Chapter 11:
It was a Saturday morning for the students of Beacon, most were sleeping in late, studying, or in this case for Team RWBY and JNPR, eating breakfast in the cafeteria.
Ruby had gathered everyone so they could have breakfast before revealing her plans for the day.
"So everyone, how are you all on this beautiful morning!" Ruby shouts.
"Well, besides you dragging all of us here without our permission, I say things are doing fine." Weiss says.
"Cheer up snow angel, I think it was a great idea for Ruby to gather us here for breakfast." Jaune tried to smooth talk Weiss, it failed.
"Yeah, this breakfast is great!" Nora shouts, stuffing her face with pancakes.
Ren sighs at the sight while the others stare at the ginger haired huntress.
"Anyways, the reason I have everyone here is because I believe it would be a great team exercise for all of us to hang out for the entire day!" Ruby cheers.
"That sounds like a wonderful idea Ruby, but shouldn't Peter be here so we can begin?" Pyrrha pointed out.
"Peter is still in our dorm, he had barely woken up by the time the rest of us were ready. I believe he is changing at the moment." Blake responds.
"He wouldn't be so tired of he wouldn't spend so much time out so late!" Weiss complained.
"Well he does take pictures of Vale's Vigilante, Spider-Man. Maybe he spends most of the day searching for him." Jaune suggests.
"But Spider-Man has only been spotted at night, I highly doubt Peter would wait that long out of Beacon." Ren comments.
Everyone ponders for a bit about what Peter would do outside of Beacon. Despite knowing Peter for a while now, everyone knew very little about Peter, he would spend a lot of time either studying in the library, or out in Vale, doing who knows what. Come to think of it, they also realized they don't know much about his life before Beacon either. All anyone knows is the motto Peter lived by, despite Weiss being slightly skeptical on that, who he learned from his Uncle.
"Has anyone ever asked him about his personal life?" Jaune asked, wanting to see if anyone else knew anything about Peter other than himself.
Team RWBY look amongst themselves, realizing that they never actually bothered to ask. Then again, they never thought to ask since Peter never brought up his past either.
"Come to think of it, no. To be honest, he never said anything about himself so we never bothered to ask." Blake replies, "Maybe his past is painful." She guessed.
"Maybe we could ask him? I believe he wouldn't mind if we did." Pyrrha suggests.
"Yeah! He's our friend, I'm sure he'd be happy to share his past with us." Jaune hopes, knowing that he may not.
"I would suggest we ask him later. We wouldn't just ask him out of the blue if he joins us during our time out in Vale." Ren says, knowing that if his past is a painful one, Peter would mostly like avoid any questions.
"Sure, once Peter is here, we can all go out and spend the day as friends." Ruby cheers.
"Seriously though, how long is he taking to get here? What is he doing?!" Weiss says, growing impatient.
"I'm right here ice queen, just getting breakfast first." A familiar voice calls out from a few feet behind Team RWBY.
Everyone looks to see Peter, he was carrying a large tray with a ridiculously large portion of breakfast food, his backpack hanging from his shoulder.
When Peter sits down, Nora yells, "Whoa! That's a lot of food! Are you challenging me to a eating contest, because I won't lose!"
"Nora!"
"What? He has a lot of food, I must defend my title of food champion!" Nora shouts.
"Um no, I'm just really hungry." Peter says, as he sat down to eat his food, placing his backpack to the side.
"But that is an enormous amount of food, are you sure you can eat all that?" Blake asks, wondering if he really could eat it all.
"Yup, a growing boys got to eat. That and I have been getting a lot more hungry recently so I'm just eating more to satiate my hunger." Peter responds, continuing to eat.
"Well, now that you are here, we want to let you know that I have planned for all of us to head to Vale to spend our time as friends!" Ruby informed the secret meta-human.
"Oh that sounds like fun, but I'm going to have to pass, I sort of have a couple of errands to do today. If you guys want I can catch up to you guys when I'm done." Peter responds.
"Oh, that's okay, I guess." Ruby responded, slightly disappointed Peter would be absent for most of the day, again. "But you better promise to join us later today okay." Ruby pouted.
"Okay, I will." Peter than turned to Yang, "How do you survive with such a lethal pout?"
"You don't, it's inevitable to give in to her pouting." Yang answered.
"What errands do you have to do on a Saturday?" Jaune asked.
"Oh you know, getting more film for my camera, more snacks for studying, and annoying Weiss cream most of the day for no reason." Peter quipped.
"Hey!"
Everyone besides Weiss chuckles at his quip, finding such antics funny. After everyone stopped chuckling Blake then asked, "Don't you already have enough snacks to eat already?"
"Our chocolate. We want our chocolate." Venom demanded.
"I already ate my snacks the other day. That and to buy cookies for Ruby as an apology for forgetting to give her a pic of Spider-Man she's been asking for." Peter responds.
"Don't tell them!" Ruby shouts, embarrassed of everyone seeing her as a huge superhero dork.
"Aw, you don't have to be embarrassed, I think Ice here is also a huge Spider-man fan." Yang joked.
"Shut up Yang!" Weiss says, with a slight blush on her face.
Finishing his food, Peter quickly gets up and grabs his backpack in a haste, a certain photo falling out of it as a result.
"Okay I got to go, I'll see you guys later!" Peter shouts as he quickly left.
Everyone waves goodbye as he left, except for Blake as she noticed the photo on the ground. She picks it up and flips it to see a photo of a younger Peter wearing glasses, with too elderly adults standing next to him, with all three of them in front a cake with a set of candles displaying the number ten.
Noticing Blake looking at the photo, Yang than asks, "What are you looking at Blake?", snatching the photo so everyone could see.
Everyone looks at the photo, curious on what it could be. They all see what Blake saw, slightly surprised to see how different Peter looked between his present day self and his younger looking self.
"Pft, he looks like a total nerd!" Nora laughs.
"I think they make him look cute." Weiss blurts out, getting everyone to look at her.
Yang was about to tease her, but has her mouth covered by Weiss who shouts, "Shut up! Don't you dare tell him I said that!" embarrassed at what she said out loud with a huge blush on her face.
Moving on from the awkward situation, slightly jealous at the comment, Jaune then says, "I didn't think he would look so, scrawny. I wonder how he got those muscles?" Jaune asked, getting three out of the four members of team RWBY to blush.
"A-anyways, I wonder who those people are next to him. Oh! Maybe that's his Uncle! They seem a bit too old to be his parents." Ruby guessed.
"And if it is, then we can assume that that lady is his aunt? We should probably ask him about it when we give him the photo back." Pyrrha says, feeling that this was a breach of privacy and that they should give said photo back to him.
"I have an idea, why don't we follow Pete, maybe we can see what he does all day, and we can just "coincidently" bump into him and return the photo when the opportunity arises." Yang suggested.
"I don't think that's a good idea Yang, spying on him would be a breach of his privacy, we shouldn't spy on him." Ren comments.
"Come one Ren, maybe it could be fun. Oh! We could act like we are on a spy mission! How fun would that be!" Nora says, agreeing with Yang.
"Absolutely not! I am not following that jester the entire day!" Weiss protests.
"How about we put it to a vote? Anyone who wants to do a spy mission raise their hand!" Yang says with her hand up. Ruby, Nora, Jaune, and surprisingly Blake raised their hand. "Five out of eight, looks like we are doing a spy mission."
"Let's go then!" Ruby says, running ahead of everyone. "Spy mission!"
As everyone began running, the other three follow on a much slower pace.
"Ugh, looks like the three of us will be making sure they don't cause too much trouble." Weiss face palms.
