From the Docks to Underground, Saturday afternoon
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
Time was limited, Peter knew that. If the place was swarming with this many Kravens and Vutures, an Inheritor must be close behind. So all he needed to do was find a way down to the computers in the city below town somehow, get the data from the others, and figure out how to connect everything. Those computers were under the front lawn of the school, so if he headed down Apocalypse and sprinted up Unicorn, the school was just a fence hop and a pond skip away.
And that sounded great to him... up until a pair of Vultures swooped down and grabbed his arms. "Come on, guys, I'm out of practice, I reacted late to my spider-sense. Tell you what, put me down, I'll give you another chance, and you won't have to worry about picking on somebody so rusty." They carried him to the docks and dropped him in the middle of a large group of Vultures, looking ready to maim and maybe even feast a little.
"That's not exactly what I meant," he said. He gave a little sigh and shook his head. "I've already died once. Even if you kill me again, that's not going to stop me. So come on. Let's do this." He fired a pair of webs and the fight started. Peter just had to figure out how to survive it so he could accomplish his mission.
Tony Stark
Iron Man
Earth-8096
Well, lucky for him, Peter had made it to Fandom Island. Where there was usually high odds of someone with the Iron Man moniker living there.
Fun, right?
"Haven't I seen you before?" Tony asked, swooping in to blast at what might have been Vulture if he squinted at the guy.
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"There's an Iron Man in Fandom," Peter said. The distraction gave him a moment to collect himself and start striking with purpose instead of the wild attacks he had been using. "That armor has never looked better!"
Tony Stark
Iron Man
Earth-8096
"Aww, you're too kind," Tony replied, casually lifting his hand to fire at Kraven. One of many Kravens. What the hell, kid?
"Any reason for the clone party out here?"
Not that he was opposed to a good ol' team up. But he liked to check in case this would end in needing to alert the team.
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Multidimensional chaos that's going to get worse if I can't connect this thing on my wrist to the computers that control Fandom's place in space-time," Peter said before ducking a vulture swoop. "You walked in on like page 250 of a 400 page book. Sorry."
Tony Stark
Iron Man
Earth-8096
Well, luckily, Tony was a speed reader. Also, science.
"Where's the control?"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"There's a city under the island with a ton of machines," Peter explained as he waited for that Vulture to come back around. "The terminal we need is under the school's front lawn, but I don't know how to get down into the city." He lined up for a punch and then ducked again as he sensed another Vulture throwing razor feathers at him, which ended up pegging the other Vulture in the face. "There has to be access somewhere."
Tony Stark
Iron Man
Earth-8096
Peter. Peter. Now you'd be lucky if you could get Tony to leave that city.
Tony slew up, doing a quick loop around the kid to shoot at a few lurking Kravens. It was cathartic, really. He'd missed out on the eels, after all. "On it. Stay on your toes."
Like Peter was going to relax now.
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Toes, fingers, their backs," Peter said. "Anything but my back." A Kraven jumped on and tried plunging a knife into his chest. Peter blocked the attack and flipped Kraven to the ground. "I said ANYTHING BUT MY BACK!"
Kitty Pryde
Earth-6161111
Kitty had been nearby dealing with some Vultures of her own, so it was no problem at all to get here and help by punching dudes.
"Oh hey, when did we get a Spider-Man?" she asked, conversationally, mid-punch.
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
Peter had just backflipped off a Vulture while kicking him in the face when he heard the question. "About two minutes ago! I'm trying to just pass through, but hit a bit of a traffic jam," he said as he landed. He turned to look at who that very familiar voice belonged to. "Kitty?"
That was enough to distract him, leading to a Vulture dropkick to his face. "I'm okay!" he announced when he hit the ground. He would have been curious what the odds were that there would be a third Kitty involved in his Fandom life, but he was visiting with AU clones of himself, so it was probably best to take it at face value. Anyway, that last Vulture was making a return pass to attack him on the ground, so he didn't have time to think about silly questions.
Kitty Pryde
Earth-6161111
"Yep, that's me," Kitty said, phasing so that one Vulture went right through her and rammed into another one. That was maybe her favorite trick. "I didn't actually know you knew my name."
