Kicking myself, I thought back to that incident at the container depot earlier today. It had been a harsh lesson, showing me exactly what I was worth in a fight against a trained operative. Sure, I had some experience, significant even, and an instinctive understanding of what, how, and when to throw a punch. But in a high speed brawl, where every split second counts, that knowledge alone is useless. I simply don't have the time to analyze and plan my next move.
"Vanda," I called out, using her real name. I preferred it over her official moniker, maybe because I still associated that alias with someone else. "Could I ask you for a favor?"
"Straight to business?" She looked up. "But I'm not ready. Give me a minute, I need to brush my teeth and powder my..."
"Vanda," I raised my voice to cut her off. "I want you to teach me how to fight."
Freezing mid-bite, a slice of pizza hanging from her mouth, Deadpool stared at me. Even through her mask, I could feel the disbelief in her eyes.
"Seriously?" she asked, finally swallowing. "Hey, Bob, did you hear the same thing I did, or is it the voices in my head again? This kid just said he wants to learn how to fight? Does that even happen?"
"Well, Captain America was a guy," Bobbi offered tentatively, reluctantly glancing away from her lab equipment. She took her role as a lab assistant very seriously.
But seriously, was she really unable to name a single male fighter besides Steve Rogers? What about men's boxing or wrestling, for crying out loud!
"Parker? You really want me to be your trainer?" Vanda repeated.
"Yes, absolutely," I assured her, adding a little sweet flattery. "You're one of the best, after all."
"Can't argue with that," she said, and I could hear the satisfaction in her voice. "But I'm not exactly great at teaching kids... no offense, but it's true."
"Have you ever tried?" I asked, surprised.
"Well, I used to run my own little firm, a kind of mercenary agency... I can see you're serious," she said, cutting off her own excuses. "Okay, you're the boss. But don't expect me to turn you into Captain America in a couple of days."
"I learn fast," I grinned.
Since my direct supervision wasn't required for the serum's current preparation stage, I left my newfound assistant with some instructions and headed up to the house's ground floor with Deadpool. The instructions, to be fair, basically boiled down to "sit still, watch the monitor, don't touch anything." Bobbi, however, either didn't grasp how insignificant her role currently was, or she was willing to swallow her pride to prove she was useful.
On the ground floor, Vanda had her own personal gym set up. Nothing fancy: just a punching bag and a few training tools like an ab wheel and a pull-up bar.
"Alright, to shatter your illusions right away, let's start with the fun part," she declared, swallowing her last bite of pizza. "Normally, rookies get conditioned first... you know the drill: morning push-ups, then a run, striking practice, back to strength training, and instead of a break, you're doing squats with a chair. But we're not in the army; you don't want to just kill time, you want to learn how to fight. You can carve out your own six-pack abs if you don't wimp out. So, come on, hit me."
Licking the last pizza grease from her fingers, she pulled down her mask and motioned me forward with her hands.
"Come on, don't be shy," she goaded. "This ain't a ballet school, we don't need warm-ups and stretching! Besides, your flexibility is already there."
Observant. She wasn't wrong; the Eternity Serum had given me a good head start in that department. Though I wasn't entirely convinced that skipping the warm-up was a bright idea. Still, for now, I'd trust my new mentor. Hopefully, she knew what she was doing.
I took her invitation and launched my first attack. Naturally, my punches were easily deflected. At first, Vanda didn't even bother to hit back.
"Again," she said casually between moves.
Finally, apparently having assessed my skills, she retaliated. She intercepted my arm and, with a powerful shove, threw me onto my back.
"Terrible punch," she stated, surprisingly free of jokes and barbs, "but you're moving well. Your legs, your core... do you do any sports?"
Yeah, some kind of sport. Swinging between skyscrapers on a web and regular brawls with costumed freaks, but all in a different body. I kept that thought to myself, just shrugging noncommittally. The less I explain, the less I have to lie.
