- General 3rd POV -
In the skies of Upper Manhattan, a white and blue GBS News helicopter hovered around Bradley High School.
"Good evening, this is Bethany Snow with GBS News coming to you live from Chopper 1 in the skies of Upper Manhattan, where a dire situation is currently unfolding at Bradley High School." said Bethany Snow to the camera, needing to shout because of the noise from the helicopter. "What should have been an exciting first day of football season for the students, parents, and supporters of Bradley and Bronx Legacy High Schools has quickly become a nightmare. The joyful shouting and cheering coming from the stands of Bradley High's football field has given way to shouts of terror, and the field, which had, minutes prior, both teams playing a close game, has been turned into a frozen hellscape."
Bethany took out a tablet that showed what the helicopter's mounted camera was showing. The football field and visitors' stands had become frozen over, while large columns and spikes of ice pockmarked the field. The camera panned over to the school, showing that it too had been covered in ice before zooming out, revealing that the school had already been surrounded by emergency services, while a barricade held back a crowd of bystanders.
"The police believe this attack to be the doing of one Killer Frost, the superpowered criminal who just last week attacked a popular restaurant in Little Italy that turned out to be a mob front, but who made her first appearance when she assailed the New York City Morgue on August 19th. In both cases, the police were unable to capture her, nor learn anything about her or her motivations. Though inside sources say she attacked the mob locale in search of a new street drug called Venom, the police have refused to comment.
As is the case with the previous two times, it is not known why Killer Frost has decided to attack Bradley High School." she said, the camera back on her. "It is also not known how many people were in attendance for the football game, nor how many were unable to escape before being trapped inside the school. In addition, information coming from those inside the school says that Killer Frost is not the only aggressor, with large, hulking brutes said to be terrorizing the halls. Thankfully, there have been no confirmed reports of casualties, and we can only hope and pray that remains true."
She was about to continue speaking when she got word from her producers that Spider-Man had been spotted swinging towards the school.
"This just in, I've received word that the masked vigilante known as Spider-Man has been spotted swinging his way in what seems to be the direction of the school." she said, smiling. "Spider-Man, whose first television appearance was captured during a rescue of a little girl from a burning building in Chinatown, covered by yours truly, has quickly become a New York City staple. And though he has undeniably been doing good around the city since his first appearance, he remains a divisive topic among the populace, with some even calling for his arrest, and one vocal personality going so far as to blame the vigilante for Killer Frost's existence.
Though early in his career as a vigilante, it won't be Spider-Man's first time fighting a superpowered foe. In fact, it will not be his first time fighting Killer Frost, as inside sources say the masked vigilante was crucial in the rescue of the hostages trapped inside the mob locale during last week's attack. Inside sources also said Spider-Man was close to taking down Killer Frost, but chose to stay and save injured mobsters, injuring himself in the process, instead of chasing after her. Most would consider this a bad move, but I would call it the makings of a true hero. Sp-"
"Uh, Bethany, you might want to check the camera feed out." interrupted the pilot as he looked down at the camera feed on his own screen.
Bethany looked down at the tablet and saw that the helicopter's camera, which had been showing a zoomed-out view of the school, had zoomed in on the field where a figure had appeared. She brought the tablet up to her face to get a better look, and a look of realization dawned on her.
"Bethany." whispered the cameraman, reminding her she was still on air.
"F-folks, as you can see, it looks like Killler Frost has appeared on the football field." said Bethany.
She opened her mouth to continue talking, glancing at her tablet in the meantime, when she noticed something that caught her attention. She again brought the tablet up to her face and saw Killer Frost waving at them.
"Get us out of here!" she shouted, causing both the cameraman and the pilot to be startled.
CRASH CRACK BRANG-BRANG
A giant ice spike shot through the air, smashing the helicopter's tail rotor. The force behind the spike shattered the windows, and the helicopter's alarms blared as the aircraft began to spin out of control.
"Holy shit, we're hit! We're going down!" said the pilot, grabbing the flight stick to try and safely land the heli, while Bethany and the cameraman screamed for their lives.
Just as the helicopter began descending, a figure shot up from atop a building, heading right for it.
THUD
"Need a hand?!" shouted Spider-Man from outside the heli, keeping his body close to the fuselage.
"Spider-Man?!" shouted the pilot. "Please tell me you've been hiding the fact that you can fly and have superstrength like Superman!"
"I wish! You know how awesome that would be!" said Spider-Man. "You autorotate, and I'll try to kill the spin! Hopefully that'll let you steer towards the nice cushy crash pad I'll set up!"