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Alternate universe. We dated in high school. That was a long time ago," Peter said, rolling back and shooting a quick web tether between his Vulture and the dock. The noise it made when the Vulture got to the end of the line was unpleasant, but Peter wasn't going to feel bad about wrecking any ankles right now. "Thanks for helping despite the weirdness you didn't know about until a second ago."
Kitty Pryde
Earth-6161111
"Well, I'm a helper," Kitty said, ducking some flying feathers that grazed her shoulder. "I hate your bad guys, by the way!"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Yeah, well, if I don't get to the city under the island fast, you're going to find someone to hate a lot more than these guys," Peter noted before a Kraven drove a shoulder into his back.
Kitty Pryde
Earth-6161111
Kitty looked over mid-Kraven punch. "What's under the island? Or is that a spoiler?"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Gah, stop biting my shoulder, man!" Peter told the Kraven on him before reaching back to web his face and pull him off. He looked back toward Kitty and said, "Something to stop this from getting much, much worse. We need to get under the school lawn. There are machines that can help us out."
Yeah, he was going plural. This was a big ol' team up whether you liked it or not, Kitty. Same went for Tony. You were official Spider-Friends.
Kitty Pryde
Earth-6161111
"Sounds like way more fun than this," Kitty said. Much fun as high-kicking bad guys in the face was- like so- she was big on keeping this from getting worse. "I'm in."
Jalian d'Arsennette
ken Selvren Huntress
Earth-157646637
Jalian had been out running when she spotted the fight. She wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but she recognized at least one of the people on one side, and the ugly males on the other didn't seem very well-intentioned, so she mentally shrugged and dove in, delivering a shotak kick to the chest of one and sweeping the legs out from under another.
"Is this another thing like the eels?" she asked anyone who could hear.
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Except for these guys having arms and legs? And maybe wings?" Peter asked as he landed after jump kicking a Vulture. "I don't know. I haven't seen the eels, I just got here. And congratulations, you're the first person here I don't know at all. I'm Spider-Man. You can call me Spidey." He side-stepped a Kraven who charged him from behind, tripping him and webbing him to the dock. He'd cut himself out in a minute, but any moment where any Kravens were preoccupied were good moments. "And I already got shoulder-blocked from behind once today. You're not getting me again, Sergs."
Jalian d'Arsennette
ken Selvren Huntress
Earth-157646637
"I'm Jalian." She dodged one of the...males...and pushed him into another, then turned to slice at the wings of a third. "The eels came and attacked and then left in one day. People said things do that here."
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Oh, gotcha," Peter said, webbing the pushed guys together. Now they were stuck hugging. "Yeah, this is that, with the potential to end up staying here forever, and maybe dominate all of reality if we don't cut that off at its knees."
"Eff Why Eye, the wings are for show and cutting. You gotta destroy the power unit in that hump on his back."
Jalian d'Arsennette
ken Selvren Huntress
Earth-157646637
"Got it." Jalian nodded as she dodged a swing. "Can I stab it with metal?" She cast a quick glance around for a stick or something if electricity would be a problem.
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Should be safe for most of them," Peter said before turning to backhand a Kraven. "But maybe don't touch the ground when you try it, just to be safe."
Jalian d'Arsennette
ken Selvren Huntress
Earth-157646637
Jalian nodded and tripped another, meeting his face with her fist. Another came at her from the side, and she leapt as she put a knife through his pack. "How many of these are there?"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"It's a theoretically limitless number. There are portals opening up across the causeway, and a few are coming through at a time," Peter explained. "But the important thing is to just stay ahead of them until Iron Man can find a way to the big goal, because these guys are just filler before their bosses show up."
Jalian d'Arsennette
ken Selvren Huntress
Earth-157646637
"Then we'll stay ahead of them," Jalian said firmly. She didn't much doubt this one could; he moved very well (for a male).
Alec Hardison
Hacker
Earth-1278122512
It needed to be made clear that Hardison had no intention of getting involved with any fight at all today. In fact, he made it a point to get into as few fights as possible. If someone needed hitting, well, that was why the team had an Eliot. Among hackers, hitting only happened when something went very, very wrong.
Or, as Hardison was discovering, when you lived on an island where sometimes extras from 1970's jungle pornos flung themselves at you with a loud war cry. He wasn't sure which had been worse: the unexpected punch to the face or the pairing of cheetah pants and a zebra-striped belt.
