beyond their station' or something like that.
Adriana frowns. There's an arms race beginning in Japan, and the arms are technology and genetic manipulation. She's already had to deal with a hero by the name of the Fly (a fusion of both Marvel's Fly villain and the minor hero from MHA going by the same name) using stolen genetic manipulation technology from the HPSC's old headquarters to augment himself. It drove him mad and turned him into a violent, cannibalistic monster. She'd been forced to put him down during their fight. However, he was just the first. The Tinkerer's technology is now up for grabs thanks to her arrest, and she's been having to deal with new villains arising thanks to said genetic augmentation tech now out there in the wild, on top of the quirk supremacist groups that were beginning to rear their heads. it felt like Japan was sleepwalking towards civil war, and not even the ever-present visage of All Might could prevent it.
Aizawa, however, is dismissive of this, proclaiming that the Symbiotes themselves had emerged from a quirk, All Might's quirk, though Adriana cuts back by saying that All Might's quirk was transferrable, something which was considered impossible before (for reasons that Adriana can't even find the logic in). Aizawa counters by saying that everything has a logical and rational explanation, and Adriana stops herself before it can devolve into an argument.
Then, Spider-Man arrives, having been called there by Aldriana, much to the shock of Naomasa and Aizawa. Adriana, however, is quick to point out that he's still wearing his red and blue suit instead of the black one that she made for him, sounding saddened by it, to which Peter says sorry, and that he's actually working on a new suit.
Then, he sees the bodies of the five imprisoned members of the Sinister Six being wheeled out, alongside the bodies of notorious criminals Swarm, Calypso, and Tombstone, and asks what happened here. Aizawa tries to ask why he is there and not behind bars, still wearing his vigilante outfit, but Adriana quickly cuts him off and explains the riot that had happened in Tartarus and the mass deaths of the prisoners and guards inside, leaving Peter shocked and horrified. When he asks why a prison would have such a system inside, it is All Might who explains that the prisoners inside, even the likes of the Sinister Six, were some of, if not the most dangerous criminals in all of Japan, and that there had to be safety measures put in place to prevent them from breaking out, though it is clear that All Might is equally saddened to see these people die as well.
Spider-Man is saddened by this news, as several of his villains that had been put in here, like Rhino, Vulture, and Mysterio, were just regular people who had been pushed to their limits, and had the chance to be redeemed and make up for the error of his ways. Adriana, however, counters by saying that what was done was done, there was nothing that they could do about it now, though offers her condolences anyway to the spider-themed hero.
Aizawa, however, once again demands to know why Peter is there, and Peter, reluctantly, shows off his new hero license to him, shocking the gathering by seeing how Peter is not only a licensed hero now, but also an agent of Adriana's S.I.L.K. organisation. Adriana, however, dismisses their concerns and words, expressing her sympathies for Peter, especially when he comments that he was attacked by three pro heroes on his way here that were trying to arrest them (to which she privates decides to have those three heroes investigated and quartered), and leads him away from the sorry sight, back to their new home in the HPSC's old building, to talk there.
Later that night, the Spider-Gang, jointly led by Ochako, now going by the name of the Sakura Spider, and Felicia, would move on the section of warehouses that Soga had pointed out to them. Their current force for the operation, made up of Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman), Ben Reilly (Scarlet Spider), Kana Kumaneko (Panda-Mania), La Brava, and Mr. Compress, began to move in, stealthily taking down the gathering of ex-hunters one by one, displaying their new talents and skills thanks to all that they have been through, before eventually being found out by Tesla and his two guards in Martial Hair and Needle Hair.
The fight between the two parties would be quick and brutal. For all of the ex-hunters' strength and newfound skill, they didn't stand a chance against the numbers and teamwork of the Spider-Gang, who would soundly defeat them and leave them all tied up for the police to find.
However, first things first, they would begin to look around the warehouses as well, finding supplies and shipments of trigger, as well as recordings and documents of demands from unknown parties for the few remaining quirk-erasing bullets that were still in existence.