"Autorotate?! You know how to fly a bird?!" asked the pilot as he started flipping switches.
"No, but I thought it'd come in handy to know what to do in case one ever went down!" he responded.
"Lucky us!" said the pilot. "Are you sure about this?!"
"Not really, but it's the best we've got!" he said, sticking his head inside the window and looking at Bethany and the cameraman. "Attention passengers, please fasten your seatbelts, your ride's about to get even more bumpy!"
Spider-Man brought his head back out and turned to face the back of the helicopter before spraying a large sheet of webbing. He then attached two singular lines to the sheet, attached the lines to the fuselage, and tossed the sheet out, which opened up to reveal his makeshift web-parachute.
It was immediately noticeable that the descent and spin of the helicopter had slowed thanks to both the web-parachute and the pilot's autorotation. Under the right circumstances, those two factors might be enough to allow a sufficiently skilled pilot to land the helicopter safely, but above a tightly packed city block with it still in a tailspin is not the right circumstances. It only meant delaying the inevitable; if it weren't for Spider-Man.
With the spin dampened, Spider-Man shot a web at the fuselage and held on tight before swinging out wide in the opposite direction the helicopter was spinning. Instead of holding the line completely taught, he would let it slack a moment before snapping it taut in time with the rotation, slowly killing the spin.
"The spin's slowing down!" shouted the pilot. "I can steer it enough now! Where's that crash pad you talked about?!"
"Giant spider-web coming right up!" shouted Spider-Man.
He let go of the web attached to the fuselage and oriented himself as he fell towards the two tallest buildings in the direct path of the helicopter's descent. He shot a line of web at a building and spun around to kill some of his momentum before landing on the roof.
Spider-Man shook his head as if he were dizzy before he immediately started spraying line after line of webbing, connecting the two tallest buildings. After shooting dozens of lines, he began spraying webbing in front of the lines, on the lines, and behind them, quickly creating a giant three-layer spider-web for the helicopter to crash into.
Just as he finished, the helicopter landed cockpit-first into the web. It tore through the first layer of webbing quickly, slowing down slightly, but the second layer, which had the lines, slowed it down almost entirely before it came to a stop just as it tore through the last layer.
Bystanders, who had been screaming and scrambling to get as far away as they could from the heli, started cheering as they saw it was successfully stopped. Meanwhile, Spider-Man swung and landed on the fuselage, but as he landed, the helicopter shifted. Again, screaming from bystanders and shouting from the passengers ensued. As for Spider-Man, he immediately began shooting more webs at the helicopter, anchoring it to the buildings before spraying even more webbing for support.
"Sorry about that folks." he said, raising his hand in apology. "Saving a helicopter takes a little out of you."
After reassuring the bystanders, he went to open the doors. "Thank you for flying Air Spider. We apologize for the turbulence, but we hope you had a wonderful trip."
"Oh, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" said Bethany, tackling Spider-Man and hugging him as tears rolled down her face.
"You're safe now. That's thanks enough for me." he said, patting her on the back.
Bethany stopped hugging him before her face dropped.
BLERGH
Bethany threw up in Spider-Man's direction, but he moved out of the way just before the vomit could hit him.
"Sorry, Spider-Man." said Bethany, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Don't sweat it. You should've seen me the first time I swung off the Empire State Building. Talk about acid rain." said Spider-Man.
"That's what I'm talking about Spider-Man!" shouted the pilot as he came out of the cockpit to shake Spider-Man's hand. "I don't think we would've landed so softly or alive without you!"
"Nah, it's no big deal. I knew the spinning helicopter had angular momentum, and I needed to counteract it by creating equal and opposite torque. The only way I saw how to do that was to use myself like a living drag weight on a rope. After that, all I had to do was create a nice little web to land in." said Spider-Man, shrugging his shoulders. "Easy peasy."
"Easy ... right." said Bethany, turning to look at the cameraman who had the camera back on his shoulder. "Are we still live?"
"Yeah, we're good." said the cameraman, giving her the thumbs up.
Bethany was about to launch into a monologue when Spider-Man leapt and started swinging away.
"Wait, come back! I want to interview you!" she shouted.
"Sorry, got a cold date with a superpowered ice criminal attacking a school!" he shouted back.
"Oh, right." she said, watching him disappear into the distance.
She sighed and made to leave before realizing they were still stuck on a webbed-up helicopter suspended in mid-air.
"How are we going to get down?"
