The Negative Man let out a battle cry before charging toward Miles and Aaron.
"I say we take this outside," Aaron said, being the first to react. He boosted towards him, grabbed the man by his collar, and jumped with him up and out the ceiling, leaving a decently sized hole behind.
"You could have run that by me first." Miles sighed, twhipping out of the hole in the ceiling and reaching the rooftop.
When he landed, he saw the Negative Man standing up after being thrown to the ground. Aaron stood close to Miles in a battle stance, ready to react to whatever the man would throw at him.
Miles' eyes scanned the surroundings.
They were pretty high up and there were nothing but rooftops beside them, making it difficult to find any places to use his webs. There were a few things on the rooftop that looked like they could be pried off but it seemed that Miles would have to stay grounded for this fight.
'Guess we're doing this the old-fashioned way.'
Unfortunately, his planning was cut short when Miles' spider senses acted up. Focusing back on the Negative Man, he saw that he was charging negative energy from his hand. The next second, he shot a wide crescent arc toward the two.
Aaron leaped over it while Miles rolled to the side, striking that signature Spider-Man pose as the attack hit one of the neighboring buildings.
As Aaron came back down, he charged at the Negative Man, reeling his fist back before clobbering him straight across the face. However, Aaron didn't stop there, and he continued to unless there was a flurry of punches at him. But as his last punch landed on the man's face, the Negative man didn't budge an inch.
"My turn," He smiled, charging energy into his fist before hitting him in the chest, sending Aaron flying back.
"Son of a bitch." Aaron growled in anger, resting on one knee. "You're lucky I'm fucking tired."
"You are powerless against the Master's gifts." The Negative Man laughed, turning to look at Miles, however, he was confused when he saw no one in sight. "It seems your friend has decided to run away."
As he said that, two strings of webs shot from behind him, landing directly in front of his feet. Turning around, he saw Miles dropping in with a diving kick. When his foot connected, the Negative Man was brought down to the ground with a heavy thud, the ground beneath him quaking in the process.
"Don't get too full of yourself, bro. You're nothing but a bottom-of-the-barrel grunt." Miles said, hopping off of the man's face. "Now, why don't you tell me who your boss is."
"You're going to pay for that!" The Negative Man roared, getting back on his feet. He ran at Miles and began to swing his fists wildly. Each attack was so easy to read that Miles didn't even need to rely on his spider-sense.
When he went in for another swing, Miles vaulted over him, landing behind his back where he began to punch his sides before stepping back as the Negative Man turned with a fist extended outward.
"So you got anything else up your sleeves? No? Then how about telling me who your boss is." Miles said, shooting a web at the Negative Man's foot and pulling on it, causing him to fall on his back. "I have a name you might be familiar with. You wouldn't happen to know someone by the name...Martin Li?"
Miles noticed a change in the man's expression as he gritted his teeth.
"Did I hit the ballpark?"
Miles wanted to continue his questioning, but his spider senses started ringing like crazy. That was when he noticed that the Negative Man was starting to glow kinda dangerously. Almost like he was about to blow up.
"I will die with honor!" He yelled maniacally. "The master will not fail!"
Looking around Miles saw that there was nowhere to take cover so the best thing he could do was jump and pray.
As he leaped, the energy building inside of the man burst out, blowing everything around him, including Miles.
The blast propelled Miles' body until he was over the streets. There was nowhere to grab onto so the only thing he could do was shoot his web and hope it stuck to something. He started to fall due to gravity, his back to the ground as he watched his web fly toward the wall of a building, but he could tell that it wouldn't reach in time.
"Well...shit." Miles cursed, making sure to loosen his body. If he was gonna hit the ground, might as well make sure to keep damages to a minimum.
But out of the corner of his eye, he saw a purple blur zip by, then Miles felt his body get pulled upwards.
"Grab on to something, kid!" Aaron yelled swinging Miles up to the sky.
With more time to move, Miles quickly managed to twhip toward the closest building and stuck to it. His eyes scanned the streets and he saw Aaron had grabbed onto the side of a building across from him.
Making his way over to him, Miles first off thanked Aaron. "Thanks, Uncle Aaron. A second later and I might have broken every single bone in my body."
"Don't mention it, Miles. You're my nephew." Aaron said with a nod.
"So, what about the guy?"
"Dead."
"Figured." Miles sighed, turning to look at the building. "You gotta be kidding me."
Miles saw some of the masked Oni stepping out of the building. It seemed that they had woken up from their beatings and were trying to make a run for it.
"You still up for some crime fighting?"
Aaron sighed, "I can't let you do all the work."
"Good, 'cause I'm freaking exhausted."
