East Harlem. His new home. Not where he was born and certainly not where he was raised but home nonetheless. The basketball courts, the people, the vibrant nature, and the history. He loved it all.
Herbie had decrypted an IP address leading Spider-Man to an Italian pizza shop on the edge of East Harlem. He was perched on a rooftop overlooking the establishment on the other side. The building was old, with ivy creeping up its brick walls and a faded sign that read "Mamma Rosa's Pizzeria." The windows were dark, but a soft light glowed from inside.
'It says it's open twenty-four seven,' Spidey observed. 'But I doubt it's for everyone.'
Felix activated Detective Mode, his vision transforming as the world around him was rendered in sharp, intricate detail. One by one, heat signatures emerged. One too many heat signatures. It was unusual for a pizza place to have such heavy security, especially after hours. This had to be the place.
'But where is Crossbones?'
His physique was impossibly large. Back then, Felix had been too panicked to figure it out but Crossbones was unquestionably superhuman. Herbie scanned and scanned.
"Don't have enough juice, huh?" From his fingertips, black lightning appeared. "How about this then?"
He jabbed three fingers into the green spider symbol and jumped to two hundred percent capacity. The sudden increase in power bolstered Detective Mode by leaps and bounds and the scanning spread…
'Oh?'
Until finally, Detective Mode revealed multiple figures stationed deep, deep underground.
'Forty feet underground, huh?' Herbie scanned the building and formulated a blueprint. 'A secret hatch underneath the refrigerator. No one would be able to find him.'
The exterior of Mamma Rosa's was deceptively unassuming. A small alleyway ran alongside the building, leading to a back door that seemed to be the only entrance not visible from the main street. One male stood by smoking a cigar.
Thwip!
Spidey was already above him. A line of webbing connected to the skull of the secret guard.
"Huh—?"
The guard didn't know what happened until his world went white and he couldn't speak. He was a cocoon, trapped and unable to warn his friends. He had a radio which Herbie quickly hacked into.
A TOTAL OF TEN RADIOS CONNECTED TO THIS FREQUENCY, DR. FAETH.
So ten men were stationed here. Good to know.
Spider-Man jumped into the alleyway and crouched low, blending into the shadows as he approached the door. He examined the lock with his enhanced vision, identifying the electronic mechanism that controlled it. A quick pulse of black lighting—
Bzzt!
And the door creaked open. He slipped inside, moving silently through the kitchen. The smell of tomatoes and garlic lingered in the air. As Herbie's blueprint suggested, there was a hatch underneath the refrigerator.
'It's dusty,' Spidey noted. 'According to Detective Mode, the fridge has last been moved in a week. Probably for food and fresh air.'
But other than that, Crossbones stayed down here. His lenses narrowed. 'Like a rat.'
He lifted the hatch carefully, peering into the darkness below. A faint light emanated from the depths, accompanied by the muffled voices of guards.
Spider-Man descended the ladder. While initially slow, he decided to skip the second half of the rungs until he heard the voices again. He slowed down and saw them. Two guards stood at the base, their backs to him. Spider-Man dropped down, feet slamming into the back of their necks and then webbing them to the floor.
Put simply, they were defeated before they could do their job and raise an alarm.
'I have the element of surprise. Let's use it.'
He activated Detective Mode again, scanning the underground facility. It was a large, rectangular space, clearly created long before the creation of the building above. Crossbones' mercenaries were scattered throughout, some sitting around tables playing cards, others patrolling the corridors. Herbie mapped out their positions and Spider-Man began planning his approach.
The first guard he targeted was leaning against a support beam, half-asleep. With the two guards at the hatch and the pizza store front, there was no need to be tense. Indeed, against the police, that might have been the case but Spider-Man was different. He crept up behind him and landed a quick blow to the neck. The guard collapsed. Felix webbed him to the beam, mouth and arms covered, and moved on.
Next, he found two mercenaries in a makeshift lounge area, their eyes glued to a television screen. The mercenaries appeared to be skilled enough to find a signal even this deep underground. Spider-Man crawled along the ceiling, dropping down behind them. With a swift motion, he knocked their heads together, rendering them unconscious. He locked them down to their chairs with webbing and continued his hunt.
Spider-Man moved through the underground base with the stealth and precision of a shadow, systematically taking down each of Crossbones' mercenaries. A rectangular-shaped base was inconvenient for a stealth operation, as it required him to back-track and loop around frequently, but his agility and Detective Mode made the task manageable.
