Any adverse effects from Scorpion's stinger that had started as a form of swimming vision starts to now make Izuku Midoriya sink. He feels himself slipping from the symbiote as a wearable skin – a skin that is shedding – until that outer layer as Spider-Man leaves him fully naked & vulnerable. All his agility leaves him when he fumbles forwards. Except, in the darkness that is this pool of being pulled, there comes no splash. There are no muscles to account for any type of strength when he realizes he has reverted back into his scrawny quirkless original self. Izuku opens his mouth to cry out but no noise manages to climb out of his throat; he may as well be suffocating as he drowns. His freckled face is full of utter fear when he feels himself become absolutely powerless.
Completely captivated by the venomous poison that flows from within his veins, Izuku Midoriya is brought onto his back. From there, he stares up into the vast forest while he continues to sink deeper and deeper into darkness & despair. Tree trunks that suspend high into the sky stretch into taller insurmountable towers. Bent branches tilt and turn into jagged gargoyle landings. What was a soft surface beneath the boy's feet falls out from under him and he drops to his knees where a rough rock floor goes on for acres. Leaves lift with a harsh brush of wind and become newspaper clippings about his escapades as Spider-Man. He feels tormented and trapped down below what used to be a freeing city to swing through – nevermind how he has gotten there – he recognizes the place as a malformed version of what he would normally be familiar with.
Just when he can't imagine things possibly becoming any worse.. – his eyes are doing a good job of deceiving him into being distraught – ..his ears forsake him next when he hears the towers crumbling behind him. Izuku has been a witness to villain battles – as well as involved in enough of them – he knows to not stay in one place. The boy scrambles to his feet to flee from falling debris. A fight between two giants seems to be taking place; he can guess that much even without his Spider-Sense. He's seen epic battles like this with pro heroes like Godzillo through a television screen but being in the midst of one firsthand is an entirely different experience. Never more than before does he feel like a spider since he's bound to be squashed at this rate. Izuku trips and falls at the worst of all times as well.
The scared boy looks back to see who it is that's fighting behind him. He's expecting to see Mt. Lady or some other hero with a gigantification quirk. What he sees instead nearly makes his eyes pop out of their sockets. The symbiote has taken on a tall new size to combat an equally large version of his original Spider-Man costume. The red & blue pair of threads swats at the silky liquid suit but does about as much damage as one might expect from a living cloth material. Why the two versions of his vigilante uniform would be wrestling in the first place is beyond him, but he can see that the feud is at an extreme level by the way that the two combatants crash into the brick built towers around them. They wrap around one another as a form of struggling to claim dominance – or perhaps it's an attempt at strangling the other outfit – and then they go plowing into another row of skyscrapers.
Izuku tries to crawl away, but doing so from a backwards position proves to do very little for actually putting distance between himself and the brawl at hand. He may as well be backing himself up into a corner. Somewhere during the scuffle between the two suits, the symbiote happens to take notice of Izuku being caught in the midst of their battle. The slimy substance reaches for the boy down below. Naturally, Izuku is panicked by the large hand heading his way and does his best to flee from it. And, again just as naturally, he hardly gets very far before it manages to grab ahold of him. He's caught in the symbiote's grasp and hoisted high off the ground.
Seeing Izuku's distress, the red & blue Spidey suit stretches across to grab onto the boy as an attempt to rescue him. The symbiote, however, is not so willing to let go of the scared teenager. The costumes wind up grabbing an opposite end of Izuku and pull him from each side by the boy's opposing arms. Now, Izuku Midoriya is truly caught in the middle of their fight for superiority. All efforts from either costume goes towards who can manage to hold onto the freckled kid in their gloved grasp. Izuku kicks his legs and wriggles while trying to scream in protest all the while. Both Spider-Man uniforms are going to rip him in half at this rate. Yet, neither side is willing to yield in this match of who can claim Izuku Midoriya.