Then Deadpool attacked me herself. I could tell she wasn't even using half her strength, but that didn't make her stinging slaps any less unpleasant. I tried dodging and blocking, but it was a losing battle. I lacked the strength, the finesse, and the skill; even when I managed to catch her arm, she immediately brought me crashing back down to earth. After a couple of minutes at this pace, my whole body ached, but Deadpool showed no signs of stopping.
"Interesting," she murmured, switching to grapples and joint locks.
This was where I occasionally managed to slip free from her hold, but never for long. A few times, I even thought I saw an opening for a counter, but she quickly dispelled any such illusions. She was simply testing my repertoire, giving me a little room to maneuver before taking complete control. Or using her legs: the last time, she locked her thighs around my neck, trapped my arm against her abs, and pulled the captured limb towards her, forcing a howl of pain from me.
"Remember this hold, Parker," she said, suddenly deciding to deliver my first lesson. "This technique can neutralize an opponent much larger and stronger than you. It'll come in handy if you ever decide to fight a fifth-grader."
There it was. I'd expected it, of course. Even normal people, when teaching a beginner, don't hold back on the ego-bruising comparisons. Why would Deadpool be any different? Honestly, I'd expected far worse.
Finally, she released me and nimbly jumped to her feet. All I could do was roll away, groaning from the pain in my arm.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked suddenly. "Your striking technique is absolute garbage, but in close quarters and on the ground, you didn't hesitate for a single second. And your attempts to fight back weren't half bad... they might've even worked if I was paralyzed from the neck down... though, you know, my mouth is my strongest part."
As Deadpool verbally summed up her assessment, I somehow came to my senses and stood up. I felt like I was aware of every single muscle in my body. I hadn't thought it was possible to strain an organism this much in five minutes. So much for a warm-up.
"I don't doubt it," I replied, gasping for air.
"So, want to explain yourself, so your wise teacher can teach you better?"
"Don't ask unnecessary questions if you don't want to hear a lie in response," I stated, finally having enough breath for a sentence that long.
"Fair enough," she agreed. "Well... then let's start with working on your punch."
And in the end, she broke my wrist! The woman was a goddamn Terminator! She genuinely did it by accident, just demonstrating how to twist an opponent's knife-wielding hand. It hurt, but it was perfectly bearable. I'd experienced plenty of broken bones in my life, after all. Tolerating pain is more a psychological skill than a physical one.
I didn't even curse much. In fact, I was almost glad the training session was over; I had absolutely no strength left. As soon as I entered the lab, my wrist bent at an unnatural angle, Bobbi immediately offered to help with the healing.
I refused. Not because I didn't trust an alien symbiote to poke around inside my body, no. My injury was a perfect opportunity to test the combination of our drugs. Although, it was less of a test and more of a demonstration. After all, I hadn't changed the formulas, and the first test subjects had already been Connors and Stans.
Yet, I faced astonishing opposition from both Bobbi and, surprisingly, Vanda. Both volunteered to be test subjects.
"Listen up!" I got their attention. "Vanda, you already have your own regeneration. What use would you be as a test subject? Bobbi, you said that if something goes wrong, the symbiote can bail you out?"
"Yes, that's what I was going to say..."
"So, there's no problem! If I've screwed something up, which I don't believe I have, Venom can bail me out just as easily."
"Uh, no," Bobbi countered uncertainly. "Venom has already studied me thoroughly, but you're an unknown entity to her. It's not a given that she can quickly figure everything out and fix it. She told me so herself!"
"Oh, for the love of..." I rolled my eyes. "Fine. Let's do it then. Waste an extra dose of a limited resource for safety. I'll just stand here with a broken hand."
And that's what we did. And of course, it all went perfectly smoothly. Since we didn't have the expensive medical equipment, we had the symbiote instead. And she was the one who monitored the changes in Bobbi's body.
