“Okay Scott, listen up.” Adrian motioned to the whiteboard.
“I’m listening!” Scott said defensively.
“Your initiation is a task that needs to be done quietly. You have the abilities the group needs, someone who can sneak in and out of hard to reach places. What you haven’t shown me is that you can think tactically. So this job is a test, you need to plan this out and execute it without our help.”
“This reminds me of getting a project to do at school.”
“Okay.” Scott responded.
Adrian grabbed something from a cardboard box and pinned it to the board, it was a picture of a man in his late 20s with black hair, olive skin and a thin mustache above the lips.
“Who is that?”
“Vincent Patilio.” Phineas answered.
“You won’t believe what he calls himself.” Jamie bumped Scott’s arm. “He’s the Leap-Frog.”
Scott chuckled. “So what? Want me to kick his ass?”
“No.” Adrian responded. “Vincent was a member of our crew up until a few days ago, when he stole a device from us.”
“What was it?”
“My life’s work...” Phineas mumbled vindictively.
Adrian reached into the box again and pinned another piece of paper, this time a blueprint for a machine that looked like a two handed weapon.
“That is a particle disabler device.” Phineas explained. “It temporarily places a physical object into a state where matter can pass through it.”
“We were planning to use it as a tool for robbing high security buildings.” Adrian added, “But Vincent ran off with it. We found out from a reliable source that he wants to sell it to a buyer for who knows how much money.”
“So you want me to steal it back?”
“Atta boy.”
“We don’t know who Vincent is selling the device to, so be careful. Vincent has a couple of paid goons with him to guard the device.”
“Do you know where they’re keeping it?”
“Apparently they have it in a warehouse by the docks.”
“Okay. Tell me about this Leap-Frog dork.”
“He’s a wannabe Italian mobster.” Jamie remarked. “He was a desk clerk for Stark Industries, he stole a set of experimental leg braces designed to help disabled people walk again.”
“Stand up guy.” Scott joked.
“Yeah.” Flint added. “He tweaked the bracers to give his legs enhanced strength. He can jump incredible heights and kick real hard.”
“Leap-Frog.”
“Yup.”
“I can handle him.”
“The point isn’t to fight everyone inside Scott.” Adrian reminded him. “You’re there to get in and out, like a ghost. Minimal danger.”
“Got it.” Scott stood up from his chair and grabbed the two papers from the whiteboard. “I’m gonna get to work.”
“The deal is set to happen tomorrow night, so you shouldn’t waste time.”
“Then I should go.”
As Scott started to walk away Phineas spoke up.
“Hey Scott.”
“Yeah?”
“If you complete the initiation successfully, come find me and I’ll fix up your gear and make something for you.”
Scott smirked. “I’ll hold you to that.”
——
Before escorting Scott from the headquarters via blindfold, Adrian gave him the address to the warehouse. It was well into the morning by the time Scott arrived at the docks but he wasn’t one bit tired. He climbed up to a higher vantage point to scout the place out and waited. "Okay Leap-Frog, time to give back what you stole.” Just then Scott felt a vibration coming from his phone in his backpack. He fumbled with the bag until he got it and answered. “Hello?”
“Hey Scott." Darren spoke. "I just got back and saw you weren’t home. You good?”
“Oh yeah, just out doing yanno… spider stuff.”
“Ah, spider stuff. Well I’ve got a raging hangover so I'm gonna crash. Don’t get hurt okay?”
“I'll try not to. Oh, take some Advil by the way.”
“Will do.”
The call ended, Scott put his phone back in his pocket and waited.
——
The day crawled until eventually it was nightfall, time for Spider-Man to strike. Scott put the mask over his face and crept towards the warehouse to get to work. The front door had people guarding it, and the windows weren’t an option either since they didn’t slide open or closed. Spidey went around the building to a side door and picked the lock. “Everytime I see one of those store bought padlocks I smile, they are really easy to crack open.” Once inside, Spidey simply stuck to the ceiling and kept away from the lights. The room was filled with crates and a fork lift. In the center of the room a couple men were sitting and playing cards, while Vincent sat there smoking a cigar like a tough guy.