"I mean, as long as we keep our distance Peter won't notice us, right?" Pyrrha replied, with Ren nodding.
Both teams then enter a bullhead headed for Vale. They would spend the day following Peter to see what he does all day. They expected Peter to take a different bullhead than them, but Peter was in the same one as them. So things got quite as all none of them wait to arrive at Vale.
"You guys want to play rock paper scissors while we wait?"
/
Once everyone arrives at Vale, Peter says his goodbyes once again, and leaves on his own. After a few moments, the teens immediately start following Peter from a distance, making sure he wouldn't notice them.
When they follow him, they see Peter enter a photo store, they watch enter and look through the window of the store to see Peter pick out film and a new camera for him to purchase.
Back with the teens, they watch as Peter finished his purchase. However they notice him spacing out once again for a few moments before leaving.
"Ok, I'm just going to say it, do any of you find it concerning how often he spaced out?" Jaune asked.
"Yeah, he's done that ever since we all meet at Beacon. I always wondered if something was wrong with him that day." Ruby replied.
"Come to think of it, when I first met him, I do recall him spacing out as well, although it didn't last as long as his current ones at the moment." Blake added.
"Oh yeah, I forgot you two meet before we did at Beacon. Where was it exactly you meet again?" Yang asked.
"Book store."
"I'm surprised he was even at one, what would he get from a bookstore" Weiss asked.
"He got a biology book, and a comic book." Blake answered. "To be honest, when I saw him pick up one, I may have yelled out my disapproval. And got his attention where he gave me a surprisingly informative lecture on how comic books can tell a compelling story."
"Ha, Nerd." Nora chuckles.
"I didn't know he was such an intellectual, I thought Weiss tutored him so he wouldn't fall behind." Pyrrha admits, "Not that I don't believe he isn't smart, just unfocused most of the time."
"I have much more important matters to attend to then tutor that idiot. Even now I still can't accept he is that smart." Weiss complained.
"Yeah, he was so smart he even got bullied for it back home." Jaune blurts out, with everyone turning to him in confusion. "Ah crapbaskets, I don't think I should have said that."
"Jaune, what do you mean by that?" Ruby asked, slowly getting concerned.
"Don't tell him I told you guys, or that you all now know, but after Cardin drop his food all over him, we talked while he cleaned himself up from the mess. He was giving me advice at the time and when he told me how similar the both of us were, he mentioned being a target of bullying by his whole class back from his home for his intelligence. Apparently he was the smartest one in his school." Jaune explained.
"That's sounds awful! Didn't he have any friends to look out for him?" Ruby asked.
"I don't know, maybe? He didn't mention anybody except for a girl he liked. That's all I know." Jaune told the red haired huntress.
Everyone stays awkwardly silent for a moment, unsure of what to think. Breaking the silence, Yang says, "Well, he has us now so if anyone messes with him or any of us then we'll kick their ass!"
"Yeah!" Nora cheered.
"I think Peter can handle himself, from what we've seen, he can do some serious damage to someone if he use more of his strength." Pyrrha says. "I still want to spar with him to see what he is capable of."
"I bet he still wouldn't be able to beat you! Team JNPR for the win!" Nora cheered.
"No way! Peter would win! He's pretty strong and fast so he could definitely give you guys some trouble!" Ruby countered.
"Ugh, we can see that for ourselves when Peter spars with you Pyrrha. For now we should keep up if we all want to see what else he does." Weiss sighs.
Everyone silently nods as they continued to spy on Peter. The next place Peter stops by is a fabric store. Everyone is pretty confused on why he would go here of all places. Unfortunately, they can't see what he buys since the shelf's and displays block their view of Peter.
"Why would he choose to come here of all places? He has no fashion sense at all." Weiss asked.
"Come one ice queen, maybe he's trying to learn to be fashionable? Ok I got nothing. Any guesses?" Yang asked the others.
"Maybe he is making an outfit to impress someone? Oh! Who do you think they could be?" Ruby says, think Peter has a crush.
"I believe that isn't true. He did say he isn't ready for any relationships right now. Maybe he is buying fabric to repair clothing? He hasn't thrown away his old clothes yet." Blake guessed.
"You mean he didn't get rid of those rags! I told him to get rid of those things, they've just been sitting in the bathroom on the wardrobe for weeks!" Weiss shouts.
"Maybe they have sentimental value? They could be what he wore from where he came from, so maybe he is keeping them to remind himself of home." Pyrrha guesses. "Come to think of it, does anybody know where he comes from?"
"I believe not, since we don't know anything about him besides what Jaune has told us." Ren answered. "His voice does have a peculiar accent, it does resemble something from a large city. He could be from Atlas."
"Oh no! There is no way he comes from the same place as me! Atlas is filled with people that are sophisticated and proper manners, no way someone that acts so childish, even more than Ruby, comes from Atlas." Weiss countered.
"Hey!"
"But he is intelligent, coming from Atlas could explain that part of him, although his more comedic side of his personality is still a mystery." Yang comments.
"I bet he's an alien here to conquer our world!" Nora shouts with her over exaggerating expressions
"Nora!"
As the others, Weiss remembered something Peter told her the day the went out together.
"It's how I cope."
This thought, and the combination of what Jaune revealed to them about Peter's past, got her to realize what that meant.
"It's how he copes…"
"What?"
"When me and Peter took a lunch break, and I swear to god if you call that a date Yang I'm going to encase you in a block of ice!" Weiss began, pointing a finger at Yang knowing she would joke about that. She continues to say, "I asked him why he acted the way he does, he told me it was just who he was. But the last thing he mentioned was that it's how he copes."
"Wait, if that's true then does that mean that his jokes and quips are a coping mechanism?" Jaune puts the pieces together.
"Some people handle pain and tragedy through humor, so that could mean that every time Peter jokes his hiding his the pain he feels." Blake finished Jaune's train of thought.
Everyone stays awkwardly silent for a moment once again, processing the info they learn about Peter through small clues they get from him.
Breaking the silence, Ruby says, "But he is always making jokes…"
"Now we know where all that anger comes from, the time Cardin was giving you trouble must have opened up some emotional scars for Peter." Pyrrha says as she places her hand on Jaune's shoulder.
"Should we talk to him about this? Maybe we can help." Yang suggested.
"I believe that would be unwise, he should talk to us about his problems himself. If we try to confront him about this then it would betray his trust." Ren answered.
Both teams just agree with what Ren suggested, although Ruby was reluctant to do so. After a few minutes, the see Peter leave the fabric store and follow him to see him stop at his next destination. And his next stop was a bakery, which made Ruby excited.
"Oh! He's getting me cookies! Yes!" Ruby cheered.
"Of course, sometimes you both act so similar. Heck, he's like a combination of both you and Yang." Weiss states.
"Oh! Maybe he's your long lost brother! What if he was separated from you at birth!" Nora rants.
"That's a funny joke, but yeah. He is sort of like me and Rubes combined." Yang says as she ruffles Ruby's hair, getting her to chuckle. "If he was our brother he would be the middle child. Come to think of it, does anybody know how old he is?" Yang asked.
"No, another thing he hasn't told anyone. I wonder when his birthday is too." Jaune replied.
"Maybe we should ask him? Oh! Maybe today's is his birthday! We should throw him a party!" Ruby says with glee.
"I highly doubt today is his birthday, the chances of that are pretty low Ruby." Blake told her.
"Hm, nope. I have a guy feeling today is his birthday. Come on, let's get birthday supplies!" Ruby says, running off on her own, with Nora following her lead shouting "Yeah! Birthday cake!"