Just when Izuku believes that he's about to be ripped apart due to the grudge between his old costume and his new costume, he feels the darker version of himself reeling back harder. The symbiote raises a hand – and that same hand grows a set of liquid claws – it then slashes at the red & blue suit opposing it. The colorful costume is torn at its center, the claws carrying across and shredding the suit's torso. This brutal blow allows the symbiote to win the game of tug-a-war and it seizes this strike as a chance to steal away Izuku Midoriya. The other Spider-Man uniform desperately reaches out again to try and stop the symbiote but is continually torn to tatters. The symbiote cuts away the spider emblem on the other suit and it seemingly loses life as it folds over with one final desperate outstretched reach of its gloved hands.
Izuku Midoriya watches as his former self fades. He's then left with the costume that feels foreign and alien to him. What was once a mask that he'd ordinarily be the one to wear splits at the seams until the tearing turns into a large set of fangs. The wide white eyes above the symbiote suit's mouth develop into a downturned spiked appearance. Izuku stares into the face of what looks like a monster to him. And the clawed grip that he's in is carrying him closer to it. Izuku finds his voice – he screams – but that shout comes far too late as the symbiote swallows him whole.
That damning dreamscape that Izuku Midoriya can't quite escape is being brought on by the effects of Scorpion's stinger stabbing him. Due to the poison's effects, what Izuku is actually seeing is a hallucination of the battle between Moonfish and Fumikage Tokoyami. An enlarged form of Tokoyami's quirk, Dark Shadow, combats Moonfish who uses an elongated teeth quirk to appear just as large.
The symbiote, still in control of Izuku Midoriya's body, watches while this fight takes place. When it witnesses Dark Shadow overtake Moonfish and win the fight, it deems there is no need to get involved. Rather, the symbiote returns to the original objective that its host had wished to carry out. The symbiote takes the joyride of Izuku Midoriya to the mountainside to be in search of Kota Izumi.
With swaying motions, side to side like a drunkard, Spider-Man steps through the treeline onto the rocky incline of Kota's not-so-secret hideout of a cave. The symbiote shifts the sleeping form of the body that it controls – the suit wears the 'man' instead of the other way around – Spider-Man hikes up a hard hill slowly but surely. The dark costumed individual moves akin to that of a marionette missing a string; his head lulls and hangs without a conscious effort to keep it raised.
When Spider-Man reaches the peak of the cliffside, the brawl between Bakugo and Muscular has just ended. The symbiote stares ahead for its host to see Black Cat – Momo Yaoyorozu – badly injured & unconscious. Muscular is in a similar state. Which means Katsuki Bakugo, despite his labored breathing, was the victor of the battle here. Kota Izumi sits in the middle, bawling his eyes out.
Bushes rustle from the opposite end of the mountain's forest pathway before somebody else finds the fallout of the fight. It's Mandalay; the 'leader' of the Wild Wild Pussycats. Mandalay spares Spider-Man – the symbiote – a single glance. But as soon as she sees Kota, she runs directly by the vigilante to coddle and hold the frightened child that she came there for. She completely misses Yaoyorozu and Bakugo – momentarily – as she shushes the crying orphan that she had taken in as a legal guardian.
"We need a medical team asap! Follow the directional map that I'm sharing in your minds!", Mandalay speaks both audibly aloud and telepathically to anyone capable of listening to her callout for help. She sends with her mental message a memory of the route that she took to reach Kota's cave 'base' as an included tagline.
The symbiote tilts the head of its host to one angled side. Since Izuku Midoriya is still unconscious, Mandalay's message didn't quite go through to the faux Spider-Man. Across the way, Mandalay raises her gaze and does the same angled expression of confusion. Her face scrunches up when she realizes that it's extremely hard to make a connection with the symbiote suited character in front of her.
"Spider-Man.. ?" The woman warily gets to her feet. Beside her, Bakugo takes notice of the odd change in atmosphere and glances between the two while trying to figure out what it is that's happening himself.
Mandalay steadily stretches out her hand as she continues to cautiously tread towards Spider-Man. The symbiote stays completely still while otherwise standing the body of its host up a little straighter. Since the pro hero doesn't convey any signs of being a threat or danger to Izuku Midoriya.. – the woman only shows an outward expression of concern – ..the symbiote allows Mandalay to come closer.
The palm of Mandalay's hand makes contact with the masked cheek of the vigilante, much like she had done the first time back at the cabin resort. Only, this time, it is the symbiote that she reads instead of Izuku Midoriya.