~
New York
August 28, 19:41 EDT
'If I had been any slower, that helicopter would've crashed and killed who knows how many people. And I messed up by not securing the helicopter even more before landing on it. This damn headache from overusing my spider-sense is a problem; I can't think straight. Nothing I can do about it except to push through it and be more careful.'
As he thought that, Peter crested over a building and landed on the roof, laying eyes on his school, which he had briefly seen while clinging to the chopper. Now that he wasn't busy with something else, he could see it had practically been turned into an ice fortress.
'Much as I would like to head straight for the field and confront Dr. Frost, I need to make sure anyone trapped inside is safe and take down those brutes Daniels mentioned. If the information he gave me is accurate, then it appears Dr. Frost has managed to create a new version of Venom. Though I wonder if she managed to find the answers she was looking for.' he thought.
But as he looked at the state of the school, he realized he had his answer.
Peter was about to head in when he felt his personal phone vibrate. He took it out and saw it was his mom calling again. His entire family had been calling and texting him nonstop the moment the Killer Frost incident had begun, as they knew he was staying late to watch the football game. He gripped his phone tightly, debating again whether or not to answer it, to provide some level of reassurance to them.
"Look, it's Spider-Man!" he heard a bystander shout.
"Whoo, Spider-Man!" "Yeah!" "Get her ass, Spidey!"
While many of the bystanders shouted in support of him, he also heard a few denouncing him.
"It's all your fault!" "Freak!" "You suck!"
But more than that, he heard the pleas, pleas so full of desperation they felt almost palpable.
"My son! Save my son!" "Help my little girl, Spider-Man!" "My wife's in there!"
He heard those people's pleas and saw the desperation in their eyes, eyes that were directed at him, and he couldn't help but picture his parents in their place. If it were them begging for help, he would want someone to answer, and that thought alone was enough to make up his mind.
'Sorry, everyone.' he thought, putting his phone and all those thoughts away and focusing on the upcoming events.
He jumped off the roof of the building and shot a line at a light pole, swinging towards the frozen-over school entrance. Landing in front of the entrance, he could hear people pounding at the ice, slowly chipping away at it to try and free themselves.
"Spider-Man." he heard someone say behind him.
He turned and saw a squad of SWAT officers, decked out in full tactical gear and ready to move.
"The sooner we get this ice out of the way, the sooner we can save everyone trapped inside." said the leading SWAT officer. "Can you do it? The battering ram's on the way, but it might not get here in time."
"No offense, officer, but I think superpowered criminals and their juiced-up lackeys might be a little above your pay grade." said Peter.
"Hey, we might not have any fancy powers or shoot webs, but this is our city too!" said one of the SWAT officers.
"Screw this guy, Sergeant!" said another. "Let's blow up the ice ourselves! We don't nee-"
"Enough! This is not the time nor the place to get into a dick measuring contest! There are people trapped inside that school who are in danger, and we need all the help we can get!" shouted the leading officer, quieting them down before turning back to Peter. "Please. We need your help."
'Well, now I feel bad.' he thought internally before nodding at the sergeant. "I'm sure I'll need all the help I can get, too."
"Thank you." said the sergeant, looking relieved. "Do you have a plan?"
"Of course I do, Sergeant." he said. "Break the ice, let anyone trapped inside out, deal with the brutes, then go deal with Killer Frost."
"I hope you mean deal with in the way I hope you mean it." said one of the officers.
"If you mean first talking to her in the hopes she'll stop doing what she's doing and surrender before resorting to fighting and subduing her, then yes." he said.
"Scoff. Good luck with that." said another.
"Not big idealists, your men." said Peter to the sergeant.
"No offense, Spider-Man, but when a situation gets to the point that we're called in, there's not a high likelihood the whole talking thing works." said the sergeant.
"Maybe. Then again, you've never had the maestro of monologues there." he said, getting ready to punch the ice.
"Is that another superpowered friend of yours?" asked the sergeant, confused.
"What?" he said, turning to look at the sergeant. "No. It's me. I'm the maestro of monologues. I thought that was obvious."
"Uh, not really." one of the officers muttered. "I don't get it."
"What's a monologue?" asked another.
"Sigh. Just like Van Gogh's art was unappreciated in his time, my razor-sharp wit and humor are destined to be lost on the masses." said Peter, shaking his head.
" ... right. Spider-Man, I know you're relatively new to this, but typically, we don't have a conversation when people's lives are in imminent danger, so can we stop fucking around and get on with it?" said the sergeant.