"Oh you got to be kidding me! Get back her you dolt!" Weiss shouts, chasing after her, with Ren following her as well.
"Well, I guess we are making Peter a birthday party then." Pyrrha said, she then turns to Jaune, who was still looking at the bakery Peter was in. "Shall we join them?" Pyrrha says, smiling in his direction.
"Yeah, let's go. I'm sure Ren might need help with Nora too." Jaune says, slightly embarrassed from looking at Pyrrha's smile.
One the rest of the JNPR left, Blake and Yang were the last ones left behind.
"So, I guess we're done spying on Peter, let's go." Yang says.
"Actually, there's something I need to do, so can you tell the others I'll meet them later?" Blake asks.
Yang nods as she leaves, leaving Blake on her own. Blake goes off in another direction from the others. This was her chance to look for Spider-Man and warn him about the potential trap the White Fang had in store for him. Hopefully she isn't too late.
/
Peter had left his friends to go on to do some of his errands for the day. His first stop was a camera store, where he bought a new camera and more film.
As he made the purchase, Peter thought "Finally, maybe with better quality I might make even more money."
"About damn time, why haven't you got a new camera by now?" Venom asked.
"Because a certain alien goo had me use most of my budget on chocolate." Peter retorts. "I know you need the nutrients in it, but do you need to eat that much chocolate?"
"If you want us to stay as sane as we can then yes. Plus, it's delicious we can't help ourselves." Venom answered.
"I think the sugar is addictive for you, but if there's not any alternative then I guess it's all I can do." Peter told the symbiote.
"Correct."
Peter just sighs, as he leaves and heads towards his next destination. After a few minutes he arrived at a fabric store and entered.
Slightly confused, the symbiote asks, "Why are we here of all places?"
"Getting extra material for my Spidey suit, just in case. I was going to get stuff to repair my original outfit, but it seemed more important to have stuff for my suit instead." Spider-Man replies.
"Why? We haven't had an opponent land a hit on us in a while, you don't need to repair it right now." Venom huffs.
"It's just in case, never hurts to be prepared, besides there is fire lady and Roman. Those two might actually be a problem for me. And I know if it was the both of us they wouldn't stand a chance you've ranted about that multiple times already." Peter countered.
"We are just saying that it would be so easy, but since you refuse to go all out then you will spend a lot of time fighting them." Venom comments.
"I just want to make sure others don't get hurt in the crossfire first. If we are in a situation where I don't have to worry about that I'll think about using a bit more strength." Peter offered.
The symbiote just grunts, it wished the spider would let it have some fun with their enemies. But at the very least it can just tear Grimm apart to fulfill its violent tendencies. Tendencies it secretly wished it didn't have.
After purchasing the needed fabric, Peter then heads towards his last destination, which was a bakery. He did promise Ruby cookies so he was going to get her cookies. Peter entered the establishment and began looking through the selection of cookies.
Peter was spending some extra time looking through the selection of cookies to choose from. While he knew Ruby loved chocolate chip, he wanted to get her a more variety selection of cookies for her to enjoy. Especially since any chocolate related items had been disappearing from Beacon the last few days.
While he was looking, the symbiote was just patiently waiting, bored out of it's mind. However, that would change as it noticed something in the corner of the store.
The symbiote stared at the beauty of the object in the store, the liquid chocolate flowing down from the top. "Parker. What is that?" Venom asked.
"Huh?" Peter responds, slightly confused. He then turned around to see what the symbiote was referring to. "Oh, that's a chocolate fountain. Wait, oh no."
"It's so beautiful. We need this."
"You mean you want it. And the answer is no. I can't afford anything like that. Plus, I doubt they sell that here." Peter responds.
"Damn it! Can we at least have a chocolate cake for your birthday?" Venom asked.
"Fine, when I turn seventeen we'll, get one." Peter reluctantly replied.
"Good, then order it with those cookies for mini-you as well." Venom demanded.
"I said when I turn seventeen, aren't you listening?" Peter grunts.
"We know, and today is the day you have reach your day of birth in Earth years. So hop to it." Venom replied bluntly.
"I'm sorry, what?! Already?! I thought I had another month until my birthday was here!" Peter shots internally.
"You clearly haven't kept track of time. Lucky for you we have been tracking our time, plus I can tell your age by how your body has progressed as well. Now about that cake." Venom tried to demand again.
"Well, sorry if the calendar here doesn't align with the one back home! The best I could conclude was it was a few months ahead !" Peter retorts. "Besides, I don't have anymore money to spare right now. At best I can order a cupcake, a chocolate one." Peter told the symbiote.
"….This is…. Acceptable."
Peter sighs, he then ordered the cookies for Ruby, and a chocolate cupcake in a box. He then leaves and heads towards the nearest park to eat the cupcake in peace. As he opens the box, he just stares at the small pastry.
"Well? Are you going to eat it so we can our share of it or not?" Venom asked.
"You know what, here, doesn't seem like anyone's here to see, so you can eat it yourself quickly." Peter offered.
"Excellent." Venom simply responds. The symbiote then quickly emerged it's head out and snatched the cupcake quickly for digesting and retracts back in Peter's body.
While the symbiote digests it's food, Peter just sits there on a bench, looking up at the sky.
Noticing this, the symbiote reluctantly asks, "What is it now Parker?"
"Nothing, just don't feel like celebrating my date of birth right now." Peter replied.
"Why are you lying? We know what you really feel remember?" Venom chastises. "We're literally inside your head."
"Why do you care? It's not like you care about anything at all except for survival." Peter jabs.
"Because of your not at your best mentally, then you will get sloppy and inefficient. Not good for both our survival." Venom explained. "I may not have any knowledge of what to tell you, but we are curious on why you're troubled on your current situation."
"Ugh, because I miss home ok! This is my first birthday without the both of them, and I don't think it's worth celebrating my existence without them." Peter replied.
"Then celebrate with your friends. We are sure they care enough to be there for you." Venom suggests.
"And have a birthday party out of pity? No, I won't do that to them." Peter replied.
"Damnit, you beings created by the Celestial's are extremely complicated." Venom thought. "Enough, why don't you take your own advice for once. You are doing the exact stupid thing Arc did!"
"Because unlike Jaune I don't belong here! It was by pure chance the both of us survived that god damn explosion! I should be back home, taking care of my Aunt May!" Peter began, "I just…. I….. I want to go back home. The only thing I have left now is the photo of…wait.."
Peter tried to look for the photo of him and his family, but he couldn't find it. He frantically looked inside multiple times, hoping to find it somewhere, anywhere, but unfortunately it wasn't there.
"Oh that's just great! Now I don't have anything left of my previous life. Why do I even bother anymore! Heck why do I even bother being the wall-crawler of I don't have anything or anyone to protect anymore!" Peter internally shouts, clutching his hands into fists with so much strength to the point they started bleeding.
"You inspire people."
"What?"
"You have a knack of changing people in a positive way when you interact with them." The symbiote explained, healing it's host's hands.
"Like who?" Peter asked.
"….. You are so dense and stubborn sometimes. The mini-you, Arc, and the Schnee girl." Venom replied. "Little rose has been inspired by you to be a hero. Arc has been inspired by you to believe in his own potential. And the annoying loud white witch has even been inspired to be a better person for the most part. You have changed their lives and you somehow didn't realize it."
"I'm sure they would have grown to be better people without me."
"We highly doubt that. It seems the problem is that you still don't believe in yourself after all this time." Venom summed up.
Peter just stays silent, he didn't have the energy to even continue this conversation. The symbiote was about to continue to speak, but Peter's spider-sense alerted the both of them to the other side of the park. The look and see a random White Fang goon attempt to pass through the park stealthily.