If the pro hero's quirk allows her to be an empath beyond mere imagination, then this is as good an example of her quirk's potential as any. Mandalay's eyes widen as though they are only now truly opened. She senses feelings of anger, resentment, animosity, hate– and the negative emotions just keep flowing. The cause for these harbored feelings is, of course, due to an origin born of pain. David Shield's experimentation on the symbiote shocks her as though she is the one being electrocuted and tortured.
The symbiote feeds off of its host's mutual mood to co-exist and survive. All for one seemingly common goal. Revenge– or, perhaps, exacting vengeance at the very least. Unlike its host, however, the symbiote lacks morals or ethics. It only leeches off of the aggressive nature that comes with a vendetta and not the sad merciful sorrow a human might have. It's learning the behavior behind human reasoning & justification but is deeming differently what can be perceived as emotionally harmful than someone with a heart might.
The symbiote has seen what people call or consider 'love' and 'affection'. But it views these feelings wrong. It saw the jealousy that came out of an unrequited relationship. It saw the secrets and lies that are meant to protect someone wind up doing harm instead. It saw the way humans often push away the ones they care about the most to preserve what is called 'love'. It saw what loss does to a person because of how 'love' can hurt sometimes. And it only takes the anger from these experiences rather than the understanding somberness buried deep within.
Mandalay sees the symbiote's true intentions. And, she becomes scared. Because, we all often fear what it is that we don't understand. She doesn't understand the symbiote and it does not understand her or anyone else for that matter. As such, the form of connection that they made by physical contact is broken.
Mandalay begins to pull her hand away. The symbiote quickly steers an arm up to catch the woman by her wrist. Spider-Man's strength is utilized to hold her there.
Katsuki Bakugo sees this and he's taken aback. Because, whereas Mandalay & the symbiote may have been busy viewing memories, he too revisits some of his own. He sees the way he had handled Itsuka Kendo similarly.
"Hey! Let her go, asshole!" Bakugo forces himself to his feet as an effort to stand for what's right. He won't actually be able to put up much of a fight, but he does manage to put up a good enough front.
The symbiote hears Bakugo and oddly obeys. It releases its grip on Mandalay. The pro hero staggers back. Whereas her wrist isn't badly bruised, it does have a red hue surrounding it.
With that, the telepathic link with the symbiote is completely severed. It flees from the scene with its host to preserve both Izuku Midoriya and its own safety. A tactical retreat after all that transpired with the Sinister Six seems smart right about now. And since the original objective to ensure Kota is safe has been accomplished, there's no other reason to hang around still anyways.
Watching the vigilante leave, Bakugo falls back down to his knees. All of his energy has been exhausted from him. Especially since, if he felt like a failure before in battle, then he feels even more like a loser now upon finally realizing what he had done as a failure in forming a relationship with Kendo.
Mandalay looks away from the treeline where Spider-Man left, turning around to face Kota instead. The small boy doesn't seem to understand what happened there just now – to be honest with herself, neither fully does she – and so she goes back to hugging & holding him. To shelter Kota from the mad men here like Muscular is all she wants to do now.
And so, upon that cave cliffside, they all wait for the settling of the training camp's disaster. Eventually, somebody will come to provide Yaoyorozu with medical treatment. Soon, reinforcements will get there. Until then.. They wait.
It's a room so dark that Hitoshi Shinso mistakes his eyes for still being closed when they are already opened. And even after what seems like something between several minutes to an hour, those same eyes are still just as unreliable due to their lack of adjusting to see in the darkness. Shinso searches for what might be a shape in his black surroundings but he finds nothing. For a while there, he believes that he's gone completely blind.
Then, from somewhere within that all encompassing darkness, he hears a voice that assures him of otherwise. "Need a light?", somebody acknowledges the lack of anything shining in the abyss – but where that person speaks from could be just as far away as any sort of light there may be to be offered.
A yellow illumination stings Shinso's eyes when light suddenly streams from between two ends of a person's held out hands. It takes the still groggy Gen Ed U.A student a moment to realize those hands belong to a villain that he's now all too familiar with – and that the 'light' being provided is actually a sparkling volt of electricity in the form of a continuous current.