In a dark corridor, Spider-Man encountered another guard, this one more alert. The guard's footsteps echoed softly as he patrolled. The vigilante waited above in the shadows. Then…
Thwip!
He jerked the guard up to the ceiling and webbed him into a cocoon. 'He was the last one.'
That thought alone made his heart race.
The underground area was originally built to study the city's geology in the fifties; or at least that was Felix's best guess. Forgotten for decades, it was repurposed for Crossbones' operations. Detective Mode highlighted the heat signatures of the defeated mercenaries, the rectangular-shaped underground basement, and the big man in the middle of it all.
He saved the best for last.
By crawling on the ceiling, Spider-Man reached the heart of the underground base: a large space filled with equipment and crates marked with dangerous symbols. The area was brightly lit compared to the dim corridors, with industrial lights hanging from the ceiling. And there, sitting on a chair with a box of chocolates on the table beside him, was Crossbones.
His enemy. The bane of his existence. His prey.
His heart hammered in his chest. Images of Reed flashed through his mind. The gunshot. The blood.
He could see the arsenal of weapons strapped to his body – knives, guns, and explosives. He was the same as before. Crossbones was ready for a fight. No, he was ready to kill.
Spider-Man dropped down, his lithe form landing soundlessly behind the hulking figure of Crossbones. The air in the underground chamber was thick with tension, the kind that preceded a deadly storm. Crossbones slowly stood up, his eyes narrowing behind his skull mask. His body temperature was abnormally high.
"Spider-Man."
The space seemed to shrink. Spider-Man's lenses locked onto his foe. This was the man who had taken Reed from him. The man who had left a wound that never truly healed. He clenched his fist.
"I hear you don't talk," Crossbones said, a hand drifting to his weapons. "How cute. You musta been a holy terror on the playground."
Crossbones charged with surprising speed for his size, his crossbow pistol snapping up in an instant. Spider-Man dodged the bolt, jumping and twisting mid-air to avoid the deadly projectile. He landed in a crouch, just in time to see Crossbones launch a throwing knife in his direction. Spider-Man barely managed to web it away, the blade sinking into the concrete wall behind him with a dull thud.
Crossbones closed the distance, his fists swinging with brutal force. Spider-Man dodged left, then right, his superior agility saving him from the powerful blows. But Crossbones was relentless, his wrist switchblades extending with a sharp snikt as he swung again.
WARNING—!!!!!!
On his heavy biceps, black veins emerged, twisting into the wrist blades. His Spider-Sense spiked and one blade nicked Spider-Man's suit, drawing a thin line of blood.
'Bastard…!' Spidey back-flipped and clung to the wall with his fingers and feet.
WARNING! WARNING! UNKNOWN PARASITE INSIDE CROSSBONES! PHYSICAL TRAITS HAVE BEEN ENHANCED!
The skull mask gleamed with a dark, feral intensity. Spider-Man's green lenses zoomed in ominously.
Crossbones pulled out his Beretta 92F and aimed it right at him. Spidey webbed the gun's barrel, yanking it out of Crossbones' grip, but the mercenary was already jumping at him, a shuriken flying from his hand. It sliced through the air, embedding itself in Spider-Man's shoulder. He jumped over the charging Crossbones and hissed in pain, pulling the shuriken out and tossing it aside mid-air.
Crossbones crashed against the wall, then jumped after him. 'His agility! It's almost like my own!'
Crossbones reached for his leg, cackling. Twisting, the black spider's heel slammed into Crossbones' skull. The weight and force was equivalent to a freight train and created a crater in the concrete.
He wasn't done though. Spider-Man landed on all fours and bolted after him. 'This is my home. My city. You think you can just come here and take it!?'
Bam! One clean punch that the metal mask tanked. Bam! Bam! Bam! Flowing into a kick and then a series of air kicks that kept knocking into his seemingly unbreakable mask. His neck nearly twisted one way too much.
Yet…strangely, the thought of Crossbones' death didn't bother him at all. Not. One. Bit.
Spider-Man didn't hold back. While in the air, he attached two lines of webbing to his shoulder and connected with his metal mask.
'Secondary Adamantium…!' His focus deepened. 'If I can't break that mask, then I'll rip it off his corpse!'
Landing on one foot, he roundhouse kicked Crossbones' chest and could hear his ribcage shatter.
Boom!