First, the serum activated her regeneration ability. To test it, Bobbi, with a shaking hand, made a shallow cut on herself, which immediately healed over. Five minutes later, she reported a sharp increase in muscle strength, and the symbiote confirmed the transformation process was underway. Then, about an hour and a half later, the outward changes began. The serum was turning Bobbi into a human-lizard hybrid on a genetic level, literally rewriting her DNA. In a normal human, the effects would have manifested much later, but due to the powerful regeneration, her body started visibly changing right before our eyes. Scales appeared first, right at the site of the recent cut. The changes also affected her nervous system and brain, threatening to soon turn her into a completely different creature.
At that point, we decided to stop. The second injection was administered into her arm. The antidote, designed to eliminate the side effects, restored Bobbi to her human form at the genetic level within two minutes. The explosive regeneration quickly rebuilt her body, restoring her human appearance. Unfortunately, I still couldn't figure out how to retain the regenerative ability after restoring the human cellular structure. Within a few more minutes, Bobbi was a normal human again.
However, there were some changes. Venom reported that during the reverse process, the regeneration didn't just rebuild her body to its previous state. No, Bobbi's body was now in perfect physical condition. She was cured of all minor ailments, and even a couple of her knocked-out teeth had grown back. The girl herself confirmed she felt much better than before.
Connors never mentioned this particular side effect. Though, if you think about it, it was a perfectly logical outcome. Our creation, mine and Karen's, could not only heal a person from wounds in a couple of hours, but also cure a significant portion of acquired diseases. Too bad it couldn't cure cancer that way, which meant Vanda's problem wasn't solved with this serum.
"Damn, kid, I'm really starting to believe you'll actually cure my cancer," Vanda said quietly, looking at the now-invigorated symbiote host.
"Well then," I declared, "with your permission, I'll finally fix my own hand."
My frustration was mostly feigned. After all, by originally planning to inject myself with the antidote immediately after my hand was restored, I would have missed out on all these properties. In the end, we waited another hour and a half before injecting me with the second part of the drug.
But I did get to experience firsthand what it felt like to undergo a global restructuring of the body. Not a pleasant thing, I tell you. Every muscle in my body itched as new cells grew, while the death of old ones caused a persistent, aching pain. Separately, there was the state of euphoria and false omnipotence, likely caused by the changes beginning in my brain. It was at this stage that I decided to end the experiments and injected myself with the antidote, initiating the reversal process.
Naturally, I didn't just stand idle all this time. In that hour and a half, I managed to further improve my web-shooters, adding the ability to use the electric stunner with one hand, and made a couple of spare cartridges. I also created an injector for the combined drug, designed as a forearm band. Ideally, it should've been connected to a biometric scanner and fully automated...
I arrived home just before dawn. I had no intention of skipping school for the second day in a row, nor of ignoring my girlfriend, so I decided against sleeping and spent the early morning cleaning my house, scrubbing away any trace of suspicious activity. This decision was also influenced by my complete lack of sleepiness, a result of the recent use of the serum, I assumed. I was in the middle of this task when my phone rang. In a slightly hesitant, I thought, voice, Mary Jane asked what I was up to today.
I was briefly confused, then glanced at my phone's screen only to realize it was officially a day off.
With a smirk, I answered her. "I'm hanging out with you."
It would've been a bit rude, after all. I'd skipped out on their rehearsals twice now, and both times without my girl.
***
We met at the arranged time, an hour before noon, just as I'd promised. Just in case, like any self-respecting retired hero, I had my web-shooters and the band with my emergency drug stash hidden under the long sleeves of my black shirt. That's what I'd made them for, after all.
After greeting each other with a kiss and a warm embrace, we headed out. I hadn't really made any particular plans for this impromptu date, intending to leave it to Mary Jane's discretion, but she suggested I pick where we'd go. Probably she'd been reading those "guide to men" articles again, trying to please me even in this way.
In the end, we just wandered around the city for a while, enjoying each other's company. We ducked into a couple of parks, found some opportunities to cuddle when we thought no one was looking, which earned us envious glances from a couple of women we hadn't initially noticed. We also fed the fish in a pond. Basically, we just passed the time together.