The two let out one more sigh together before going to wrangle up all of the thugs. Crime never sleeps, and neither would they.
...
After about half an hour, Miles and Aaron managed to get all of them back and secured. And after a call to the police, they decided to head back home for a good night's rest. Well, not really since it was already six in the morning by the time the two finished.
"We can head back to my place. It's close by, remember." Aaron said, sitting on his bike.
Miles nodded, letting out a yawn. "Sure, I could use a place to nap before I need to go to class."
"Man, I do not envy you." Aaron chuckled, before pointing at the back of his bike. "Alright, get on."
Miles accepted and sat on the back. The main reason he was agreeing was so that he could finally figure out where Aaron lived. He might be getting some of Miles' memories back, but they were random and popped up only when they felt like it.
'It'd be nice if I just got them from the beginning.'
But as much as he wanted to curse those who screwed him over like this, the energy in his body was almost empty and any more work would make him shut down. So he decided to curse them another time and just enjoy the ride.
...
Miles groaned, waking up to an alarm. Looking around he could tell that he was still in Uncle Aaron's apartment.
Getting up from the couch, he stretched his back before standing up. "Man, that couch isn't comfortable at all."
Hearing noise coming from the kitchen, Miles saw Aaron had already gotten up and was drinking coffee while looking at his phone.
"Did you even get any sleep?" Miles asked sitting down at the table.
"I got enough," Aaron replied. "The news is talking about what happened with the yakuza dudes."
"I don't think they're Japanese, Uncle Aaron."
"Triads then, who cares." He shrugged. "This one old dude is grilling Spider-Man. Calling him a menace and all that."
"Really? That's funny." Miles smirked. 'There's always has to be one in every universe, huh?'
"I'll make sure to check out what the old man's saying later. I gotta get back to my dorm if I don't want to be late." Saying that, Miles said his goodbyes and left the apartment. He made sure to turn invisible so that none of the neighbors would be able to see him as he was still in his Spider-Man suit.
After a half hour, Miles arrived at the academy. He would have been there sooner but there were a few things that required the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Arriving at the dorms, Miles was caught by Genki who was currently fixing his tie and tucking it under his vest.
"Miles!" Genki exclaimed. "I saw the news about you and damn, you look like crap."
"It's nice to see you too, Genki." Miles waved. He took off his mask before walking toward the bathroom. "I'm going to shower. You can go on ahead."
"Sure, I have a few things to tell you about the communicators. But, I'll tell you after classes are over."
"Sounds good."
A few minutes passed before MIles finished his shower. Changing into his school uniform, Miles made his way over to class. The shower might have helped a little, but Miles couldn't get rid of the exhaustion he was feeling.
'Man, I'm so fucking tired.'
...
For the next couple of hours, Miles fought between trying to pay attention and falling asleep. And boy was it a tough battle.
When class was up, Miles got up and prepared to leave, but he was stopped by his teacher. A young lady with brown hair and glasses.
"Is there something you need, Ms. Calleros?"
She nodded while clearing her throat. "I've noticed an improvement in your enthusiasm to learn, Miles. But I've also noticed that you haven't been resting. Almost every day I catch you dozing off."
"I'm just trying to learn as much as I can," Miles chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. "Sometimes I tend to exaggerate a bit and mess up my sleeping schedule."
Ms. Calleros narrowed her eyes, "While your education is important, your well-being and health are just as important, if not more."
"Yeah, I'll uh, keep that in mind, Ms. Calleros." Miles nodded, before asking, "Is there anything else you need?"
"That'll be all, Mr. Morales."
With that, Miles stepped out of the class. He let out a sigh, grateful that she hadn't gone all up on his business. Lying to people about what he was doing could get stressful and difficult.
'I'm going to have to figure something out.' Miles sighed, putting his hands in his pockets. He started to make his way to his dorm room to meet up with Genki.
Hopefully what he had to say was something positive, to make up for all the bad stuff piling up on him.
(Authors Note)
Yo guys, as I was writing this chapter, I decided to look up some info on Martin Li and that was when I came to the realization that I had messed up his race.
Here I thought he was Japanese, but he was Chinese the whole time. Thinking back, I've been writing about Martin's thugs wearing Oni masks, which are Japanese, but they're all Chinese Demon masks.
I've also got Genki wrong. He's actually Korean, not Japanese.
Yikes, I'm all over the place with these guys. But at least now I know so I won't be making that mistake. I'm also thinking of going back and replacing the word oni for demon in the previous chapters.
For now, though, I'm going to start on the next chapter and work on expanding Miles and Genki's partnership. I'll see you all soon.