"Hey, come on, I know that. I was just trying to lighten the mood, alright? Wouldn't want you guys getting all tense and trigger-happy and shooting a teacher. Unless, of course, it's my old gym teacher, BA-DUM-TSS!" he said, shooting a quick glance at the officers, expecting at least a little chuckle, but instead all he got were blank stares. "Tough crowd."
ROAR BANGCRASH SCREAM THUMP-THUMP
A deep, guttural roar shook the air, followed by a violent crash, and then the unmistakable sound of terrified voices, mixed with frantic banging on the ice.
"What was that?!" shouted a SWAT officer, as he and the entire squad were back on alert, weapons pointed at the ice.
"God damn it, it must be the brutes they mentioned!" said the sergeant. "We can't go in through there now! It sounds like all the people trapped inside are standing right in front of it! If you try to break it open, they'll get caught by the ice!"
Peter looked up at the ice-covered exterior and had an idea.
"Then I'll go in from above." he said.
Before anyone could object, he backed up, jumped, and shot a line straight at the roof, before swinging in hard feet first at a frozen-over second-story window.
"Get ready for a flood of hostages!" he shouted as he broke through the ice-covered window and entered the school.
Landing on the ground, he saw that the second-floor hall was completely abandoned, but he could hear a lot of commotion coming from the first floor. He quickly imagined a mental map of the school's layout and realized that he was farther from the stairs than he would've liked to be. Even with his top running speed, he wasn't certain he could get down to the entrance before anyone got hurt.
He looked down at the floor, and another idea came to mind.
'I'm just full of good ideas today.'
He scanned the floor, and it seemed his spider-sense was on board, no longer tingling when he looked at a spot in front of him. He quickly moved to the spot, jumped up, shot two webs at the ground around the spot, and pulled with all his strength.
CRASH THUD
With a loud crash and a billow of dust, he broke through the floor, taking with him a circular chunk of it as he landed on the first.
"Spider-Man used dig! It was super effective!" he said as he looked around.
The first thing he saw was a sea of people, all quiet as they looked at him in surprise.
"Someone order a-"
"Help us!" "Break this ice!" "Do a flip!" "Hurry!"
"Jeez, a guy can't even get a quip in edgewise anymore." he said.
Seeing the crowd of people, he decided to flip over them, crossing the crowd in one go.
"Excuse me. Just need to squeeze in here." he said as he dropped down in front of the open doors and the wall of ice.
ROAR
The same guttural shout he had heard from the outside sounded out again, and judging by the intensity, it was close. Unfortunately, that shout also served to renew the crowd's fears, and they began pushing.
"Hurry!" "Go!" "Move out of the way!"
"Hey, calm dow-" he said as the crowd began pushing him into the ice.
"Like break that ice, spider dude!" said a shaggy-haired guy wearing a green shirt and maroon pants, frantically looking back and forth between him and where the roar came from.
"You don't happen to have a big brown dog, do you?" asked Peter, eyeing the guy up and down.
"Dude!" shouted the guy.
"Just making conversation." said Peter.
Because he was practically pinned to the doors, he didn't have much room to maneuver, and with the crowd panicking, he doubted he could ask them to give him some room. Still, he knew he didn't have much time before the Venomed-brute came bursting down the hall, so he punched the ice, rearing his fist as much as the available space allowed him to.
CRACK
With his first punch, cracks appeared all along the wall of ice, and that caused the people to get even more excited, giving him even less space to work with. As if that wasn't bad enough, the loud thudding noise from the brute's footsteps made them even more antsy.
"Come on!" "It's coming!"
CRACK
More cracks appeared along the ice, and as he raised his fist to punch again, his spider-sense went off. But he didn't have to turn to check because the screams of terror coming from the crowd confirmed what had set off his spider-sense.
'Now or never, Peter.' he thought, gritting his teeth and slamming his fist on the ice.
SHATTER
With a resounding noise, the ice shattered.
"Finally!" shouted the crowd as they all rushed out the doors.
"Everyone's a critic." said Peter, having jumped up and stuck to the ceiling as soon as the ice shattered to avoid being trampled by the sea of people.
"Now that the main course is over, I think it's time for dessert." he said, dropping down from the ceiling after the last person exited the school.
As his foot touched the ground, he saw the brute enter the hall.
"Whoa." he said, eyes widening under his mask.
What had stepped foot in the hall was not a typical person on Venom by any means; just like the people trapped inside the school had said, the man was indeed a brute. A big, hulking brute of a man that released puffs of frosty air with every breath, bulging pale blue veins all over his body, icicles sticking out of his shoulders like pauldrons, and hands that looked like they were carved out of ice.