But before they can continue their investigation, they find that their position is being approached by about a dozen heroes and are forced to retreat, abandoning the warehouses as they do. Soon enough, they are forced to split up to avoid detection from the heroes, who have begun scanning over the evidence themselves.
However, most of them are then found and caught… by Ryukyu, who had asked to help figure out what the disruption in the warehouses was and investigate the signs of possible trigger being hoarded there. But instead of arresting them, she simply lets them go with a kind warning and pretends to forget that they were ever there, recognising the good that they have just done (and also reminding the audience that not ever pro hero in this story in an arse like I've been making them all somewhat out to be).
Meanwhile, Ochako is spotted and found by another hero. Thankfully, it is just Nejire, whom Ochako had befriended during her internship with Ryukyu back in U.A.. The two of them quickly start talking, with Nejire asking Ochako why she's out and about in a hero costume similar to Spider-Man's, and warning her friend that that kind of costume carries a lot of danger with it nowadays. Ochako, however, recognises the risks of doing so, and Nejire promises to help both her and F.E.A.S.T. in the future if she can.
However, suddenly, a shotgun blast sounds off and Nejire crumples to the ground with a scream of pain, her leg mangled and soaking in blood. Ochako, despite her shock, uses her webshooters to cover and seal the wounds, then looks up to see who fired that blast.
Tenya Iida, her old friend, wearing a shirt with a skull on it, carrying a shotgun in his hands and Stain's sword sheathed on his back.
Tenya Iida, the Punisher.
Ochako screams at him, demanding to know why he shot and wounded Nejire, only for her to freeze and put her hands up as Iida points his gun at her, demanding to know why she is out performing vigilante work once more. Ochako, despite being as gunpoint, throws the question back at him, and he simply says that he's doing what the heroes cannot, what he couldn't do before, and is cleaning the streets of the scum that inhabit it, both its villains, and its heroes that have done wrong. Ochako points out that he shot Nejire, an innocent woman, for no reason, but Iida counters by saying that she was solidifying herself as a false hero by collaborating and commiserating with Ochako, who was acting not only as a vigilante, but as a spider.
He cocks his shotgun once more, and Nejire, despite being cripplingly wounded, pushes herself up to protect her friend.
But then, he hears the sounds of heroes approaching, reacting to the sound, and frowns at how he wasn't able to complete his objective at the warehouses. He turns to leave, but then gives Ochako a warning: if he catches her going vigilante again, then he will end her, just as he will end all the other villains and false heroes that fill the streets.
Then, he speeds away, and Nejire pats Ochako and tells her to run, to leave before the heroes catch her. Ochako doesn't want to, but Nejire simply tells her that she'll be fine, and practically orders her to move.
Ochako runs, and Nejire is quickly found by Ryukyu, who recognises the synthetic webbing on Nejire's grievous leg wound, but chooses not to say anything about it, instead directing her efforts to securing the scene and getting Nejire to the hospital, silently thanking whoever sealed the wound for surely saving Nejire's life.
All the while, a woman covered in purple and yellow robes, a golden sickle in hand, watches over the scene.
The next morning, whilst the warehouses are being looked over and investigated by Ryukyu's agency, the assembled Spider-Gang gather inside Inko's home, and look over what they have found. Tesla's gang were guarding a massive cache of trigger, which was being transported to other groups that they were affiliated with, that much they know. Those same groups were asking for the quirk-erasing bullets, which was something that shouldn't exist anymore, thanks to Ochako and Peter's previous actions. What they don't know is who these people are, and what they want the trigger and quirk-erasing bullets for.
Then, they get a knock on the door, and, after hiding the evidence that they have acquired, open it to see a man standing outside, accompanied by two men in uniforms. He is a representative of the Hearts and Minds party in the Japanese Diet.
The representative is led into the house, and as he is sat down, he makes his stance clear:
His leader, Koku Hanabata, the political leader of the Hearts and Minds party wants to buy the rights to F.E.A.S.T..