"Hmph, guess we are ending this conversation and not continuing it. We believe you have a job to do." Venom pointed out.
"Fine. Let's go." Peter says, as he leaves to change into his suit.
A few moments later, Spider-Man was following the WF goon as he watched them enter a warehouse.
"A warehouse with little windows, one entrance, no openings, and one random clown being way to obvious in leading me here. Trap?"
"Trap. So, are you still going in there?" Venom asked.
"Yup, can't look the other day remember? Time to get into action." Spider-Man declared.
Once Spider-Man entered the warehouse, all he see's is pitch black, with no one in sight. He carefully entered the building as the doors closed behind him, relying on his spider-sense to earn him of incoming danger. And right on queue, he sensed an attack from behind and moves to the side and kicks at his attacker, who blocks his counter attack. The lights turn on to reveal a short women with hair that's pink on one side and brown hair on the other, with eyes matching the hair. Along with the warehouse, was multiple crates filled with dust.
"Hey look, it's the ice cream lady. You wouldn't happen to come on pure vanilla do you?" Spider-man quipped.
"That's a basic choice."
"What? I'm a simple guy."
The colorful woman just stares at him in annoyance, staying silent. She then proceeded to use her weapon, which happened to be a pink umbrella with a blade at the tip. She the proceeded to try and land multiple slashes at Spider-Man. Spider-Man uses his elbows to push her arms away as she tried to swing her weapon at him.
He then land a punch to her face, surprising her, and kick her a few feet away. He then shot webs and slung himself forward to land a high jump kick, but his spider-sense alerted him from more danger. Spider-Man then shoots webs at the ceiling in order to move out of the way from incoming dust rounds.
Once he lands on the ceiling, he looks to see Roman Torchwick, his cane raised, seemingly the one who shot said dust rounds.
"Hey there Rome, long time no see. Where have you been? I thought you quit when you weren't making a profit anymore." Spider-man says.
"Hmph, sorry insect, but I'm not retiring any time soon. I still have a reputation to uphold and places to rob." Roman replied
"You mean as a the town's circus ring leader? Cause you are dressed like one." Spider-Man mocked.
Roman didn't like this one bit, he more dust rounds at Spider-Man, but each shot misses as the web-head effortlessly dodged each one.
"Grr, get down here and fight like a man you annoying insect!" Roman shouts.
"Why don't you come up here and fight like an arachnid! Get it right candleschtick." Spider-Man jabs at the criminal.
Roman only got even more annoyed, he then took out another crystal and threw it, preparing to shoot it get Spider-Man down. However, Spider-Man quickly webbed the crystal and threw it back at Roman, forcing the man to dive out the way.
"Nope, won't let you try that again. Now, for Miss ice cream lady." Spider said, as he drops down and shoots out a web in order to catch her. But the colorful lady just uses the blade of her umbrella to slash the webbing away.
She then proceeded to rush towards Spider-Man, and continued her assault and tried to stab Spider-man with the tip of her blade. Spider-Man bends backwards and tried to kick her away, but she jumps back before he could hit her. Roman then rushed forward as well and had a blade come out of his cane as well. And attempted to stable Spider-Man in the back.
Spider-Man twists his body to face Roman, and knee his arm, sending him stuttering to the side.
"Are you guys trying to make shish-kibobs or something, cause spiders aren't delicious you know!" Spider-man quipped.
"Just shit up already!" Roman shouts.
"Hm, Parker don't you find it odd they kip trying to stab you in the same manner?" Venom asked.
"Not really, most bad guys try to do that if they have any sharp weapons on hand. Why?" Spider-Man replies.
"Look at the tip of their weapons." Venom simply says.
As Spider-Man kept dodging, he pay attention to what the symbiote was talking about. As he dodged a slash inches away from his head, he see's the tip of said blade cover with a thin coating of a green substance.
"Is that poison?! Wow, these guys suck so bad they are trying to poison me in order to win." Spider-Man realized.
"Exactly, cowardly if you asked me." Venom states.
"Says the goo that tried to force gene cleanser down my throat." Peter mocked.
"That was Brock's idea, not ours! We wanted to destroy you the simple way. Just focus and keep your distance. Use those crates to throw it at them and force them to go on the defensive." Venom suggests.
"Good idea, and if I can land a hit on them and stun them, I can snatch their weapons and break them so they can't use them." Spider-Man concluded, getting a huff from the symbiote.
Spider-Man then jumps into the air, snatching up a crate with webs, and throws it at the duo-colored girl. Upon impact, she breaks into pieces of glass, surprising the vigilante.
"Holy crapbaskets! Did I ju-"
"Behind you!"
Spider-Man then ducks, avoiding another attempted stab from the short lady.
"Almost got there! I would say chill out for a second but I think you can't get more chill than ice-cream." Spider-man quipped. He then kicked her and the stomach, and grabbed her arm, throwing her towards Roman, knocking them both to the ground.
"So, are we going to do this the easy way and you both turn yourselves in or what?" Spider-man asked.
"Never you annoying insect! Neo, charge in at once!" Roman commands, both criminals getting up quickly to assault him at the same time.
The both of them then tried to land a furry of slashes and jabs at Spider-Man, who blocked each attack, barely avoiding each one. Spider-Man then jumped backwards on the wall, and shot out more webs in an attempt to tie up his enemies. But Roman and Neo swiftly move out the way, with Roman shooting even more dust rounds at Spider-man in an attempt to get him down from there.
Spider-Man jumps up again, webbing multiple crates, and swing them around in order to keep the criminal duo at a distance. He then let's go of each web-line, tossing each crate, spilling some lightning dust on the floor.
"Would your stop making a mess here!" Roman yelled.
"Then you shouldn't have used your warehouse as a battlegrounds candleschtick!" Spidey mocked.
"It's Torchwick you stupid animal! Roman Torchwick, you will show me some respect!" Roman shouts in anger, shooting recklessly at the arachnid.
When Roman runs out of ammo, he tried to reach out for more to refill his cane, but Spider-man takes advantage of the distracted criminal, and snatched the cane with a web-line.
Spider-Man then lands on the ground, holding the cane in his hands. He then proceeded to break the item in two pieces, throwing it to the side.
"How dare you! That cost me a fortune you hero wannabe!" Roman shouts.
"Really? For a cane? That's just sad, but I have to hand it to you, trying to poison me with the tips of your weapons was clever." Spider states, surprising the two.
Neo the lunge forward to attack, with Spider-Man blocking her and counter attacking with an elbow to the head. Neo breaks into glass once more, prepared for this, Spider-Man immediately sent a mean punch right behind him, hitting the short woman.
Neo is temporarily stunned as she gasps for air for a few moments. As she stumbles a bit, Spider-Man quickly snatched the umbrella from her hands, and breaks it just like he did with Roman's cane.
"But not good enough." Spider-Man finished.
Spider-Man then webbed up Neo and swings around before throwing her once again at Roman.
"Well, I thought you would have been more challenging since you're the supposed big man of crime her in Vale. I guess your just all talk if you couldn't even last longer than the White Fang could." Spider-man joked.
"Damnit! Plan B now!" Roman shouts.
Spider-Man was confused by what Roman meant, but he couldn't ask any questions as his spider-sense alerted him to small round devices landing a few feet away from him. At that moment, they exploded into green gas, surrounding the hero, weakening him.
"What the heck is this? Vision getting blurry." Spider-Man coughed.
"You've been poisoned, you need to get out of here!" Venom warned.
"Heh, good luck web-head, ciao!" Roman says as he drags Neo away.