"Any chance we could talk about this?" Porn 'Stache did not seem open to the idea of a dialogue. "A'ight then, you asked for it." Hardison feinted like he was going to take a swing and then spun on his heel and ran.
At first, he thought the laughter was at his expense--haha, lookit the guy run away. A few moments later, he realized that it was because the guy had decided to give him a 'sporting chance' before chasing him down.
And few moments after that, he realized that guy? Was way faster.
"I hate this island!"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"To be fair, it probably hates everyone here, too. Mind if I cut in?" Peter asked as he hit the chaser right in the stache with a leaping punch.
"Sorry, I didn't really wait for permission there."
Alec Hardison
Hacker
Earth-1278122512
Hardison waved that away, trying not to be obvious about his panting. Okay, okay, so Eliot might had had a point when he mentioned that Hardison needed to stay in shape around here.
"Naw, man, we're good," he said. "Better'n good. Did you ever know that you're my hero and all that." He straightened up and looked around. "Moreso if you can tell me what the hell is...all of this."
Because honestly, Hardison was coming up blank.
"If you can explain why there are geriatrics flying around in spandex and make it sound plausible, I will even buy you a damn beer."
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"A family of vampires from outside of space and time are on their way to conquer all of reality and eat people like me with sweet, sweet spider-energy and this is apparently their scouting party," Peter explained while webbing a passing Vulture and pulling him into another one like some kind of elderly kite accident.
Alec Hardison
Hacker
Earth-1278122512
"I take it you ain't a beer fan, then," Hardison noted. He'd said plausible, Peter. Plausible. Vampires from outside space and time did not qualify, no matter how real they might actually be.
This would be an excellent time to thank the guy for the brightly-colored assist and then continue on his merry way, probably back home where he could say nothing and drink to forget, but if Hardison was the kind of guy to walk away when people were in trouble, he never would have joined Leverage in the first place.
He be someone like Chaos. Ugh.
"Yo, what can you tell me about the machinery that lets these old dudes fly?" he asked, looking at a sparking power unit from a downed Vulture. "Never been a big fan of folks conquering reality. Figure you could use a hand. Don't think I'll be that good at fighting off Jungle Fever and Friends over there, but taking down old people? Shoot, that's my niche!"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Yeah, I could use as many hands as people are willing to lend right now," Peter said. "Most of them have some kind of a personal anti-gravity backpack, so the wings are just for steering and show. Pretty advanced stuff, but the housing is relatively light. You should be able to.. Argh!"
Peter was too busy explaining to notice his spider-sense warning him about the Vulture swooping on from behind, slashing at his back with razor wings. "Watch out for the wings," he said as he stood up straight despite the pain. "Long story short, their backpacks have lots of parts."
Peter shot a web at the casing from the sparking unit Alec spotted, and pulled. The cover came off pretty easily with the way it was damaged. "You gonna be okay here if I leave you alone and hit some guys with this piece of broken metal?"
Alec Hardison
Hacker
Earth-1278122512
"Can you cover me for, like, three minutes first, man?" Hardison asked, pulling out his phone the same way that cowboys in old Westerns pulled out their guns. Like them, his phone was his weapon, but Hardison could make his do way more tricks than any old six-shooter could dream.
Like, say, tweaking a few things, stripping a few wires, wrapping them around a tube, attaching a capacitor...and in less than three minutes holding up a perfectly functional electromagnetic disruptor. Sure, it was nothing compared to the gun he'd made for the crew a few years back, but hey. Not bad for something cobbled together from a smartphone and the stuff Hardison had in his pockets.
...In fairness, most people probably didn't carry wire-strippers in their pockets, but Hardison couldn't be held accountable for their lack of foresight.
"And just to see if it works..." He pointed his EMP phone at the unit and pressed the Send button on his phone. The sparking stopped immediately and the entire contraption went still. Hardison laughed, delighted. "I'm good, man, you go on. Yo, I got this covered."
Minako Aino
Sailor Venus
Earth-719975683
Minako had run out of justifications for keeping her identity secret, and separate from the rest of the island. So here she was, fully suited up, having spent the last few hours dealing with Bad Guys.