A few times, Mary Jane managed to embarrass me when she offered to buy me some little trinket as a gift. I understood she was trying to spoil me in the way the locals were accustomed to, but that didn't make it any easier.
After a few hours of this unhurried but pleasant time-killing, we arrived at the garage where Mary Jane's band held their rehearsals.
As it turned out, yesterday's discussion after I left led the girls to finally decide to post a recording of their new song online. When we arrived, Gwen and Liz were already setting up some recording equipment they'd somehow gotten their hands on. They tasked me, the resident nerd, with the honorable mission of creating the band's accounts on the websites they'd chosen. On my advice, they had also added the most popular video hosting site to their list. It was strange they hadn't thought of that themselves.
While the girls recorded the sound, I threw together a colorful montage of video clips and photos of the Iron Lady. The visuals were perfect, especially since Tony Stark had been caught on camera more than once, including in action. The sound, however, wasn't perfect. It was decent, in my opinion, but the garage's acoustics were far from ideal. Renting a professional recording studio was currently out of our budget. The fact that the girls had managed to get their hands on professional equipment at all was already a miracle.
God, how they worried and how they celebrated over the first views, likes, and positive comments. Foreseeing that if I didn't step in, the girls would be glued to the computer for hours, frantically hitting F5, I insisted we go out and celebrate their first serious project. We piled into a happy crowd and headed to the nearest café, where the celebration was lively, if not too loud, since no one ordered any alcohol. It was still a joyful celebration. However, I'd forgotten that each of them had her own phone, and within twenty minutes, Gwen and Liz were caught up in a heated online discussion about their new song. For this serious crime, the girls were sentenced to a severe punishment: confiscation of their phones.
Our modest little party had been going on for about two hours when the phone belonging to Liz, which was currently in my custody, rang. Her parents were looking for her. The recording and video processing had taken longer than a usual rehearsal, so she'd stayed out much later than usual. Soon after our classmate, Gabrielle also started to gather herself to leave, leaving the three of us. Feeling like a third wheel, Gwen, who, as I knew for a fact, had practically nothing to do since her work for Connors was temporarily suspended, hastily excused herself as well. She seemed to do it with some regret.
The evening was approaching, and Mary Jane and I were about to continue our date, which was threatening to become an interesting night. But the universe, it seemed, had other plans.
The café's front door burst open, and in stumbled... a girl wearing a rabbit costume. No, seriously. A rabbit costume! A White Rabbit, to be precise: ears, a corset, gloves, all in dazzling white. Over the costume, the redheaded girl wore a blue, checkered tailcoat with long tails. Her face was painted with bright war makeup meant to represent a rabbit's face, complete with drawn-on whiskers, a red nose, and a thick layer of white foundation. A pink bow was tied around her neck, and a pocket watch dangled from her belt. Lorina Dodson.A rabid fan of Alice in Wonderland, the local version. I'd once caught her running away with a bag of stolen cash on my way to school and even took a selfie with the web-bound criminal, which earned the Spider-Man some flak from certain feminist groups.
Waving a blue umbrella, she sauntered into the center of the room, stepping noiselessly on the soft soles of her white fur-lined boots.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gents!" she announced in a high-pitched voice. "We are the White Rabbit's Gang, and we are here to rob this establishment. I trust there are no objections?"
As if to confirm her words, three more women, of very sturdy build, barged into the room, but they weren't dressed nearly as elegantly. Jeans and turtlenecks, and they weren't even white. And for some reason, they hadn't thought to cover their faces, despite all three having hats specifically for that purpose. Perhaps they really wanted to show everyone their ugly mugs, twisted in a menacing grin. And for added authority, these three had brought pump-action shotguns.
"And now, if the receptionist with the belligerent glare would be so kind as to open the register so we can collect your money..." the Rabbit started, only to be cut off.