Spider-Man was about to shoot another wen, but an arrow narrowly missed him by a few inches. He looks to see where it came from, and see's the mysterious lady in red from before, wearing some kind of mask hiding her face.
"Hey fire lady, you're here too. We're you sitting by a campfire the whole time?" Spider-man quipped.
The woman just ignores his banter and rushed forward, ready to deliver a series of slashes with dual blades.
Despite his weakened state, Spider-man is able to dodge and deflect a few attacks. But the woman in red is able to land a few slashes on his chest and a few kicks to his head, stunning the web head for a few moments.
Recovering from the blow, Spider-Man tries to land a few punches at the woman, but is unsuccessful as she blocked each one, and delivered a nasty kick to his gut, sending him back a few feet.
"If your gonna kick my butt around can you at least talk a bit, it's no fun if your quiet the whole time." Spider-Man coughed again.
"Parker! We need to retreat, if you don't then you will die!" Venom warned once again.
"I don't think I can, too woozy to see where everything is, I think that poison must be scorpion venom. Cause I don't feel my spider-sense going off that well." Spider-Man replied.
Spider-Man just wobbled slowly as he attempted to land more attacks unsuccessfully, he then attempts to shoot webs at his enemy, but uses her dual blades to cut the webbing as it approached her.
The woman in red then combined her blades to form a shot a few arrows at the vigilante. At first, Spider-Man was able to dodge the first few barrages of arrows, but unfortunately gets one piercing his left should.
"Agh! Ok you got me there, take this!" Spider-Man says weakly, launching another crate full of dust at the woman.
The woman just jumps over the crate, and launches another arrow at Spider-Man, piercing his other shoulder.
Spider-Man grunts in pain, falling on one knee. He breathes heavily as he is weakened and hurt from the arrows in his shoulders, each one burning his surrounding skin.
"Ok, I don't think I can go on any further. She got me good, guess living in a world filled with common crooks and no meta-humans made me lose my edge a bit." Spider-Man jokes.
"Or us, but that's besides the point. We need to come out in suit form and take partial control. We need to be…Symbiote Spider-man." Venom suggests. "We know you don't want to have us come out often in fear of using too much power, but it's for your own survival, besides you said we could come out in suit form for emergencies and this is an emergency!
"Got it, not just me in control of the black suit, you and me together at the same time. Guess our enemies will be aware of what we are now. Let's do this." Spider-Man agreed. "But remember, we share control, none of that funny business from before, got it?"
The symbiote agreed, knowing that arguing would be a waste of time and prepared to get into action.
The woman in red smirked underneath the mask, satisfied with how quickly she believed she dealt with the hero. She then prepared one more arrow on her bow, and released it. The arrow soared right towards Spider-Man, just before it reaches his head, the web-head grabbed the arrow, centimeters away from impact.
While slightly annoyed, she just fired more arrows at him, but each arrow is grabbed by tendrils before they could hit him. Spider-Man then stands up, and is enveloped by the tendrils, forming the black suit around him.
The woman was slightly surprised by this, but she remained calm as she decided to throw more small bombs filled with gas at him. Spider-Man just webs the bombs to her hands, sticking them in place. The bombs release the gas onto the woman instead now, making her cough profoundly.
"What's wrong small ember? Can't handle your own medicine?" Spider-Man mocked, pulling out the arrows in his shoulders and throwing them to the side.
Frustrated and slightly dazed herself, she turns her bow back into dual blades and tries to slash Spider-Man, but all she hit was an after-image. Spider-Man then kicked her back, sending her flying a bit before shooting out a black web. As the webbing attached to the woman, Spider-Man pulled her back and knee's her in the back as well sending her back again.
Recovering from the blow, the woman gets back up and throws multiple balls of fire at the now dark vigilante. Spider-Man dodges each fireball and shoots out balls of black hardened goo at her. The balls hit her at such an alarming speed, draining most of her aura.
"Wow, you went to being such a threat to just another big nobody so fast. Come on, give me a challenge!" Spider-man quipped.
"I will squash you underneath my boot like the insignificant bug you are!" The woman shouts, send waves of flames towards Spider-Man.
"What's with bag guys saying the same generic thing? Squash the bug, squash the bug." Spider-Man said in an terrifyingly similar voice like the woman, frightening her. "Come up with something new for once."
The masked assailant tried desperately to land any form of damage on the web-head, but alas she couldn't. Spider-Man then delivered a series of devastating punches to the woman's stomach and face, he then lands an uppercut sending a few feet in the air.
"Sorry, let us get you back to the ground." Spider-Man quipped as he jumps up above the woman, and double kicks her on the head, send her hurtling back down. "There you go, nice and safe in a crater."
Frustrated and hurt, the woman slowly gets up and yells, "This can't be, I am powerful, I have the power! You are nothing, nothing! And I will destroy you!"
Spider-Man then extended a large arm, grabbing the woman's torso. He then reeled her in and slammed her in the ground. Raising her by her hair Spider-Man shouts, "Don't you underestimate Us!" Spider-Man then head-butts in the head, and punched her in the face, sending her flying to the nearest wall.
The woman in red, falls to her knees now, her masked slightly broken revealing one of her eyes. She then started to cough up blood from the wounds inflicted onto to her. Looking at Spider-Man walking towards her slowly, for a moment she saw what could be described as a monster with sharp teeth and claws. Whether it be from the scorpion venom or the huge head trauma she didn't know, all she knew was it frightened her. She raised her hand to send more fire at him, but she could barely get enough energy to fire one, that's when she realized that her aura had almost been depleted.
"What's wrong, can't fight anymore? Gonna go home and cry to mommy?" Spider-Man quipped. "How pathetic, and we don't mean your power. Who are we kidding it is your power. We could easily kill you without our current form of you didn't cheat with messily toxins. Spill your guts all over the floor. But we choose not to because it would be too easy."
The woman just stares at him, a combination of anger and fear. She only ever feared one person, and yet here was Spider-Man, making her fear him now.
"Now then, will you be a good little girl and turn yourself in or will we have to be at you in submission because trust us, we were going easy on you." Spider-man told her.
The woman panicked internally and looked for something that could help her. She then spots a few crates, filled with fire dust. With the last remaining energy, she makes one small fireball and shoots it at the crates.
Spider-Man looks to see what she shot at, and when he saw what it was, he immediately braced for the explosion. The crates exploded, sending him and a few sparks of fire away.
Taking the small window of opportunity, the woman flees while Spider-Man slowly got back up. Bruised and bleeding internally, she gets out of there so she could recover from the battle somewhere else, safe away from him.
Spider-Man is left there to pick himself up, fortunately the explosion wasn't big enough to damage the warehouse to make it collapse.
"Dammit she got away from us again! You can't escape me fire lady! We will chase you to the ends of the planet!" Spider-Man shouts loud enough for the women to hear, making her flee at a quicker pace.
As Spider-man left, some of the fire from the explosion cause some of the lightning dust scattered on the floor to go off. Some of the lightning dust hits the arrows that Spider-Man ripped off of himself earlier, covered in some of his blood.
After the lightning dust had died down, nothing else happened, until a few seconds later the blood then came to life. The newly born red lifeform then began to slowly crawl away.
It didn't know much about anything at the moment, but the only thing it knew for certain right now was hunger.
/
Blake was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, she was looking for Spider-Man to try and warn him of a potential trap set by the White Fang. As she was exploring, she got a call from Ruby on her scroll.
"Hello?" Blake said, answering the call.
"Hey Blake, are you still in Vale?" Ruby asked.
"Yes? Did you all leave already? There's still a few hours left in the day." Blake replies.