Shinso looks up at the costumed character in front of him with both recognition and confusion. It's an appearance so fiendishly foreign that he has a hard time placing or pairing it with the boy who he thought was his friend. Nevertheless, Shinso breathes out the name he knows to be associated with the villain. "Kaminari…"
"No", the villain takes the electricity he was tossing around in one hand as a spherically shaped ball so that his other hand can raise to hold up a singular finger – he corrects Shinso with a wagging of that finger – he tells Shinso that Kaminari is NOT his name and that he is instead to be referred to as the villain that he is, "Electro."
Shinso squirms as he struggles to stand up. He's forced to look down and see why his body disobeys him when he discovers that his movement is limited. It should have been expected but he's surprised to see that he is bound to a chair. Worst of all, what is restricting and binding his wrists & ankles are quirk suppressing cuffs.
"We had to make sure you wouldn't try brainwashing any of us", Electro provides Shinso an explanation at the very least – as though one even needs to be given in the first place – and even has the courtesy of looking apologetic about it too.
Nevertheless, Shinso isn't about to bend over backwards to forgive who he thought was a friend for abducting him. "YOU are the only one trying to do the brainwashing here", Shinso accuses the villain of manipulating his emotions and trying to trick him into becoming a villain too … which, to be fair, is sorta the case.
"Really? How so?" Electro, if it's all the same or not, doesn't fully see it that way though. He points out that joining the LOV doesn't mean following ten commandments or something, "It's not like I'm trying to push you into becoming a maniacal murderous monster", the roster ranges from monsters made that way to people with their own self motivated interests.
Shinso eyes Electro with skepticism, "And what about YOU?" It's to be expected that he would have trust issues after the revelational betrayal that occurred.
"Me? I'm misunderstood", Electro asks for a little bit of trust and understanding anyways apparently if the sincerity in his answer means anything at all.
This makes Hitoshi Shinso scoff with his still ever present disbelief. He isn't willing to give Kaminari – Electro – that kind of graciousness or courtesy. At least, not so eagerly or willingly.
"What? Aren't we all just that.. Misunderstood?", Electro keeps trying to appeal to the relatability of he and Shinso's seemingly 'tragic' childhoods. He figures that a personal perspective will help Shinso to understand him better.
But even if Shinso IS somehow able to relate to the villain, there are still certain limits to how much Shinso will accommodate in that relation. He aggressively asks Electro, "And that gives you the excuse to hurt people?"
The villain shrugs with a casual nonchalance, "They asked for it."
"Who?", but Shinso's anger & frustration is only further spurred on by that type of response, "Who asked for any of this?!" He looks around at the dark room that seems to have no end in sight as an abyss. He looks at Electro. He looks at himself and his quirk suppressing restraints.
"You wanna have a heart to heart therapy session with me? Fine!", Electro moves closer to Shinso as though that will make their conversation more intimately personal, "I meant what I said about us being similar.. That was never a lie."
Shinso skewers his stare while looking the villain in the eyes, "But you DID lie?"
Electro looks away while answering honestly, "Maybe a little.." When he returns his gaze to Shinso, however, his stare has hardened. "The point is that I was ridiculed for my quirk – they said it was too dangerous – they feared what I could do because I was powerful! They shunned and scorned me instead of encouraging or spurring me on while having blessed potential."
Shinso swallows the lump that forms in his throat. "That couldn't have been EVERYONE", he tries to find some sort of rationality in the story that's being spun for him.
"..It was the people that mattered.. " Denki Kaminari – ELECTRO – catches a glint of anger in his eyes. "My own parents made me wear quirk suppressants just like those ones you've got on right now", Electro roughly gestures to the cuffs with a hard slap upon their just as hard steel surface, "They weighed me down like shackles long before I became a villain."
Shinso shows some sympathy then, his stare softening while Electro's hardens. "..I never was made to wear quirk suppressants but.. But that doesn't give you the right to–"
"They made me take quirk suppressing drugs too", Electro interrupts Shinso to carry on with his tirade about his origin founded around oppression, "It had an effect on my mind – using too much of my quirk's power dumbed me down and short circuited my brain – they fried my mind because they were scared of my power's potential."