Inko is against this, as is everyone else, but then the representative makes his party's stance on the matter clear: as it stands, F.E.A.S.T. has no place to call its home, no financial backing save for scant charitable donations in the past, and right now, no way of supporting itself or holding itself up. If they weren't careful, then F.E.A.S.T. would go into bankruptcy within the next year, if not sooner. But, if they were to sign over the rights of F.E.A.S.T. to the Hearts and Minds party, then the organisation would be able to live once more, if only for the price of Inko no longer having ownership of it.
Inko suddenly becomes hesitant, listening to his points and seriously considering them. However, it is Jessica Drew who then points out that the Hearts and Minds party are well-known partners of Detnerat, the same company that stole the rights to the grounds that F.E.A.S.T. had used for its shelter out from under them to construct their social club for the elites of society. To her, this seemed like nothing more than an attempt to swallow F.E.A.S.T. whole by weakening it, and then completely deconstruct it entirely. And either way, F.E.A.S.T. is tiny compared to the likes of Detnerat and the Hearts and Minds party, so why the hell would they care about what had been, for the longest time, a single shelter for homeless people on the streets?
The representative then begins again, trying to counter the points and answer the question as best as he can, but then Jessica finally makes the connection: F.E.A.S.T., while not able to operate for the time being, is still linked to the Future Foundation that Momo and her friends were championing, and she knew from talking to her that representatives from both Detnerat and the government, more specifically the Hearts and Minds party, were trying to get her to shut down the Future Foundation before it can begin, even to this day.
And that is why the Hearts and Minds party, or whoever is leading it at least, this Koku Hanabata person, wants F.E.A.S.T.: because they want to dissect the Future Foundation and take it down piece by piece, before it can grow to challenge them.
The representative is told to leave. He can't, not until he gets a signature, as he was instructed. He's quite desperate to get it, and the others roll their eyes at his ridiculousness. He needs to stop acting like his life depends on it.
However, what catches their attention is what the representative says. As he says it, his party, and the friends that they have made have ways of making life for F.E.A.S.T. and the people within it very difficult for them-
And that is when a hand grabs his and lifts him up, much to the surprise of the representative, his guards, and the residents of Inko's home.
It is All Might, demanding that they leave, to which they do.
When the representative and his guards leave, so does All Might shortly after, the demands of being the number one hero calling to him once more. However, his mind is still rolling around the death of All for One and all those other prisoners in Tartarus, as well as everything that has happened since Kamino, including the dissolvement of the HPSC. All Might thinks back to the origins of the HPSC from before even his master, Nana Shimura, was born, and how they had begun as a civilian agency with little to no connection to the government, and had been made with the genuine intention of helping heroes, who were acting as vigilantes before All Might's time, by giving them funding and the resources necessary to help as many people as they can. To have seen an agency that had once started out with genuine intent become a corrupt institution riddled with a disturbing need to maintain the status quo… gives All Might pause, and forces him to begin questioning the good that he has done over the years.
Soon enough, he comes across three separate sights that catch his attention. The first is when he intervenes in a gang beating someone to death, to which he notices that the people attacking the one man are all wearing masks and costumes that resemble himself. As soon as he scares the thugs off, he realises that the man they were attacking was quirkless, and the man recounts that they were shouting that he was 'Worthless' and that they thought that he would 'Become like Kraven' if he wasn't taught a lesson, or so they said. All Might asks if he can take him to the hospital, only for the man to say no and tell him to go away, slinking off on his own and leaving All Might behind.
The second is a crowd of protesters, a gathering of quirk supremacists demanding for the destruction of the advanced technologies and research that was being developed by both I-Island and S.I.L.K., saying that it will render the need for quirks irrelevant and damage a crucial facet of society (if anyone out there is thinking to themselves that this is unrealistic and a dumb thing to be arguing about, then welcome to the world of prejudice and discrimination. It's all based on emotion rather than logic and rationality). Against them is a crowd of quirkless supporters challenging them, and the situation between them seems to be about to boil over. Luckily All Might is able to stop the protest before it turns violent, but it also discomforts him to see many of the people in the quirk supremacist crowd wearing masks based on his face.