"Yeah, I got excited at the thought that Today could be Peter's birthday. So I got him a birthday cake. Okay, Yang bought the cake." Ruby admits.
"You do realize the chances of Peter's birthday being today is extremely low right? And we don't even know how exact age so what candles would you use.?" Blake states.
"Then it will be a late/early birthday then. And we got a number one candle and a few candles from five to eight. Look, I know it's silly, but that photo you found of him sort of gave me the idea to throw this little celebration. I just think it would be fun to do this for him." Ruby replied.
"I see, well when I'm done.. returning some books I got from the library here in Vale I'll find him and bring him back to Beacon. Plus, I still have the photo on hand so I should give it back to him." Blake told Ruby.
"Okay, later Blake!" Ruby says.
"See you later." Blake responds as the call ends.
Blake proceed to look for Spider-Man, she spent a an hour looking but she couldn't see him. She was about to stop looking so she could find Peter, but just as she was about to leave she spotted Spider-Man land on top of a rooftop a few blocks away.
She then quickly went towards Spider-Man, who had crouched down looking around the city.
"Spider-Man! There's something I need to tell you! I believe…" But she didn't finish her sentence as she took a lot at Spider-Man's condition.
His classic suit has multiple tears on his torso and arms, exposing multiple cuts on his body. There were also matching small holes on each of his shoulders, mostly like from projectiles. Even his mask had a tear on the top, exposing some of his brown hair.
"Oh, hey there, Blake was it? I hope you didn't follow for months because I doubt you could keep up." Spider-Man quipped.
"What happened to you! You're bleeding all over!" Blake shouts.
"Huh? Wait, why didn't you heal my wounds by now?" Spider-Man asked.
"Most of our energy was used to get rid of the toxins so they wouldn't hinder us. So we couldn't heal your wounds as a set back. We recommend eating so your metabolism can do it's work and so we can be refilled as well." Venom replied.
Spider-Man just nods internally, he then answered Blake saying, "I followed some random White Fang grunt a warehouse. It was a pretty obvious trap, but I couldn't take the chance that there could have been something big going on in there."
"And was there?" Blake asked, still concerned from looking at his injured state.
"Nope, just a regular trap. They tried using scorpion venom tipped blades. But when they didn't couldn't land a single hit on me and I broke their weapons, they used gas instead. They hade in the first half not going to lie, but I bounced back." Spider-Man joked.
"You could have died, especially if they used a substance from a scorpion! A spider's natural predator! How are you not dead?!" Blake asked.
"I have no idea. I survived getting blown up multiple times before too, so that's a question I've been asking myself for a while now." Spider-Man answered nonchalantly.
"How are you so calm about this? You narrowly escaped death and you act like it's just a regular occurrence!" Blake says, slightly terrified on how unfazed the arachnid does.
"Near death experience gets easier to get used to more you experience them. Wouldn't recommend it though, pretty painful 0 out of 10, would not recommend." Spider-Man joked.
"I should have warned you sooner, maybe if I did I could have also helped and prevented, this. The White Fang tend to go into hiding in order to prepare for an actual threat to their cause." Blake explained.
"Don't all bad guys do that? Not my first rodeo with something like this. There was this one small group of guys that tried to blow me up once before, which is what I was referring to moments ago." Spider-Man comments. "Quick question, what's your deal with the WF? You disapprove on what they are doing or is their some personal history you got there?""
"I…. It's personal." Blake answered.
"Got it, won't press you for more info, besides with how guilty you sound I can make an educated guess." Spider-Man said, getting a look from the feline. "Oh god don't give me the look. I said I wouldn't press on it okay."
Blake just huffs, she looks away for a moment, wondering if his educated guess was what she thought it was. Deciding to not think about it any further, she then asked, "So, what will you do now? I'm guessing you didn't catch them so with how your constantly looking at the horizon."
"Yeah, I didn't. I spent a while looking but found nothing. Guess I'll retreat back to my little hide out and lick my wounds." Spider-Man quipped.
"Did you try and make a cat joke." Blake said with a deadpan expression.
"No, but I wish I did, cause you're a cat. But I'm getting too tired to make one right now. I'll try and come up with one if we meet again." Spider-Man answered.
"I'd rather you didn't."
"You can't stop my comedic genius. Welp, I'm out of here, good luck with your life! Later Bell!" Spider-Man waved goodbye as he swung away.
Blake sighs, she couldn't understand the arachnid's behavior. How could he be so calm about his injuries, he was bleeding for goodness sakes. Apparently he had been through similar situations before.
The odd thing about what he said is that he had only appeared a few months ago. And there were no news reports about any of his activity before. She thought that maybe he was lying or over exaggerating, but there were no hints of lying in his voice or body expressions.
She will just have to do some investigating later, for now she should find Peter so they can head back to Beacon.
"Please, just be careful Spider-man."
/
Spider-Man was swinging towards the secluded area where he left his stuff. Once he arrived he began changing out of his Spidey suit.
Once the suit was removed, he looks at his wounds, still slightly open with blood slowly dripping out. He then shoots out webbing from his web-shooters and makes makeshift bandages with them.
As Peter finished wrapping himself up, the symbiote then asked, "So, are we going to talk about that behavior back there? Don't get us wrong, it was fun, but we expected you to be less, mean."
"I was feeling grumpy, unrelated to you for the record. Just needed an excuse to let out a bit of rage. Besides, I didn't do that much harm. I'm feeling a bit better now. A little." Peter replied.
"We would say you need therapy, but we doubt a therapist could handle a fraction of what you've experienced." Venom states.
"I would say good joke, but at this point it's probably true. Look, I just want to go back to Beacon, eat as much as I freaking can and sleep. I don't feel like spending the rest of the day with the others right now. I'll just give Ruby her cookies and apologize for missing out on their day out." Peter told the alien lifeform.
"Whatever you say, change and let's go." Venom commands.
Peter finished changing into his clothes and grabs his stuff, leaving for Beacon.
As he began walking, he winced in pain, still feeling hurt from the battle before. After a while, Peter arrived at the bullheads, and went to enter the best one headed for Beacon.
Just before he entered one, he heard someone call his name. He turned around and saw Blake walking towards him
"Whoops, forgot she was here."
"That's to be expected."
"Oh, Hiya Blake! Why are you by yourself? Weren't you all together for the day?" Peter asked.
"I was with them, yes. But there was something I had to do that I had been putting off for a while." Blake responded. "I'm assuming you finished with your own errands."
"Yup, although I forgot to buy myself more snacks, I did get Ruby some cookies. I guess I missed the group activity everyone had today so hopefully this makes up for it." Peter replied.
"I believe she might get upset since you were gone the entire day. But I believe she won't hold it against you, she isn't the type to hold a grudge, especially if you got her cookies." Blake adds.
"She is not wrong."
"Yeah, Ruby is extremely caring. Well let's not keep the others waiting then come on." Peter motioned for them to leave.
Peter and Blake enter the last bullhead headed towards Beacon. Once they arrive, they head towards Team RWBY's dorm.
Knocking on the door, Peter says, "Hey guys, me and Blake are here, can we come in?"
"It's our dorm you know."
"Full of girls, I ain't making any mistakes here."
"Sure, come in!" Ruby answered.
Peter opens the door, and is greeted by everyone shouting "Happy early/late birthday!"
"What?"
"Ruby here assumed today was your birthday because of a photo Blake picked up after you dropped it earlier in the morning." Weiss told him.
"Wait photo? Blake do you have the photo on you right now?" Peter frantically asked.
Blake pulls out the photo and hands it back to Peter. Peter took the photo of him and his Aunt and Uncle, try his best to hold his composure.