Shinso's typically low hung and tired eyes widen as he comes wide awake upon hearing about brain damaging quirk suppressing drugs, "Kaminari–"
The villain glowers at Shinso and grinds out through gritted teeth his much preferred honorific, "Electro."
Shinso slowly proceeds with caution after that, "E- Electro… do you maybe think these drugs had more than just that effect on your mind?"
"You calling me crazy?!", Electro funnily enough gains a crazed glint in his gaze, "Am I the crazy one for being wronged?!"
Shinso fearfully flinches back but he doesn't give up on trying to reach Kaminari either, "Th- There had to have been a reason–"
"They said I lacked control", but Electro begins to laugh maniacally while interrupting the other boy. Sparks jump between both of his hands with ease. "Looks like I got plenty of a perfect enough control on it to me."
Shinso shies away from the spark of electricity like it may leap out at him. "They accused the same of me", he tries to bravely act like he isn't afraid though, "but we gotta prove them wrong the RIGHT way!"
"This IS the right way!", Electro's flash of fury makes it impossible to hide his fear though. Electro notes the way Shinso cowers and quiets down, "Because it's the only way.."
Shinso just as softly speaks to ask, "The only way to do what?"
"It's the only way to make them understand", Electro tightens one of his hands into a closed fist, "and you know it."
Shinso looks down and away, "They ALL won't understand.. They never do.."
"Maybe not", Electro shrugs and smiles, "but those are the ones we can hurt then."
Shinso shakes his head as he realizes whatever hope that he had for his former friend has been snuffed out. As though to prove that as a fact, Electro's lightning emittance starts to dim down.
"Sensei saw me as something greater and gave me a chance to get revenge on everyone that held me back just because of my quirk", Electro wraps up his story by bringing it full circle, "Shigaraki sees something in you now that's possibly similar."
Shinso keeps shaking his head. He remains in denial. If not for Kaminari, then for himself. "I won't help or join you.."
Electro sighs. He then pulls a gray blazer over himself. It takes Shinso more than a second to see through the darkness that it's the U.A uniform that the villain is donning. "Well.. Time will tell", Electro starts to turn away from his captive.
"Just let me go", Shinso calls out from behind the villain – after his fading former friend, "we can still–"
"There's nothing for you to redeem me from, dude!" The scarred face of Denki Kaminari looks back as Electro removes his mask. The star shaped wound is exactly the same type of visage. It's a permanent mark.
"D- Didn't you kill people?", Shinso has a hard time looking at Kaminari – Electro – and so he looks away with his eyes closed when waiting for an answer from the villain.
Kaminari avoids making eye contact as well, "Gotta get going.." His costume change is complete and so he gets back to leaving Shinso behind. "I can't be gone for too long! Afterall, I still have an image as a U.A student to uphold!"
Kurogiri opens a warpgate that swallows Denki Kaminari in darkness. Once the portal closes, Hitoshi Shinso is swallowed by black as well.
They had to rent additional firetrucks. Not that it mattered in the end, considering there was nothing left of the forestry by the time any emergency services got to the wilderness resort. But, there are plenty of firetrucks, many of them supplementally rented.
A thick carpet of ashen leaves litters the ground. A soot filled terrain makes the destructive site seem like there was an active volcano that went off. Whatever trees once stood as tall towers have crumpled over and rotted into a filthy black dust.
The air is still thick despite the smoke from the fire having dissipated with the mustard gas of a villain who's been apprehended with many others – a scent of decayed and dried bark couples with the creak of wood that is trying to stay intact as anything but wood – it makes for a heavy atmosphere. It's still dark out, no sunlight pouring in over the horizon that stretches with more and more wildlife completely consumed by destruction.
Down the mountainside, by the Wild Wild Pussycat cabin space, all of U.A's Hero Course students were recovered to be aided by health services. Some of the students who suffered more severe & serious injuries, like Shoto Todoroki, are airlifted on a stretcher to be taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital. Others like Tenya Iida are tended to within the back of an ambulance.