"You won't get anything from me!" the female cashier shouted, pulling out a pistol from under the counter. "I have a gun, and I know how to use it!"
"Resistance!" the Rabbit exclaimed, lunging forward with her umbrella toward the counter. "How wonderful!"
With a deafening rustle, a carrot shot out of her umbrella and embedded itself in the shoulder of the brave cashier. The woman's pistol discharged harmlessly into the ceiling as she cried out, clutching her wounded arm.
"Careful, my hot-tempered friend, lest my 'Razor-Sharp Carrot' take aim at your heart!"
Screaming in terror, Mary Jane hugged me in a desperate attempt to pull me under the table, which only drew the criminals' attention. But with a brief glance at Mary Jane, the nearest thug immediately lost interest in us.
"Razor-Sharp Carrot? Bunny ears?" she asked her partner, putting a hand to her mouth. "This chick's really a nutjob!"
"Of course she's completely nuts," the other woman replied, "but how many nutjobs do you know who'll pay a couple of slobs like us a grand a week?"
"So, dear friends, as I was saying... the money!" the Rabbit continued, as if nothing had happened.
The terrified cashiers began obediently stuffing the day's take into a bag held out by one of the Rabbit's accomplices. Once everything was ready, the leader herself snatched the bag from the trembling hands of the food service worker.
"A pleasure doing business with you," she said and turned to leave.
Just then, a police siren wailed in the distance. The sound was rapidly approaching.
"I warned you!" the Rabbit aimed the tip of her umbrella at the face of the cashier who, quite obviously, had managed to hit the panic button.
I felt my palms go slick with fear as I prepared to fire a web at the criminal's weapon.
"You're wasting your time," I said, feeling my voice waver. "Better run before the cops get here."
The Rabbit spun on her heels, studying me intently.
"Another brave one! Wonders never cease!" And then, turning to her accomplices, she ordered, "Grab his girlfriend! She'll be our shield."
The Rabbit moved swiftly toward the exit. The bitch!
One of the thugs immediately stepped toward us, leveling her shotgun at Mary Jane.
I grabbed Mary Jane by the shoulder and shoved her back as hard as I could, toward the café's far wall. There was a crash, the clatter of overturned tables.
"What's taking you so long?" Dodson assessed the situation with a quick glance. "Fine, grab him instead. He asked for it!"
I let the thugs seize me without resistance. In the rush, they shoved me into a blue van parked at the café's entrance. The Rabbit got into the cab. Two benches, and me, crammed into the van's cargo compartment with three criminals. Déjà vu. All I was missing was a bag over my head.
The vehicle lurched forward.
"Hey, you'll break my arm," I said with indignation, wrenching my shoulder free from the thug's grip.
"Don't squirm, kid!" another woman shoved the barrel of her gun in my face. Compared to these lowlifes, Archie and her crew were paragons of true ladies.
Pretending to rub my shoulder where the woman had grabbed me, I pressed the injector loaded with the Lizard formula.
"Sit still!" the wide barrel of the shotgun slammed into my cheekbone, slicing through skin and drawing blood.
"Easy, you'll kill the kid," the third thug lazily spoke up in my defense.
I'll sit. Don't worry, you bitches. Just ten more minutes, and I'll be sitting real quiet. But my plans were cut short. After a couple of minutes, the most aggressive of the Rabbit's accomplices noticed something was wrong.
"What the hell?" She stared directly at me, slowly raising her shotgun. "His wound healed!"
Three pairs of eyes snapped toward me. Shit!
In the sudden silence, a soft, distinct thud was clearly audible, like someone had just landed softly on the roof of the vehicle. Someone very light and agile.
I threw my torso sideways, pushing the momentarily distracted thug's weapon away from me. A gunshot roared. The woman sitting to my left cried out, and I, bracing my hands on the bench, kicked the shooter in the stomach with both feet. Her eyes bulged as she gasped for air, desperately trying to breathe. But the third thug wasn't idle.