'Dr. Frost must have combined Venom with her own DNA.' he realized. 'I wonder if she set out to make these Frost-Venom brutes or if they were a byproduct of her experiments into finding a cure for her condition.'
He was snapped out of his thoughts when the brute shouted and started sprinting at him after seeing him.
"I know I said it was time for dessert, but I was thinking more along the lines of brownies, not ice cream." he said.
He jumped over the brute, and as he did so, he realized the brute was heading straight for the exit, and the crowd of people who had just escaped, so he planted his feet on the ceiling and stuck to it while shooting two webs at the brute's back to stop him.
"Whoa there, boy. You know the rules: no going outside without me. The neighbors have been complaining about your aggressive behavior." said Peter, holding the lines taught. "I knew I should have splurged on puppy obedience school."
With another guttural shout, the brute turned around and started trying to grab the webs on his back. Due to his size, he wasn't having much success, but like a dog chasing its tail, he continued to go in circles trying to get the web off his back.
'Looks like Dr. Frost's version of Venom makes the user even dumber than regular Venom.' realized Peter. 'The others could talk, like babies, but they could at least talk. This one's only shouted.'
It seemed the brute got frustrated from trying to take the webs off his back, and he shouted before taking off, away from the exit and further into the school. Peter held on tight to the web, but the ceiling gave out before he did, and he was taken along for the ride with pieces of the ceiling still stuck to his feet.
"Bad boy." said Peter, unsticking the pieces of the ceiling on his feet as the brute dragged him along the floor.
He was about to stand up and pull himself to the brute to try to stop him, but the brute broke through a wall, creating a cloud of dust as they entered a classroom. Peter coughed as the dust entered his mask, going into his nose and his eyes. It forced him to let go of one of the webs so he could fan the dust away, so more wouldn't get in.
That's when the brute stopped and turned to look at Peter before grabbing the web still in Peter's hand.
"Uh-oh."
The brute pulled the web and swung Peter into the wall.
"Oof." said Peter, embedded horizontally into a wall.
Again, the brute pulled and swung him around, this time swinging him into the chalkboard. Peter managed to reposition himself, instead landing feet first on the chalkboard.
"Careful where you're swinging me there, I almost got a piece of chalk stuck where the sun doesn't shine." he said. "Now it's your turn to go on the swings."
Peter pulled the web, sweeping the brute off his feet before throwing him into and through the classroom wall. He jumped out into the hall and saw the brute had landed on a bunch of lockers, which he was getting up out of. The brute roared in anger, and his fists, which looked like ice, grew icicles all over, becoming a jagged spiked mace.
"Didn't expect that." muttered Peter as the brute smashed the lockers before lunging at him.
He jumped over the brute, landing back down on the ground as the brute recovered from his lunge and rushed Peter. Peter ran at him and drop-kicked him, pushing the brute away and into a wall. Before the brute could recover, Peter had already recovered, so he ran and executed a front handspring into a kick with enough strength to crash the brute through the wall. Simultaneously, Peter used his wall-crawling to stick to the brute, ending up standing on him as the brute was on his back.
He was going to punch the brute and knock him out when his spider-sense flared, but along with it came a pang of headache. The pain distracted him enough that the brute managed to grab his foot and toss him into a wall to his right.
Peter shook his head to dispel the slight dizziness from the impact and got back on the ground. Just as he did, the brute had run up on him and swung a straight right punch at his head. Again, his spider-sense flared, and again a slight headache came along with it, but since he was reacting to something he was looking at, the headache wasn't enough to distract him.
He slipped the punch, moving under the brute's right flank, to be slightly behind him, and as he did so, he shot a web at the brute's neck. With a quick flick of his wrist, Peter wrapped the web completely around the brute's neck. He then pulled the web, forcing the brute's head to face him, allowing him to deliver a strong left kick to his head, knocking him out.
"Phew. Thankfully, you had an ice jaw." said Peter, putting his hands on his hips. "One down, hopefully no more to go."
As he took a very quick breather, he looked around, looked at the whiteboard, and realized he had taken the fight into his history classroom.
'Sorry, Mr. Ravenhair.' thought Peter as he read what was written on the whiteboard, reminding him he had an essay assigned for the class. 'Hope this means we get an extension.'
~~
AN
I decided to split up the final confrontation into two chapters, as it's been a while since the last chapter, and I felt bad about making you guys wait. But not to worry, a good chunk of the next chapter is already written, so no waiting a long time for the next one, scout's honor.