The room trembled when the mercenary crashed into the wall. Dust came up. Felix didn't care and dashed at him, fist at the ready.
'Tch!'
Until his Spider-Sense tingled. He immediately backed away and watched as Crossbones got up. Somehow, he wasn't comatose. Somehow, his spine and neck were intact. Crossbones rose, cackling, shaking off the attack that should have knocked him out cold.
VITALS ARE SPIKING! I REPEAT, VITALS ARE SPIKING. ADRENALINE IS REACHING IMPOSSIBLE LEVELS.
'What…the hell is going on?'
His skull mask was cracked and blood pooled together at the bottom, coming together and dripping. His thumb swiped the blood and marked it across his mask. "Yes, yes, yes! Finally! This is it! This is what I've been waiting for!"
From a hidden compartment in pant pockets, Crossbones retrieved a small vial of black, swirling liquid. Before Felix could react, Crossbones crushed the vial in his hand.
"RAAHHHHH!"
A scream so loud that it rattled his eardrums. A tone so demonic that it sent shivers down his spine. Felix didn't need Herbie's warning to know something horrifying was happening. Crossbones' body twisted and contorted, the black goo expanding and coursing through his veins. Flesh became black. Bright yellow highlights pulsed across the black surface like veins of molten lava. The creature that stood before Spider-Man now was no longer just Crossbones.
"Ultimate power. This is it! Finally! Finally! I'm me! I AM THE SLEEPER!"
All that remained of his humanity were the markings of his skull mask.
ANAlYSIS CONFIRMED! PROJECT SYMBIOTE HAD SYNCHRONIZED WITH CROSSBONES! VITALS HAVE CHANGED. MUSCLES FIBRES HAVE INCREASED IN BY 100,000%.
'Project Symbiote? Don't tell me…!'
His Spider-Sense blasted him. Spider-Man barely had time to react. It wasn't his fault either, the Sleeper was just that damn fast. Spidey flipped backward, firing several balls of webbing to slow the Sleeper's advance. To call it a meaningful action was a bold lie. The symbiote ran through the webbings like it was nothing.
His leaps were faster than any rabbit's, catching up to Spider-Man in a split second. Fists clashed against fist. They were equals. Then, the Sleeper lashed out with a tendril from its elbow, striking Spider-Man's shoulder and sending him crashing into a stack of crates. Pain shot through Felix's arm, but he healed fast enough to push it aside and—
'Act!'
The arms of the Sleeper turned into the shape of scythes and came an inch away from slicing his face, getting caught by the smaller, clingy hands of Spider-Man. He pushed and pushed and slowly gained an advantage. Crossbones' mask glowed neon yellow and his strength increased.
Spider-Man wouldn't allow it. Never. Not now, not when he was so close.
"Ya know what this thing is!?" The Sleeper brought his skull marked face close. The goo shielding him, bringing him closer to alien than human, smelled and felt like blood. "It's called the Symbiote! I was ordered to take this baby! I was supposed to give it to HER! But…I just couldn't! I couldn't! And now, it's mine! Ultimate power is mine!"
The sanity of the human known as Crossbones was on the cusp of breaking. A new appendage suddenly appeared from the inhumane's chest and sprayed the struggling Spider-Man with a green toxin. The effect was near instant. His arms numbed and his head felt like it was on fire.
'This is almost as bad as what SHIELD concocted—!'
Laughing, feeling his foe grow weaker, the Sleeper's scythe arms inched closer and the green toxin kept spraying him. Spider-Man was pinned. The Sleeper was a seven-foot tall behemoth with strength that rivalled his own and with this toxin, his raw strength wouldn't pull through.
'Black Lightning—!'
The Sleeper was in for a rude awakening as black lightning shocked its system. The Sleeper cried and jerked away, leaving him open for a devastating attack. He channeled the black lightning into his fists, the energy building to a crescendo. The neon green of his suit lit up beautifully. The edges of his vision grew black.
He zipped over to the Sleeper and struck the creature with all his might. Black lightning went down and under, spreading and convulsing. The potency of such an attack was akin to the most powerful thunderstorm in history—but bundled up in a single strike. The absolute force caused the concrete underneath his feet to shatter.
Crack! Crash! Crackle~!
The Sleeper was drilled into the other wall. Meanwhile, the underground space began to collapse. Spider-Man didn't look up. Rocks fell and he still refused to allow a glance, his green lenses shifting at his faraway enemy.
'He's still alive.'