Of course, I understood what kind of world I had ended up in.
The social norms I was used to simply didn’t apply here.
Still, when Gwen became my girlfriend as well, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was bound to go wrong.
I was wrong.
The two girls divided my attention surprisingly easily, and I hadn’t noticed any real hostility between them.
There was some light competition for my attention, but nothing beyond that.
Even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was coming.
The situation surrounding Oscorp was becoming more tense by the day.
The girls had noticed that I was nervous, but I couldn’t exactly explain why.
In the end, I had to settle for a vague, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Strangely enough, that was enough.
Then again, behavior like that was practically normal for men in this world.
We had also finally started making money from our game.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t managed to replicate the mind-blowing success of the game from my original world, but the project could still be considered a success.
We were expecting to make roughly ten thousand dollars during the first month.
Every month after that should bring in dividends as well, although the income would gradually decline.
Right now, Penny and I were approaching the gates of Gwen’s college to pick her up.
Our classes had finished earlier, so instead of wasting time, we decided to swing by and get her.
There was also a practical reason for it.
After resuming work on the serum, Gwen and Connors had practically started living in the laboratory.
Sometimes they became so absorbed in their research that getting them out of there required almost physical force.
We had met Cornelia in civilian life as well.
She was an absolutely lovely woman.
She liked me almost immediately after Gwen introduced me as her boyfriend, but Penny was the one who truly managed to win the scientist’s heart.
That wasn’t surprising when you considered how intelligent Penny was.
Still, being in the same room with those three was physically exhausting.
My poor brain practically displayed a blue screen whenever they started throwing around complicated scientific terminology.
Parker had even become actively involved in their research.
There hadn’t been any major breakthrough yet.
The mice were still growing scales, but if I simplified the scientific gibberish those three were constantly spouting, they were slowly getting closer to success.
Penny and I were almost at the entrance when a familiar voice called out to us.
“Oh, look at that. It’s Persephone and Sam. I haven’t seen you around here before. What brings you here?”
We turned around.
Felicia Hardy was standing there, looking at us with her usual mischievous smile.
I wasn’t particularly surprised to see her.
I remembered that Felicia attended the same college as Parker, and Penny had decided to apply here as well, especially after getting to know Connors personally.
Still, after all the unexpected encounters at that unfortunate ball, I couldn’t shake the feeling that New York was actually just a tiny village with twenty houses.
After the whole Queenpin incident, I couldn’t help but suspect the hosts of the event.
I’d tried to investigate the family as thoroughly as possible, but as usual, there was painfully little useful information.
The only interesting detail was that Felicia’s mother, Anastasia Hardy, was a shareholder in Oscorp.
Could that prove a connection to Fisk?
I wasn’t sure yet, but I intended to keep an eye on things.
There was surprisingly little information about the father of the family as well.
In fact, I couldn’t find anything about him apart from the fact that he was dead.
I vaguely remembered that there had been some sort of story connected to his death, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember the details.
“Francesca,” Penny said dryly, giving Felicia a nod.
When were they going to stop this ridiculous game with fake names?
Well, Penny could be incredibly stubborn when she wanted to be, while Felicia was clearly having fun with it.
I hadn’t been able to stay beside Parker throughout the entire ball, but Hardy had regularly sought her out for another round of jokes.
“Hi, Felicia.”
I gave her a polite smile.
Her teasing toward Penny had never crossed the line into anything serious, so I wasn’t worried.
Even if I considered her possible connections to organized crime, I still had no evidence that she was actually Black Cat.
Either way, she could become a very useful acquaintance.
Felicia moved in high society circles, which meant she could potentially hear things that were completely inaccessible to us.
Of course, turning her into a full-fledged spy would take a lot of time.
I might even have to trust her with the secret of my identity.
The results could be worth it, though.
I wasn’t planning to dive headfirst into this.
Caution was everything.
“So, what are you two doing here?” Felicia repeated.
“Don’t tell me…”
She put on an exaggeratedly dramatic expression.
“You came here like a pair of real paparazzi to stalk my everyday life?”
She said it with such theatrical flair that I almost believed we really were a couple of horrible people who had shown up just to torment the poor girl with camera flashes.
“How long did you rehearse that?”
I couldn’t hold back my laughter.
“We came to see Gwen, our friend,” Penny said, brushing aside Felicia’s playful accusation.
“But if you want, I can wait for an embarrassing moment and take your picture.”
Parker pulled a camera out of her bag.
It looked almost threatening.
I was glad Penny didn’t get flustered by the banter and could give as good as she got.
“Rehearsed? How insulting. That was completely improvised!”