A powerful blow to my shoulder, like a car crash, sent me flying against the back wall. The belated sound of a gunshot reached my ears. My left forearm was torn to shreds, my arm dangling by a strip of skin. Something was bubbling in my left chest.
With a screech of brakes, the van pitched onto its side, dragging us along the ground for a moment. Everything inside became a chaotic jumble of bodies, limbs, and weapons. Two of the thugs slowly started coming to, while the third, the one who'd caught a shotgun blast, was choking on her own blood. Her chest was nothing but a bloody mess.
At the same time, instead of pain, I felt an unbearable, maddening itch spreading through my arm and side. The regeneration was kicking into overdrive.
The one who shot me got up, using the van's wall, now the floor, for support. The second was on all fours, still struggling to catch her breath. I waited for them to head for the exit and draw even with me before I attacked them with a beast's fury.
A red veil clouded my vision. I understood that my rage was amplified by the serum, but I could barely contain my fury. I tossed the women aside as if they weighed nothing. One of them hit her head and lost consciousness; the other, I had to help along.
Growling curses, I felt for the band on my left shoulder. If she'd shot just a little higher, those ampoules would've shattered into a thousand pieces.
Replacing the ampoule with another dose of the Connors serum, I injected the dying woman with the cure. I waited a minute until the regeneration process began, then administered the antidote. That should be enough to keep her from dying. I stuffed all the empty vials into my pants pocket and headed for the exit. The lock had jammed; I had to force the doors open.
Outside, in full view of a crowd of onlookers, many filming with their phones, a fierce battle raged between Gwen and the Rabbit. The criminal, it turned out, had boots with jet engines. She used them to make powerful leaps. It was genuinely impressive, the way she braked so masterfully using the jet thruster in her boots. And using it in combat was just top-tier skill.
Gwen, swinging on her web, managed to land a flying, two-footed kick, knocking the Rabbit out of her jump. The robber fell from a height of ten feet, barely managing to slow down at the last second to avoid splattering against the asphalt.
Meanwhile, Gwen tried to pivot in her jump, shooting a web at a nearby building, but right at that moment, her cartridge ran out. She still managed to change direction with her other web-shooter and, after running a few steps along the building's wall, dropped to the ground a few meters away from Lorina, who was getting to her feet on unsteady legs.
Gwen tried to tie the criminal up with the last of her web fluid, but instead of a long thread, she only managed a short spit, not even enough to gum up the umbrella's muzzle.
"How awkward," Dodson gloated, using the fingers of her left hand to wipe the gooey fluid from her weapon.
"I'm still new at this, sorry," Gwen quipped back.
The Rabbit suddenly fired another carrot from her umbrella, which Gwen playfully dodged. But Lorina hadn't really hoped to hit her. She immediately jumped, trying to escape before the police arrived.
I decided to intervene. I fired both my web-shooters at the criminal's back. One of the threads went wide, but the other latched onto her rear end, clad in white shorts. Only, I forgot that I couldn't stick to the floor anymore, not like before.
I was yanked forcefully upward and forward, flying several meters after Dodson before slamming into the wall of a single-story shop, onto whose roof the Rabbit was landing. My hand found some sort of outcropping, and I climbed up.
"You," Lorina hissed, seeing me. Her face was covered in scrapes.
"The one and only," I grinned.
She threw herself at me with her fists, not even trying to pick up the umbrella she'd dropped in her fall. They were underestimating me, it seemed.
The Rabbit tried to push me off the edge of the roof, but I stopped her attack with ease. She was so slow. I easily twisted her arms behind her back and forced her into a kneeling position.
"Whoa, looks like I got here at the wrong time!" Gwen said, jumping onto the roof.
"Hey, let me go, you asshole!" the Rabbit yelled, struggling uselessly.
I bound Dodson with webbing, not forgetting to seal her filthy mouth as well. I wondered if I'd get accused of assaulting a villain again, like last time, for a similar photo in this world.