“I know you're excited to get paid tomorrow.” Vincent spoke to his men, “But you all need to be at your best when the deals happens. The buyer is no nonsense, so we gotta do this right.”
His men didn’t seem all that interested with his speech. Spider-Man kept in the dark and found a room on the upper level that looked like the kind a manager would have. He quietly dropped down, checked to make sure nobody was inside, then he got low and picked the lock. The room had a long fancy wooden desk with a leather chair behind it. The walls had framed pictures of vintage cars, and one photograph of a family on a boating vacation. One of them was Vincent, and next to him was a man twice his age. “This is daddy’s warehouse, not yours. I wonder if he knows what you’re using it for.”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
In the corner was a large wooden box with a similar store bought padlock on it. Spider-Man knelt in front of it ready to crack it open and take the particle gun but his heart sank when he saw the lock was hanging on the hinge of the box as if someone unlocked it already. “What the f**k, no this can’t be.” Spider-Man opened the chest only to see absolutely nothing inside. Phineas’ ray gun was snatched before he got here. Spidey panicked, he looked around and noticed that one of the windows in the office had a hole carved in the glass. “Shit!”
Spider-Man leaped out the hole in the window and stuck to the wall, he quickly surveyed his surroundings and in the distance heard the faint sound of metal coiling. Spidey bent his leg and launched himself off of the wall with enough force to crack the bricks, in mid air he adjusted his trajectory by swinging on telephone wires and kicking off a nearby building. In the distance a figure was running on top of roofs with a large backpack on. Spider-Man was in mid air but losing his momentum, if he didn’t catch up fast this thief would get away with the weapon. Thinking fast, Scott prepared to land on the roof with a roll. He curled himself into a ball, rolled across the rooftop and once his feet touched the surface he used his legs to launch himself ten feet forward in the blink of an eye where he collided with the thief - knocking both of them down.
Spider-Man laid on his side, but he got back on his feet quicker than the thief who was clearly dazed by the mid air tackle. He walked over and grabbed the backpack but the thief held on tight refusing to budge. Now he finally got a good look at the thief; she wore a black jumpsuit with protective padding, a yellow belt with tools on it and a black mask over her eyes. Her eyes were an icy blue and she had hair as white as snow. Spider-Man was taken aback at how striking she was, but a pretty girl wasn’t going to stop him from achieving his goal. With a firm pull he was able to rip the bag from the woman’s grasp.
“Sorry this doesn’t belong to you.”
“So what? You’re doing Vincent’s dirty work?” She responded.
“Nah. It never belonged to him anyway.”
"Well it belongs to me now.” The thief said as she put a face shield on.
It took Spidey a moment to realize what was happening, as she opened a gas canister and green fumes rushed out. The face shield was actually a respirator. He couldn’t hold his breath fast enough, and once the noxious fumes went down into his lungs he coughed something fierce and felt his vision blur. As a gut instinct he clinged to the bag as his body went unconscious against his will.
"See you round." Was the last thing he heard from her before his vision went black.
——
Scott woke up some time later, laying in a bed in a room he didn’t recognize. His head was thumping, but he didn’t seem to be injured. That’s when a terrifying thought came to his mind. “Where am I? Was I captured? Oh god, am I going to be tortured by a bunch of thugs? I mean, I'm not tied up so, that's a good sign right? But what about the particle ray? Did she take it off me?” Scott's mind raced considering all of the possibilities that awaited him beyond the door. "Calm down Scott, you'll be fine."
Scott stood up from the bed and stretched his legs, he noticed a chair with a set of plain clothes laid out for him. “That’s right, still in the suit.” He changed out of his gear and and cautiously opened the door, it led to Phineas’ warehouse where the crew was sitting around at a table eating Chinese takeout. They hadn’t noticed Scott yet.
“Save some for me?” He asked, making his presence known.
“Ah you’re awake. Yeah we got some left.” Adrian answered.
Scott ran down the stairs and approached the table. “Did we get the device?.”
“No, but it’s okay, you weren’t hurt and that’s what matters.”