Sansa Tamakawa, an officer who was called to the scene, strolls across the area while taking it all in. He sees Toru Hagakure, who despite her invisible appearance, is quite clearly in a state of some sort of shock; she's silent and uncooperative when it comes to answering any questions. He sees Setsuna Tokage who is missing a limb and won't stop sobbing. And he sees Momo Yaoyorozu who is given the same emergency treatment as Shoto Todoroki.
Tamakawa passes by a few familiar faces from when there was that mall incident. Itsuka Kendo is sitting with Katsuki Bakugo in silence … but they are comforted by one another's company if nothing more or less. Denki Kaminari and Kyoka Jirou are a bit more distant from one another by comparison. The only faces missing are Izuku Midoriya and Hitoshi Shinso.
The cop has seen his fair share of tough & terrible crime scenes. It doesn't really get that much easier to look at regardless of experience. Yet, this one stirs something up in him. Maybe it's because of everything else that happened recently. Maybe it's because of Melissa Shield's connection to U.A now and that she could have gotten caught up in this mess. Whatever the case, he feels himself getting closer to his limit in how long he can let such evil get away with such sins.
And unlike the police, the pro heroes are off on the sidelines doing nothing. The Wild Wild Pussycats, who were here, are now taking what looks like a break. Tiger, a tough looking dude, sulks like a soft little kitten. Ragdoll and Pixie Bob, a pair of powerful women, look absolutely defeated. And their 'leader', Mandalay, appears as though she has no idea what to do about all of this.
Pixie Bob is the first of the team to also notice their leader's odd behavior. She gently grabs Mandalay by one of her shoulders to get the other woman's attention before asking, "What's wrong?"
Mandalay is startled by the sudden contact via touch, jumping a little when coming out of a deep rumination, and has to blink to register Pixie Bob or any of the other Wild Wild Pussycats are looking at her with concern in their gazes. She didn't quite hear Pixie Bob the first time around and so she has to ask for a repeat of the question that had been asked, "Huh?"
Ragdoll exchanges a look with Pixie Bob before also chiming in – on Pixie Bob's behalf – she puts it as politely as possible, "You seem.. Shaken.." It takes the pro hero a second to rethink what she's trying to say before reiterating a little bit. "I mean, more than any of the rest of us are."
Mandalay looks around at her teammates – her friends and her family – and she sees that they ARE just as worried as her. She opens her mouth to start to say something, "It's..", but winds up trailing off.
Tiger rolls his eyes. In an effort to try and lighten the mood while also urging Mandalay to share her thoughts, he puts his hands on his hips in order to express an act of disappointment. "If you say it's nothing, then I swear to God–"
"It's Spider-Man", Mandalay winds up blurting out the reason for constantly spacing out. The reason is as shocking to herself as it is the rest of the Wild Wild Pussycats when she says it aloud.
Tiger's eyes widen with surprise before they harden into a glare, "What about the brat?" He winds up getting riled up while assuming the worst. The man gets chesty when asking, "Did he do something– ?"
Mandalay hurriedly shakes her head when correcting Tiger, "Not– Not exactly" The man then quiets down and waits for her to explain, "It's just.."
"Spit it out", Pixie Bob is not as forbearing and impatiently crosses her arms. Alongside her, Ragdoll mirrors the gesture and folds her own arms under her chest.
Mandalay takes a second to nod. She then takes a big breath to compose herself and exhales before trying to tell her team what it is that got her so freaked out about Spider-Man, "When I peeked inside his mind again during the raid.. What I read.."
The Wild Wild Pussycats look around at one another. They're confused. And that confusion scares them. Mandalay is not usually disturbed by what it is she might come across when reading somebody's mind. For her to be shaken in such a way is concerning to say the least.
It only starts to make some semblance of sense when Mandalay puts it bluntly, "That was NOT the same boy whose thoughts I'd read previously."
AUTHOR NOTES
I'm back with a new chapter! Hope you all had a great holiday and are geared up for this month's festivities!
Kicking off the return of 'Something Spectacular', I couldn't think of any better way to begin this next arc (titled Costume Chronicles) than to incorporate the classic costume clash dream sequence when it comes to Spidey's struggle with the symbiote. Utilizing Scorpion's stinger venom as a hallucination coupled with the Tokoyami VS Moonfish fight felt like the best way to do it as compared to just making it a dream or nightmare.
