Under a moonlit night sky, on the roof of a high-rise building.
Standing at the edge of a hundred-foot wall, Eddie watched Spider-Man emerge from the shadows. A look of realization crossed his face as he spoke. “So it’s you… What are you doing here instead of at home doing your homework?”
“You… know who I am?” Peter was taken aback and instinctively stepped back, surprised and nervous that his identity had been so easily figured out.
Originally, Peter had ventured out hoping to get lucky and find the mysterious arsonist. Instead, he stumbled upon Eddie and decided to follow him secretly.
Eddie didn’t react, just smiled.
Not only because of Kyle’s interest in Peter, but also because Venom had previously interacted with Peter, copying and learning his spider abilities. After the last battle in New York, Venom had explained everything to Eddie.
Though he had never met Peter in person, Eddie knew full well that behind Spider-Man’s cool mask was a young high school kid who had just started.
“Kid, I don’t have time to deal with you right now. You better go home and get some sleep.”
Eddie scoffed lightly, glancing down at the chaos unfolding below at Pym Technologies. He gave Peter a dismissive wave, then leaned back and fell headfirst off the roof.
“Hey!”
Peter was startled and ran to the edge of the wall, leaning over to look down.
He saw Eddie falling naturally. As he went down, black tendrils of liquid suddenly shot out of his body, covering him in a dark, elastic, life-form membrane.
In less than three seconds, the ordinary Eddie had transformed into a powerful and dark humanoid creature with narrow, glowing white eyes full of ferocity and cold light.
“Heheheheh! Time to get to work!” Eddie cackled menacingly, bending his legs slightly before launching himself off the side of the building.
Boom!
With a deafening crash, the outer wall of the building collapsed, shattering several stories of windows. Eddie shot toward Pym Technologies like a cannonball, moving with incredible speed and power.
“Amazing! Who is he?”
Peter was shocked as he looked at the scene in front of him. At that moment, the scanner in his suit beeped, followed by a clear, melodious female voice: “This is Eddie, an employee of the Supernatural Incident Bureau, a member of the Carl family, and a future member of the Avengers. He assisted the Hulk in defeating countless alien warships during the Battle of New York, though his personal details are not public due to his multiple identities.”
The voice came from the AI built into Spider-Man’s suit, named “Karen.
Peter had only discovered Karen’s presence two days earlier when he realized that Tony Stark, not fully trusting him, had embedded a nanny-like AI in his suit.
“Karen, I almost forgot you were here.”
Peter smacked his forehead and, watching Eddie’s retreating figure, belatedly realized, “So he’s one of Mr. Kyle’s people. Wait! Whatever, he really did treat me like a kid!”
Remembering Eddie’s earlier dismissive words, Peter gritted his teeth.
Karen, the AI, responded seriously, “Peter, you’re only about sixteen years old, technically still a child.”
“I am not a child! I need to accomplish something big so that Mr. Stark and Mr. Kyle will take me seriously!”
Peter took a deep breath, jumped off the building, and shot a web in the direction Eddie had gone.
Meanwhile, inside Pym Technologies.
The sharp, incessant alarm blared throughout the building, and security personnel grabbed their weapons and rushed to the third-floor demonstration hall where the alarm had been triggered.
“This is bad. We have to get out of here fast.”
Scott, his face pale, slammed the drone in his hand to the ground and spoke urgently into his communicator, addressing Hope on the other end.
“Scott, don’t worry about me. Just get out of there now!”
Hope’s response was extremely weak, tinged with a trace of fear.
“What’s wrong?” Scott suddenly had a bad feeling in his heart, sensing something in Hope’s strange tone.
“Just go, I’m fine…”
On the fifth floor of Pym Technologies, in the CEO’s office, Hope backed away. Standing in the doorway was a man who looked exactly like Cross.
“Who are you?” Hope asked coldly, her eyes fixed on the man at the door.
“You really came, just as I expected.”
The mysterious man looked at Hope, then at the rotting corpse in the office chair. He smiled sinisterly. “You may call me Mysterio.”
As Mysterio spoke, Cross’ appearance began to distort and change.
In a swirl of crimson mist, Mysterio soon returned to his true form, a figure clad in armor and a cape, with a glass helmet over his head.
“What are you going to do?” Hope forced herself to remain calm as she continued to question him.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
Mysterio reached forward, releasing a cloud of crimson mist that quickly enveloped the retreating Hope, pinning her down. As she struggled, he manipulated the mist to snatch the tiny communicator from her.
“You!” Hope’s eyes widened in anger as she glared at him.
Mysterio ignored her as he took the communicator. He spoke into it, “If you want to save your friend, bring the Ant-Man suit to the fifth floor!”
Without waiting for Scott to respond, Mysterio crushed the communicator in his hand and turned his gaze back to the struggling Hope in the crimson mist.
“Damn it!”
In the third-floor demonstration hall, Scott clenched his fists. Without thinking, he yelled, “Antony!” and then pressed the button on his suit to shrink.
“To the fifth floor!”
Scott jumped onto Antony’s back. At his command, Antony flapped his wings and flew out of the demonstration hall through a vent, fearlessly heading for the fifth floor.
Along the way, the now-shrunken Scott encountered no obstacles as he passed through the guards who had arrived and easily made his way to the fifth floor of the company.
As Antony flew into the fifth floor corridor, Scott spotted Hope collapsed at the office door. He jumped off Antony’s back, returned to his normal human size, and helped a limping Hope to her feet.
“You shouldn’t have come. This is a trap,” Hope said, struggling to stand as she gasped for breath.
“Even if it is a trap, I had to come!”
Scott looked directly at Hope, his eyes full of determination. Hope felt a warmth in her heart and was about to speak when a low growl echoed nearby.
They turned to see a brown earth elemental creature crawling out of the office, an azure wind elemental creature blocking the stairs, and a blue water elemental creature forming at the end of the corridor.
The Elementals!
“Four against two. Will you surrender the suit or die here with Cross?”
Mysterio’s cape fluttered as he hovered in the air above the fifth floor, looking down at Scott and Hope from his elevated position.
(End of Chapter)
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