"When we all saw the photo, we realized we didn't know when your birthday was or how old you are. So I had the idea to get you a birthday cake." Ruby says.
"We would have gotten decorations but Weiss said it would have been a waste of time if it really wasn't your birthday." Jaune added.
"Today…is….my birthday…I'm 17 now."
"Happy birthday! See Ruby was right!" Nora says as she pointed towards Ren.
Peter slightly laughed, he continued to laugh until his laughter turned into crying. Everyone started to get concerned as tears began dripping down his face.
"Peter are you okay?" Ruby asked, worried for the team's Co-leader.
"No, I wanted to avoid something like this. I don't want to celebrate my birthday today." Peter replies, surprising everyone. "I'm sorry, but I need to be on my own right now." Peter said as left.
"Did I do something wrong?" Ruby asked with sadness in her eyes
"No, I don't think you did." Yang comforted her sister. "Guess it's a touchy subject right now?"
"Didn't he promise he would talk to us about stuff like this? I'm bringing that dolt bake here." Weiss says, leaving to search for Peter.
"I don't think that's a good idea." Pyrrha called out to her, but Weiss didn't listen as she left.
"Something tells me this won't end well. Should we do something or not?" Jaune asked.
"I'll make sure Weiss isn't to hard on him. I'll be back, hopefully with an explanation." Blake says, following after Weiss.
"I hope I didn't hurt his feelings…"
Everyone just stays silent, unsure of what to do. Hopefully Peter calms down enough for them to talk with him.
/
Peter was in the restroom trying to regain his composure. After a few minutes he stopped crying and just stood in front the mirror looking at his reflection. He then started to grip the sink too hard until he broke it.
"….So, are you going to tell them why you are acting this way? Will you tell them the truth, or as close as you can, or will you lie like you always did with us?" Venom asked.
"You know the truth, I don't even know why you bothered to asked every single time." Peter replied.
The symbiote sighs in frustration, it then detached it's from Peter, and farmed itself into a puddle right on front of him. The puddle then formed a neck and then a head, facing Peter.
"We ask because we want to hear what lie you tell yourself all the time." Venom explained. "Accept it, you are NOT fine. Without your Aunt to help you feel safe, your mental state is declining. These new friends of yours, can help you feel safe. They are all capable warriors who can defend themselves so you don't have to worry about their safety. You don't have to tell them everything, just bits and pieces to help them understand you. Now go back there and enjoy the day you started existing." Venom told it's host.
"Huh, since when were you good at pep talks?" Peter chuckles.
"Who do you think? A certain host of ours is a good influence on everyone, including creatures like us apparently." Venom jabbed.
"Fine, you going to come back in or not?" Peter asked.
"No, take a break from us, and don't worry, we will stay out of trouble. And if any more chocolate goes missing we may or may not have had anything to do with that." Venom joked.
"You know, I never expected you to, change. I expected you to be the same the entire time." Peter comments.
"We inherit not just the abilities of our host, but aspects of their personality. We are a combination of the being we once were before landing on Earth, your memories and life experiences, and Brock's as well." Venom told Peter, "As you can see, bonding with you on an actual symbiosis way has changed the both of us. For better and worse."
"I see. Can I ask what you got from Eddie?" Peter asked.
"His spite, hate, and betrayal." Venom began, which saddened Peter. "But also his frustration and sadness. Believe it or not, but you are now slowly following his path. So do yourself a favor and go, your friends are waiting. We will let you be. When everyone is asleep we will re-bond."
"I will, now stay out of trouble, I really don't want to deal with any huge mess you somehow accomplish." Peter quipped "I'm trusting you here ok?"
The symbiote nods, it then turned into a puddle again and entered through a vent in the bathroom. With Peter on his own, he leaves the bathroom ready to talk to his friends.
/
Weiss was walking around looking for Peter. She walked around for a few minutes until she spotted Peter exiting the restroom.
"Parker!" Weiss called out, "What the heck was that back there?" Weiss asked, trying to not get upset herself.
"Hi Weiss, I uh, just needed a moment to compose myself." Peter says.
"You didn't answer my question." Weiss deadpanned.
Peter sighs, he then took out the photo and said, "It's just, difficult. It's my first birthday without either of them."
"What happened?" Weiss asked.
"They're gone, my Aunt May and Uncle Ben. They both raised me since I was a baby after my parents died in an accident. They cloth, fed, and took care of me ever since and I love them very much." Peter began, "But over a year ago my Uncle died when a burglar broke in and shot him, leaving just me and my Aunt, and then months ago, I….I lost her too." Peter says, technically telling a half truth on the last part.
"Oh, so I'm guessing your birthday doesn't feel complete without them." Weiss says, Peter nodding. "Then why haven't you told any of this to us then?"
"I… I just couldn't, it hurts so much. I just wanted to forget that I was on my own today." Peter answered.
"You are so difficult sometimes you know? What about us then, huh? You promised to talk to us if there was something wrong, and you immediately go back on your word." Weiss slightly scolded. "Look, I'm no good with dealing with something like this, but I can understand if your past hurts but don't just run off like that, talk to us, you don't have to tell us everything at once. If we are all going to be on this team together we need both our leaders to be on their best, got it?"
"I got it, don't scold me please snow princess." Peter chuckles.
"I'm going to ignore that since it's your special day apparently. Come on, Ruby feels sad because she thought she did something wrong." Weiss commanded.
"Crapbaskets! I didn't want to hurt her feelings, I should make it up to her." Peter replied.
"Hmph, then let's go."
As the both of them head back towards the dorm, the see Blake leaning on the wall, with a slight smile on her face.
"Oh, hey Blake, did you hear all that?" Peter asked.
"Yes, I wanted to make sure Weiss didn't act to harshly with you. But it seems she actually knows how to socialize with others." Blake replied.
"Yeah, I expected more screaming." Peter joked.
"Shut up you dolt." Weiss says, jabbing Peter slightly with her elbow.
"Ow, kidding, kidding." Peter winced in pain, "Lets go now, I have still have to give Ruby the cookies I promised her."
The trio of teens leave, headed back to their dorm. As they were walking, Peter thought about the symbiote and what it could be doing. "No doubt Symbie is eating all the chocolate in the entire building right now. I really hope you don't cause any trouble, and thank you for giving me a chance to be with my friends. I guess even you can change huh? Guess we might actually gain obtain true symbiosis then, well as long as we are our own beings then I guess everything will be fine."
/
The symbiote was crawling through the vents, in headed towards the kitchen in the cafeteria. Once it arrives, it uses it's symbiote-sense to detect for any other life forms in there. When the coast seemed clear, the symbiote oozes out of the vents, and doves into a crate of chocolate, and began to consume every single piece.
As it was busy feeding, it senses someone familiar on the other side of the kitchen door.
"We can sense you old man, if you have something to say, say it already." Venom called out.
The door opens to reveal Ozpin, walking into the kitchen. "I suspect you were the culprit for our missing chocolate supply."
"Who else would you expect? You already know what our condition was. Are you just here to waste our time or what?" Venom asked.
"I was just curious if you were the culprit here. I was also wondering if you would answer some of my questions as to why you desire a treat instead of other means of nutrition." Ozpin replied.
"We never did explain that to you. Fine, it contains phenethylamine, it keeps us sane and rational. There is one other way to obtain it, but we doubt you would like it." Venom explained.
"I see, and I'm guessing this other method involves harmful innocents?" Ozpin asked.
"Congratulations, you guessed and with the part of your body that contains said chemical. Now you know how necessary it is for us to consume this delicious treat. But we will admit, the sugar may or may not be addicting." Venom said, making Ozpin slightly unnerved.