And, well, what better way to deal with Bad Guys than to follow the flow of the violence and rage to find a whole bunch of 'em?
"Cats are friends, not fashion!" she yelled, pivoting on one foot to blast a Kraven with a beam of light from her hands. "UGH. In the name of Justice, I name you this year's fashion disaster!"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"You should put that on a t-shirt, you'd make a bundle," Peter said, flying past since he had a Vulture in a headlock. He shot a webline at the dock and let physics do the rest, swinging the Vulture into the ground head-first.
Minako Aino
Sailor Venus
Earth-719975683
"Can these guys even read? I mean, if they can't, that's fine, there's ways to help with that, but somehow it doesn't strike me as in their top ten of 'things to do that isn't killing and wearing animals,'" V quipped, promptly ignoring physics to leap straight up in the air and come down on top of her already-dazed opponent, and knock him out with a decent right hook. "Too bad the whole mostly-secret-identity thing puts a damper on making my own fashion line. I'd rock it."
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"They could read when they dressed themselves like that," Peter said, getting up and taking a punch from a Kraven for his troubles. The beating he'd been receiving the past several minutes was starting to wear on him. "But now, they're not really living in their human brains." He kicked the Kraven in the gut as he pounced.
Minako Aino
Sailor Venus
Earth-719975683
"What is it with the vast majority of guys not using their brains? Is it really that hard?" she sighed, yanking the chain from around her waist into her hands before flicking it out to pull a Vulture out of the sky and into a wall. "I'm guessing these are, like, clones or robots or puppets or something? Because otherwise I feel badly for their mother."
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Multiple versions of the same guy from throughout the multiverse, turned into mindless hunters of Spiders," Peter explained. He snagged his Kraven with a web, pulled him back over, and gave a knockout kick to the head. "But they're not the biggest trouble we'll have if we don't get moving soon."
Tony Stark
Iron Man
Earth-8096
You know what you get when a few Vultures get in a lucky shot and ding Tony's boot jets? A crashing Iron Man, that's what you get. It wasn't fun at all for anyone involved.
"So, tell me we hit him before we gracefully collided with the ground."
I couldn't lie to you sir, JARVIS chimed in. Which made Tony sigh before getting a beat on where he'd landed. It was shed. Awesome. One with a ladder going down, though. Wasn't that interesting.
"JARVIS, let the kid know we found his entrance." A beat. "You know what I mean."
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
Peter was surprised when the portal device started speaking to him, but he he made his way over to the shed. "You found my entrance? I'm sorry, but you haven't even bought me dinner."
Kitty Pryde
Earth-6161111
It just so happened that Kitty's fight with a Vulture had gotten her into the area of the shed, so once she'd taken care of him, she was able to get closer and call, "Everyone okay over there?"
Peter Parker
Spider-Man
Earth-16109327
"Looks like Iron Man found the tunnel to the undercity," Peter noted.
"HEY, EVERYONE! FANDOM PEOPLE, NOT PEOPLE WHO WANT ME DEAD!" Peter shouted as he climbed onto the remains of the shed. "WE'RE GOING IN! COME WITH US IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!"
He turned to Kitty. "I've always wanted to say that."
Alec Hardison
Hacker
Earth-1278122512
If nothing else, Hardison could at least appreciate the kid's style. He shot one more of the Vulture guys with his jury-rigged electromagnetic disruptor and then flung himself into the shed. "I am one hundred percent ready to go down to where the nice computers are and try to hack the nature of reality or whatever."
He wasn't even going to complain about his allergies to dust and anything else they'd find down there, so long as he got to get away from the insanity above.
...Okay, with a promise of an entire city of computers, he'd be inclined to keep quiet anyway.
Jalian d'Arsennette
ken Selvren Huntress
Earth-157646637
"Hack the nature of reality?" Jalian slammed one last Vulture into his friends and stood behind the male who didn't fight, playing rear-guard for a moment.
Minako Aino
Sailor Venus
Earth-719975683
"This entire place is the result of someone hacking reality and going overboard with the cheat codes, I swear," V said, swinging down and in with the rest of them. She could have kept on blasting all day, but... better to do something productive, that might end the siege, since it seemed there was no end to the animal-men. "I think I played this game once at the arcade."