In the third event, he comes across a hero, Ryukyu, being harassed on the street by people throwing All Might merchandise at her in retaliation for her giving a piece of criticism to All Might's practice as the number one hero in a previous television interview, as well as throwing the injury of her intern, Nejire, in her face. All Might scares them off, and goes to talk to Ryukyu, and apologises for the treatment that she has received, though Ryukyu comments that she's used to it, and that being faced with more violent criticism in comparison to other heroes is a common enough occurrence for not just female heroes, but female heroes with mutant quirks as well. All Might consoles her for Nejire's injury, and the two are just left thankful that it wasn't career-ending.
Later that night, in the old HPSC building that has been converted into S.I.L.K.'s primary headquarters, Adriana, after getting off call from All Might and tasking him with his own mission, invites Peter into her office, and asks him how he's feeling. Peter expresses his regret about the deaths of everyone in Tartarus, including his villains, and Adriana simply invites him in to discuss, offering him a glass of drink (non-alcoholic, thankfully) and sitting him down to talk about how he feels.
Peter expresses that he feels like many of his villains aren't bad people. In fact, some of them were just good people that were forced into bad situations and could've been redeemed, just like Flint Marko had been. Adriana, meanwhile, acknowledges his points, but then asks if the people that those same villains hurt and killed over the course of their careers ever had as much a chance as Peter was giving his rogues, and questions whether giving his villains a chance is actually dishonouring and bringing pain onto the families of those they have hurt and murdered.
Their conversation continues on like this for a long while before Adriana brings up the changing state of the world, and how vigilantism seems to be on the rise as people are beginning to lose their faith in heroes and divide themselves into factions underneath the barely peaceful face of hero society, yet are all still looking up to All Might as the closest thing to divinity in the world right now. Peter asks how that is possible, and Adriana puts it down to a case of collective cognitive dissonance, a cultural contradiction, doublethink on a mass scale. She refers to it as All Might's 'Cult of strength', and says that his presence has made both hero society the most important part of people's lives, and also made other heroes irrelevant as well, and it is this unnatural contradiction that has become the foundation that all of hero society has been built upon. It is only now are the cracks beginning to emerge, cracks that she, Peter, and the rest of S.I.L.K. are tasked with filling.
Then, the conversation shifts, and we begin to see more into Peter and Adriana's personal lives now, with Peter still filled with regret over everything that has happened since his arrival in Japan, and wishing to make up for it all. Adriana, meanwhile, reveals small titbits about her past, explaining that she was always a smart child, and how she'd been able to advance up the ranks of government in such a record time. She then reveals that she is only twenty-one years old, only four years older than Peter, who by this point is seventeen now, having spent over a year and a half in Japan now. Peter is amazed by these news, and the two begin to become friends as they banter and joke with each other, Adriana slowly drawing Peter out of his depressive shell by retorting to and adding onto his quips and jokes, revealing her personality, beyond her formal tone of voice and acting whilst on business, to be rather playful and chirpy, and all too eager to add on to Peter's jokes with her own brand of sarcastic banter.
(During this time, Peter would smell something strange in the air, like a sweet, floral musk, but would simply put it down to a candle or air freshener and let it go.)
However, Adriana would get a call on her earpiece that she needs to turn on the news, and would flip it on, revealing the news story that was currently being played.
Adriana would blankly comment that this wasn't good as Peter looks at the news story in angst, detailing a public murder…
Carried out by himself.
A lot of crossover stories go into how things can get better for each world, but not a lot by comparison go into detail on just how things can get worse...
And that's what I wanted to do in this arc. Go into depth on how things are changing in hero society, and explain just how much Spider-Man's presence, reputation, and actions are beginning to make things better and worse at the same time...