“Look, everything would've been fine but then this woman stole the device from Vincent before I could. I tracked her down but she used that - that gas to knock me out.”
“Was she hot?” Jamie asked.
“Jamie, that's not the point.” Flint argued.
“Oh yeah she was. The look on Scott’s face says it.”
“She was wearing a mask dude, I couldn’t tell.”
“That’s not important.” Adrian cut the group off. “Scott, you did what I asked you to perfectly. You even did well in tracking down the thief, so even though you failed the objective I'll say you passed the initiation.”
“Congrats.” Phineas clapped his hands.
“But we aren’t done just yet. We need to find this girl and get the particle ray before it leaves her hands.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Scott asked.
“Well it’s possible that she's working for the person Vincent set up a deal with. Maybe they decided just to take it off of him. Scott, you’re going to head back to the warehouse and find out what you can from Vincent. Jamie, you’re going with him as a backup in case things get dicey.”
“I’ll watch Scott’s back boss.”
“Good. Just remember, if things get violent you focus on getting out of there. You’re not there to fight.”
“Yeah I understand.” Jamie sounded like he had heard all of this before.
“Good. Let’s not waste time, eat up and get ready to head out.”
——
With a full stomach Scott entered Phineas’ workshop, it was filled to the brim with tools of his trade, materials, gears and screws, and a large wooden desk where his current project sat. Phineas had a spinning desk chair and an eyepiece that he used to examine his work closely.
“To be mag-, mangana-, mag-” Scott struggled to pronounce the word. “To be magnanimous is to be universally respected.”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“The fortune cookie. You got any idea what that means?”
“It’s basically saying people will like you if you’re generous.”
“Why not just say that then?”
“It’s a stupid fortune anyway. You give a piece of yourself to everyone you meet and soon you’ll have nothing left.”
“You know that from experience?”
“I thought you were here to see the gear, not read my fortune.”
“Right right. What you got for me?”
Phineas picked up a small trapezoid shaped device with a button at the bottom and a slot for tiny canisters, and he handed it to Scott.
“What’s this?”
“You said your name was Spider-Man right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well that got me thinking. This is a web shooter. When you press that button a sticky web-like substance will shoot out. You could stick someone to a wall or something.”
“Woah.”
“Try it out.” Phineas handed Scott a web canister, it was small and silver.
Scott wrapped the web shooter around his wrist and loaded the canister into the compartment.
“Just aim at the wall and press the button with your middle two fingers.” Phineas instructed.
Scott pointed his wrist at an empty spot on the wall and pressed the button with his two middle fingers, in an instant the shooters made a THWIP noise and a stream of white, sticky webs flew across the room and stuck to the wall.
“Best thing about it? The webs will dissolve after a couple hours leaving no trace of it behind.”
“This is amazing.”
“One more thing.” Phineas said as he walked over to a tarp and pulled it off to reveal a mannequin.
On the mannequin was a black body suit with gray padding on the chest, knees and arms.
“You won’t be needing those rags anymore. I kept the design flexible since you seem pretty agile, but this will help you with those scrapes you keep getting.”
This suit came with a new mask as well; this one didn’t have sunglasses stitched on. Instead it had tinted visors. The suit was made of a black, tough looking fabric that stretched if you pulled on it. On the mask was a design of a white spider across the face that made the suit stand out a bit more.
“Bold design Phineas.”
“Thank you. There’s a closet over there, try it on.”
Scott entered the closet and tried on the suit, it was much tighter than the last one. “This’ll take some getting used to.”
The suit felt heavier and more durable than the original, less like a piece of clothing and more like a second skin. Scott stepped out of the closet and made a pose.
“I don’t need to see you flex, does it fit okay?”
“It's a little tight around the crouch, but otherwise fits great.”
“Give it some time. Let me know if you come across any issues on your task and I’ll fix them for you when you get back.”
“Will do.”
“Oh and by the way.”
“Yes Phineas?”
“Just some advice from an old man, don't let a pretty face distract you Scott. I've seen it happen to a lot of guys in my lifetime.”
“I’ll try not to Phineas.”
“Good, now get out of my shop.”