Felicia proudly tossed her mane of platinum hair as though my comment had genuinely offended her.
“Even so? I’ll have to be more careful around you. Looks like sweet little Polly has teeth.”
“That she does.”
Penny put her hands on her hips with exaggerated pride.
“Click, click, and there goes your image.”
“Oh, how terrifying.”
Hardy covered her mouth with one hand and pretended to yawn.
She clearly intended to continue the exchange and had already opened her mouth when a car honked nearby.
We looked toward the sound.
A luxurious black car with tinted windows was waiting nearby.
The situation was pretty obvious.
The princess’s carriage had arrived.
Felicia clicked her tongue in annoyance, clearly irritated that her fun had been interrupted, but she finally prepared to leave.
“I’d love to keep chatting with you guys, but I have to go. See you around.”
She glanced over her shoulder and waved.
We waved back.
We were just about to enter the building when Gwen suddenly came rushing out to meet us.
“Well, look who finally decided to leave the laboratory.”
I teased her after returning her greeting kiss.
“We were starting to think we’d have to drag you out by the ears again,” Penny added as she hugged Stacy.
“Oh, please. Look who’s talking.”
Gwen threw her hands up in mock outrage.
“Need I remind you who was drooling over all our new equipment?”
“I was not drooling!”
Parker immediately turned red.
“There were just a lot of really good things in there!”
Yeah.
After the Lizard’s rampage, Connors’s laboratory had needed some minor repairs and a complete replacement of its equipment.
Gwen had told us that they’d already been having problems before the incident.
The university administration had started questioning whether continuing to fund the project was worthwhile.
I had no idea what Cornelia had told them, but everything had been restored to the highest standard.
We continued on our way, joking and teasing each other.
The girls walked on either side of me, each linking an arm with mine. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Today, we wanted to do some hero work.
Lately, we’d been doing it less and less.
Gwen kept disappearing into the laboratory.
Penny and I were in our final year of school.
That wasn’t really a problem for her, but she had also taken on the role of my tutor.
She had become determined to get me into the same college she wanted to attend, the one Gwen already went to.
It wasn’t a bad idea, so I had no objections.
I wasn’t an idiot, either.
After ending up in this body, I’d kept my grades at a perfectly respectable level.
Still, we were aiming for a prestigious college.
Getting in meant either studying extremely hard or having a ridiculous amount of money.
As for our patrols, something genuinely interesting rarely happened.
Ever since our fight with Shocker, the city had been relatively quiet.
Supervillains were the elite of the criminal world.
They only came out for major jobs, and petty crimes like robbing unfortunate pedestrians weren’t worth their time.
So most of what we dealt with were ordinary criminals.
It was useful work, obviously, but on a larger scale, it didn’t change much.
That was how things went this time too.
A few thugs with knives, along with a couple of drug addicts who had decided to think big and steal an ATM.
I would have called the evening completely uneventful if not for one thing.
Just as we were preparing to split up and head home, a convoy of police cars raced past us, their flashing lights illuminating the streets.
Whatever had happened was clearly serious.
Besides the regular police, I could also see armored vehicles belonging to more specialized units.
Naturally, we decided to find out what was going on.
Unfortunately, we arrived at the scene too late.
What greeted us was a heavily damaged building.
I’d been following the Shocker case fairly closely, so I recognized the place immediately.
This was where they’d been holding her.
We learned what had happened later.
Rhino had simply stormed into the building, grabbed her partner, and escaped.
I’d always wondered how someone that enormous could possibly disappear from a crime scene.
She made enough noise to be heard across several surrounding blocks.
But somehow, it had happened.
The fact remained that the villains had escaped.
Shocker was free again.
The whole thing immediately struck me as strange.
Shocker had refused to hire her own lawyer and had agreed to use one provided by the government.
I’d spent quite a while scratching my head, trying to figure out what that meant.
Now everything made sense.
She had never intended to wait for her trial.
I suspected this brazen move might have been intended as a demonstration of power.
The authorities had been helpless against a walking tank, while the heroes simply hadn’t managed to react in time.
A supervillain had stormed into a heavily guarded facility, freed an extremely dangerous prisoner, and disappeared.
At the moment, we didn’t even have the means to learn about incidents like this quickly enough.
I remembered that Spider-Man had used a radio to tap into the police frequency so he could respond immediately whenever something happened.
We should probably arrange something similar.
There was nothing else we could do.
We had to concede this round to the villains and head home.
There was no point in staying at the scene.
At the time, I had no idea that the unpleasant surprises weren’t over yet.
Another one was waiting for us in the next few days.