"You're leg okay?"

"It's fine," Matt replied, trying to maintain as stoic a demeanor as possible as they continued. In reality, the pain had only gradually been increasing since they set out, and he was doing everything he could just to avoid limping. He'd become more than accustomed to dealing with pain in his many years of crime fighting, but the level he was contending with now was up there with some of the worst lingering issues he'd ever dealt with.

"Stop," Claire said. Matt didn't refuse, forcing himself to come to a stop. Claire then reached inside her jacket, pulling out a small pack with a tiny syringe attached to it.

"I told you to save that," Matt challenged, recognizing its contents almost immediately.

"I was planning on it, but at this rate, it's going to be morning before we even get to our next stop," Claire explained. She then squatted down beside Matt's injured leg, and he felt only a slight sting as she inserted the small needle into his leg, injecting the dose of morphine into him. Fortunately, the stuff was as quick acting as usual.

"Beter?"

"Better," he confirmed, the two continuing along their path. There was silence for a few moments before Claire spoke up again.

"I'm surprised your nose has been holding up down here."

"You'd be amazed what all my senses have learned to tune out over the years," Matt replied.

"Still, as awful as it smells down here, I have to give those three credit for coming up with the idea to use this as our own personal Underground Railroad right now," Claire explained. "Apparently the bad guys draw at least some limits."

After a while, the pair finally came to their destination.

"Well?" Claire asked. Matt didn't respond at first, tuning his enhanced hearing to the blocks surrounding them.

"We're clear," he said. The two then ascended a nearby latter, with Matt reaching the top first, removing the manhole cover from their path. He then stepped out, allowing Claire to come up as well.

"The exact destination was across the street, right?" Claire asked.

"Yeah," Matt confirmed. The two then trotted down, with Matt hearing the sounds of explosions a distance away. There was nothing happening close by though, and not even just in terms of their enemies: the whole area felt like a ghost town. His hearing wasn't even picking up the sounds of any heartbeats in the area other than her's and Claire's. Even though they were in a primarily industrial area of the city rather than a residential one, there would usually be several vehicles passing by and late-night workers of all kinds doing at least something around the area.

Instead, it felt like a ghost town.

Hurrying up to the building as fast as his still injured leg could carry him, Matt took out the device and attached it to the wall, with Claire pressing the button to activate.

"Okay," Claire spoke up, "only one more to..."

"Hold on," Matt said, tilting his head down and to the left as sound caught his ear. It took only another couple of seconds to determine that it was the sound of one of the Goblin's men coming fast on a glider from a few blocks down. He then motioned for Claire to book it to the alley beside them, the woman immediately heeding his advice as the two of them hid themselves and waited. The roar of the glider drew closer and closer... then, instead of passing by, it simply hung in place. It seemed to be homing in on something, only Matt's senses perceived that it wasn't them, his fist clenching in frustration. He could hear as the man tried to call in to a radio channel.

"Hey, I've got something here..."

Not wasting any time, Matt turned and ran.

"Matt, no!" he heard Claire shout in a hushed tone, but he ignored her, leaping and catching his opponent off guard with a devastating spin kick to the face, knocking him off his glider. Only stunned momentarily, he quickly stood to his feet as Matt took out his Billy clubs, gritting his teeth as he held them at his sides.

"Well now, hasn't my night just been made," the thug said, his tone conveying his eagerness for a fight. "I gotta say, taking out the Man Without Fear? That's gonna move me up the ranks real quick!"

"I've run into a lot of guys just like you who said the exact same thing," Matt challenged, getting into a squatted, defensive stance. "So, why don't you come and see if you're any different?"

Just as he predicted, his opponent made the first move, charging him. His speed was impressive, his steps conveying the power that ran through his veins, but he was still just as careless as most of the others Matt had dealt with, enabling him to flip over him with relative ease. His injured leg felt the landing though, reminding him that he would still need to end this pretty quickly. He turned to face his opponent again.

"Flip around all you want!" the man shouted. "It's not going to do you any good in the end!"

Again, his enemy charged him, but instead of an acrobatic dodge, Matt instead simply side stepped him before delivering a series of strikes to the back of his opponent's head before kicking him in the back with his good leg, sending him careening forward. Avoiding total collapse however, the thug tried to come after him again, but Matt shot out a cable from each club, twisting around to wrap up his enemy. Leaping into the air, he delivered a powerful kick that sent his opponent's head straight into the concrete ground.

Amazingly, this still wasn't quite enough to knock him out, though the man was certainly dazed as he fought to stand up. Taking advantage of this fact, Matt quickly took out a loose piece of concrete from an old building nearby. Running up, he leapt into the air, lifting the block as high as he could before bringing it down on his enemy's head, shattering the block and finally sending the man into unconsciousness.

The adrenaline from the brief encounter wearing off, Matt nearly doubled over, the pain returning to his leg. Of course, it was right at this time that he could hear the sound of another glider coming, and he turned to see his latest enemy heading his way. He forced himself to a stand, bracing himself for whatever was to come... only for an electric blast to hit his enemy instead, knocking him off his glider and sending his head into a metal rail at high speeds, knocking him out instantly as he crashed to the ground. He turned to his left, his radar sense enabling him to perceive that it was Claire standing there, her arm still extended from firing the shot from the device on her wrist.