And anyone who may have been wondering about why Mandalay couldn't read the symbiote's thoughts before - well, now you have your answer in a rather big & defining moment - I'm starting to feel like I could work the Wild Wild Pussycats into this arc as a knockoff Fantastic 4 family.
We also can't forget Denki Kaminari's backstory as Electro starting to get explored either! I thought it'd make the most sense to take Kaminari's canonical quirk problem of short circuiting himself (whey) and his lack of being able to control it as a way to reformat / restructure his character. Of course, there's more to be delved into there, but it's a start at getting a much needed long awaited explanation!
But I digress, I can't wait any longer, it is time to get into responding to your reviews!
To Racan: I can't make any promises about that pairing but I CAN promise that there is still much to do with Toru & Izuku!
To kano: Not to worry, Momo & Katsuki won't be a pairing in this story, the only romantic implications here will be with Itsuka if anything! I intended Katsuki's acknowledgement of Momo to help with the Green Goblin storyline (more to be developed there later!) so rest assured!
To Nova-x-Prime: Quite the packed previous chapter indeed! I'm glad you enjoyed it! Much more to come!
To CapoPerk: Always a relief to know that I'm handling the pacing well when there is so much to incorporate, so I appreciate that! I'll work hard to make all the upcoming payoffs well worth the wait of all this buildup!
To theMAX360: Hydro Man is an interesting choice for Muscular's character that I hadn't thought of - it'd probably mesh well with Kota's character and how that'd work out water wise - but I'm not so sure since I do happen to have alternative ideas for what to possibly do with Muscular moving forward. Time will tell!
To Aaden: I really hope you chose to keep reading because it's really funny you should say that about Izuku putting on the symbiote since that's basically what I was working towards, haha!
To Tanksorus87: All I can think of now is the One Piece meme where Zoro gets hit by a bubble and starts to spasm from the pain - but on a serious note, I appreciate you and everyone enduring Izuku's hardships with him - the Spidey suffering will have its ups and downs but never be as extreme as Guts from Berserk or anything.
I think it's really important to address this overall concern that keeps being brought up about the hardships that Spidey/Izuku has to deal with. Look, I can't promise you a happy fanfic or a slice of life fluff piece. When it comes to storytelling, I'm no Martin Scorsese but I'm a firm believer in the general formula; there are highs and lows to a story that make it hard to read or watch sometimes but also creates extremely compelling stakes - not just for the reader, but to also help move the character along - it's just a common structure that works for a reason. Not to mention, it's a huge part of Spider-Man's character to have him go through hardship. It saddens me to see sometimes that people miss the point that the great thing about Spidey's character is how he keeps going despite such huge hardships. Like real life, it's super easy to get knocked down by bills and relationships failing and people ridiculing you even when you're trying to do the right thing - but Spider-Man is one of the best if not THE best superhero for the reason that despite getting mad or sad about it, he never ever actually quits or gives up - I love this quality about the character and how aspiring it is that I will always involve this aspect in my writing. I felt I needed to say my piece on this and elaborate. I apologize for anyone who might have a differing opinion and might want to stop reading because of my writing style but I can also on that same note tell you that sticking it out will be hopefully worth it for when Izuku/Spidey does get his dues. Spider-Man 2 by Sam Raimi is probably one of the best examples of this for a reason - Spidey story and just even movie structure wise - MCs go through ALOT but the super small tender moments in between can be appreciated all the more for this and the ending payoff is more than often worth it all.
Oh, and last but certainly not least, I'm super excited to tell you all that this fanfic has now officially got fan art! Alandrws over on ArchiveOfOurOwn shared with me a really awesome piece or two capturing the forest camp scene with the symbiote puppeteering Izuku's body! Working on finding a way to share these drawings with you, either here or through ArchiveOfOurOwn if not both, if Alandrws is okay with that!
At this point, the author notes are getting as long - longer? - as the chapter itself. So I'm gonna wrap things up and say see ya all next time!
-Courtesy of your now returned neighborhood author!