"Hm, well, that's all I need to know about you for now. I'll let you be, try not to cause any trouble, or leave a huge mess behind." Ozpin says, preparing to leave.
The symbiote watches as he began to leave, but just before Ozpin exits the symbiote says, "We know your hiding something from everyone else."
Ozpin stops in place and says, "I don't know what you could possibly be talking about."
"Your power, the mysterious woman's power, it's unique. Not like the other inhabitants of this planet. We sense it, and you choose to hide it." Venom began. "To be honest, everyone on this planet's power relies on your souls, not exactly a good thing to use against us."
"And what knowledge do you know about this power you sense then?" Ozpin asked, slightly nervous for the first time in a while.
"It's easy to drain your energy, we did it when both us and Parker fought that women today." Venom answered, surprising Ozpin.
"Wait, you fought her? When?" Ozpin asked.
"A few hours ago, she attempted to use toxins to take out Parker, how pathetic if you ask us. Then again like Parker said, pretty hypocritical of us. But the tables turned pretty quickly when we emerged in our black suit form. A few brutal attacks of ours and poof, all of her precious aura is gone, leaving her defenseless." Venom chuckles.
"How, how did you drain her aura so quickly?" Ozpin asked.
"That's our little secret." Venom chuckles.
Slightly irked by this, Ozpin then asked "And what did you do to the woman?"
"She got away, used an explosion of that fire dust to distract us. Now if you'll excuse us we have feeding to get done. If you want to ask Parker any questions ask him when he's done celebrating his birthday with his friends." Venom told Ozpin.
"It's Mr. Parker's birthday today?"
"Yes, we decided to give him a break from us so he can spend time recovering. And we don't mean just physically, but mentally as well. We are sure you are aware that even Parker has some problems going through his head. He needs this so let him be for today." Venom demanded.
Ozpin stares at the symbiote as it continues to feed. He then gets a slight smile on his face and says, "For such a dangerous creature, you seem to care about your host."
The symbiote just grunts, refusing to answer and continued eating.
Ozpin finally leaves and takes a deep breath as he walks back to his office. He thought about what the symbiote said, the fact it is slowly becoming aware about the truth Ozpin was hiding alarmed him.
He also wondered how it somehow dissipated the enemies aura so quickly. There was chance it was lying, but it showed no signs of lying.
For now, Ozpin will have to stay more vigilant with the alien lifeform. All he knows is that Peter was the key to changing the alien's behavior. Hopefully the two form a true symbiotic bond so nothing bad happens soon.
Meanwhile back to the symbiote, it finished consuming chocolate and crawled back into the vents. After a little while it arrived in the section connect to Team RWBY's dorm, looking through it, it saw Peter and the others talking and eating cake.
The symbiote see's Peter enjoying himself, so the symbiote decided to wait until late at night when everyone is asleep to re-bond with Peter.
After the small party ends, and everyone went to sleep, the symbiote stealthy crawled to Peter and bonded once more with the vigilante. Today was an interesting day, Peter had originally dreaded this day, but his friends had managed to talk with him about his current issues.
It still had a lot to learn about how these eukaryotic beings functioned. Emotions was an extremely complicated thing to understand, especially morality. The symbiote shrugs internally, it will just learn as it goes on. For now it was time to rest, it will deal with learning more about this subject later.
"Such complicated beings, you all make things very interesting. Heh, it's somewhat entertaining. Well, time to rest."
And thus, the symbiote falls asleep. Oblivious to the fact that a piece of it's self has separated, come to life. A problem it and it's host will deal with later on.
/
Cinder was extremely pissed right now, if she had the strength she would burn everything and everyone around her in frustration.
The peaky spider not only managed to survive her attack, but he even injured her, badly. She had to wrap multiple bandages around her and get medical attention for the internal bleeding. Her aura should have healed her, but it didn't.
Somehow, the newly found power Spider-Man display not only quickly drained her aura from physical contact, but also disabled it from healing her injuries she received from him.
She originally thought that the toxins she used on him at first could have done something, but it was designed to take out the arachnid, not humans. Heck it should have killed him in minutes but he recovered very quickly.
She decided to call Roman to give him the next order.
"Hello Cinder, did you kill the pest?" Roman asked after he picked up the call.
"No. That vigilante is still alive, he managed to recover very quickly and managed get one over me. He somehow has the ability to drain aura and disable it's ability to heal and protect me. Specifically in this new form where he developed some odd black suit around him." Cinder replied.
"Black suit, funny you say that because one of those animals from the White Fang kept rambling about the web-head having one on and displaying sharp teeth." Roman comments.
"What? May I ask why I wasn't informed about this." Cinder asked, at the brink of yelling.
"Didn't seem important to me, I thought it was just some crazy rambling." Roman answered.
"Any info on that insect can be crucial to finding a way to take him down! If you would have told me I wouldn't have had to take so much damage!" Cinder yelled, getting a flashback of the hero approaching her, his mocking repeating in the back of her mind.
"I apologize, I really believed it was just crazy rumors." Roman said nervously. "What would you like us to do now?"
"Just continue stealing as much dust as you can! Or I will have your head on a pike!" Cinder demanded.
"Understood, see you later." Roman said, hanging up the call.
Cinder just stares at her scroll before crushing it with her hand, which only hurts her as a result.
"I am not weak. You will regret speaking to me in such a way and you will die by my hand!" Cinder shouts.
/
It's was a dark night in Vale, the police had arrived at the warehouse where Spider-Man and Cinder fought. Reports from civilians stated that they heard sounds of an explosion.
A few police men looked around to see inside and find a complete mess of crates tossed all over the place.
"What a mess, what do you think happened here?"
"Probably that vigilante stopping some crooks here. Although from the lack of webbed up criminals they must have gotten away."
"Well, you know the protocol, look for anything that could serve as evidence for this crime."
The officers nod to each other as they split up to look around the place. The first officer goes into a separate room from the main one, as he entered he see's how dark the room was and press a switch to the side to turn on the light.
"Huh, lights busted, guess I'll use my flashlight then." Turning on his flashlight the older officer looked around to see what could hiding in here.
As he looked around, he didn't find much but smaller crates filled with dust. The whole room only had a couple of crates and a few empty tables. Seeing as there wasn't much to find, he was about to leave until he spotted something moving in the corner of the room.
Flashing his light at said corner, he looks as sees nothing there. "Must be my imagination, man I can't wait for retireme-, what the heck?" the officer said as he felt something oozing touching his foot.
Looking down he sees a puddle of what looked like blood. When he bent down to get a closure look, the blood colored substance immediately envelop him.
Back with the other officer, he hears screaming coming from his partner. "Huh?! What's going on up there?! I'm coming!" he called out.
But when he arrives inside the room, he just spots his partner standing there in the dark.
"Hey, are you good what's wrong?"
No response
"Hey quit kidding around. Why are you not facing me?"
No response
"Hey, you awake?" The office asked, touching his shoulder. The older officer turned around and in a matter of seconds, red ooze comes out of his orifices and enveloped the other officer.
The officer screamed as the ooze entered his body. Eventually the screaming stops as the ooze comes out once again, finished from eating both the officers insides. All that's left from either of them is skin filled with bones, the bodies collapse to the floor, life less.
The red ooze then crawls away, even more hungry from before. But now it had more strength to move and find more prey.
The world now has something else to fear, and in a city filled with so much food, the red lifeform will have more then enough to get stronger.
The red lifeform crawls out the warehouse, in search for it's next victim, and it will drain them until there is nothing left, just like it's first two meals.