"Okay, so it looks like these really work," she said.

"How did that feel?" Matt questioned.

"Pretty good, actually," Claire replied.

"We better get going," Matt said. As soon as he tried to take a step with his bad leg however, he nearly doubled over, prompting Claire to rush to his side.

"The adrenaline from the fight must have made the morphine wear off sooner," she observed.

"It's fine," Matt insisted, putting his hand to his ear, activating the com link inside his mask.

"Spider-Man, Claire and I have two of our three packages set up."

"Copy that, keep it up!" Peter shouted as he extended his arms forward, quickly forming a thick web between two buildings. He managed to barely fit through one of the holes, but the three following him were stuck instantly, just as he'd hoped. Unfortunately, just as he emerged a top one of the tallest buildings in the area, the Goblin was right back on his tail again, prompting him to fire a web and change direction as fast as possible.

Frankly, Peter had no idea how much longer he could keep this up. Only about half the antiserum dispensers had been reported in as established and active, the process to this point having taken almost an hour. In that same time, Peter has pulled seemingly every trick out of his bag while inventing a few new ones as well just to stay alive. The Goblin had not only brought out seemingly every criminal in the city in his quest to off him but also set up various traps on rooftops all over the city, including both pumpkin bomb and razor batt dispensers. He'd thanked God more than once in this whole thing for the idea of automatically rotating web cartridges, because if it hadn't been for them, he probably would have been finished at least twice on that alone.

Growing desperate, Peter opted to try something desperate: releasing his web, he began running along a wall towards a nearby flagpole. He could feel the heat from the pumpkin bombs going off behind him, prompting him to run faster still. Once he got close enough, he fired a web, sticking it to the flagpole. He then leapt off the edge of the building, pulling the web tightly as he made a loop around the pole. He then launched himself towards the Goblin, who was rapidly approaching him.

Unfortunately, his opponent was prepared, snagging him by the throat before he could even throw his punch. The Goblin squeezed hard while also trying to bring down a razor bat on Peter's head with his other hand, the task of fighting off both proving exceptionally difficult.

"Why do you fight, Spider-Man?" the Goblin questioned, his mask's expression a mix of glee at the prospect of killing him and frustration at Peter's stubbornness. "Can't you see? There's no way out of this for you; whether this night or the next, I will hunt you down and destroy you and everyone you love!"

Digging deep within his soul, Peter finally managed to summon enough strength to at least begin to force his enemy's arms away from him.

"Because... this city is my home," he finally replied, "and I'll never stop fighting for it!"

Peter reared his right hand back into a fist, delivering as powerful a right cross to the Goblin's face as he could. The blow stunned him enough to allow Peter to leap off just as more of his enemy's reinforcements caught up to them. Firing a web, he swung off.

"Come on, Parker," he said as he fought to maintain at least a slight lead over his opponents. "Just hang on a little longer..."

"Okay, I seriously think I'm going to be sick," Deb moaned. "How close are we?"

"We're just a couple blocks away," Mary Jane explained.

"And this is our last stop, right?" Deb asked.

"Yep," Hobie replied, "then, it's by by bad guys. Man, I can't believe we're so close."

Mary Jane had to concur; it had been nearly an hour and a half since the groups had begun their respective treks across the city, but at last, they were nearing the end. If she'd been counting correctly, the second-to-last dispenser had just been placed a few minutes ago, meaning their last one was THE last one to set up, which meant that, if all went well, this would all be over soon.

Of course, it was exactly that that worried her: things had almost been going too well, at least for their group. Hobie's idea to traverse the majority of their trips through the sewers had turned out to be a brilliant idea, the three of them having yet to run into any kind of trouble thus far. Maybe it was Peter's mentality rubbing off on her, or maybe it was her own upbringing causing her to feel this way, but it was hard for Mary Jane not to feel that something was still likely to go wrong before they'd completed their mission though.

Still, as they drew near to their destination, Mary Jane forced herself to swallow her suddenly rebuilding nerves and maintain at least a stoic demeanor. She even forced herself to consider the good about their situation: Peter would finally be safe once this was over, at least for a little while, and Harry would hopefully be able to get the help he needed. She'd also finally see her aunt, who was likely worried sick about her right now, and May would come out of this okay. Yeah, that was how it was going to turn out.

It had to.

"We're here," Hobie spoke up. The man then ascended the ladder, poking his head out to the surface after moving the manhole cover. He then glanced down and motioned for the ladies to come up. Mary Jane opted to let Deb go first, seeing as the young woman was threatening to throw up at any moment. Once her blonde friend had made it about seventy-five percent of the way up without puking, M.J. dared to ascend as well, eventually emerging with the others.

"I think it was that building over there specifically," she said as she looked around, gesturing towards an older, more rundown warehouse building to their right. They walked up to it, with her handing the last device to Hobie. He took it and raised it up, preparing to seal it to the wall.

"Hold it right there, pal."

I hope you're still enjoying it! Can't believe there's only 5 chapters left!

Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!

"Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in Me will never be thirsty." John 6:35