Chapter 7: Adversaries

As the night went on, so did the number of shady people and their 'goods' pile up at the port. By this time, Peter had decided to anonymously alert the authorities; the scale of what he discovered tonight was enough to terrorise the whole city.

Using his trusty phone Peter recorded the evidence from afar and sent it along with an altered voicemail, plus a little bit of computing work to ensure his anonymity.

'...And done. Now let us wait for justice to come.'

Minutes passed by as Peter remained hidden within the rooftop's shadow, untouched by the moonlight, while keeping a close watch on those KP's guys.

Suddenly, his danger senses picked up some rather odd signals, strange yet familiar at the same time.

TWIP TWIP!

Peter turned around carefully, embracing the uninvited guests. It was his super idol, Spider-woman, shined upon by the silver moonlight, highlighting her gracious figure

However, at that moment, she exuded a rather hostile aura towards the black custom man. Yet in their gaze, something incredible happened.

Both their unique senses were tingling simultaneously.

"Wow, you're just...like me!?" Pete and Gwen both said the same.

Followed was a short time of awkward silence. Before Ghost Spider initiated her question,

"So... are you the new vigilante here?"

Shaking the nervousness of meeting his idol face-to-face. Peter cleared his throat, standing up proudly as he announced his identity.

"Ahem, good evening, ma'am. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the Lizardman, a friend of justice, your friendly vigilante. Pleased to meet you." Peter ended his short speech with a slight bow, acting all gentlemanly.

Though Gwen found his introduction rather comical as she tried her best to hold back a laugh,. Oddly, this reminded her that whenever Pete introduced his projects, he would absolutely do something like this.

"Pleased to meet you too; you've probably heard of me or not... Well, I'm your friendly neighbour, Spider-woman, or Ghost Spider."

'Or Gwen.' Peter thought amusedly; it was reasonable for the amorist to, of course, recognise her in her rather crude disguise. Beside being a childhood best friend, you ought to have noticed something amiss these past few months when your friend had been abnormally absent, or those rare occasions that she executed incredible strength. 

'Ripping a door nob with those bare hands of yours and blaming it on the passage of time rendered the door fragile, Pff!' Peter sneered inwardly.

'Seriously, Gwen, you need to work more on your suit. Should anyone truly pour their effort into figuring out your real identity, it would take no time to get a solid answer.'

The two shook hands as a sign of cooperation and admission.

"So I figure you were the one who sent that to the police?" She pointed to Port.

"Yep, it seems like I stumbled upon a big and quite frightening deal." They both turned their attention towards the 'busy' port.

"Welp, what's the status?" Gwen asked as she narrowed her eyes to get a better look at what those criminals were doing.

Peter truthfully recounted the whole ordeal.

"Good choice; this can get ugly. Come, let's go."

Peter almost jumped on the spot at her decisive words. "Ehm, go where... did you really want to take them out first? Shouldn't we wait for the police and cooperate with them?"

What greeted him was a raised eyebrow coming from Spider-woman. "Aren't you a vigilante? The police weren't being nice to us, you know. Aside from that, these guys are way out of league with the local police. With our capability, we should help minimise the casualty as much as possible Is this your first time doing this?"

"Ah, ehm..."

Gwen heaved a sigh. Facepalmed at the Lizardman, who were acting all mighty a moment ago.

"Look, just wait here; obviously you weren't ready for this." With that said, Gwen flung herself away towards the port.

"Wait! I can..." Peter's voice trailed off. Gwen words echoed in his mind, waking him up to the hash reality.

This wasn't some third-grade game; it wasn't just some bullies and his barking goons. This was a real deal; those KP guys were probably highly organised criminals. Those that were arm to teeth. Showing no hesitation to fire off at anything that moves.

"But I'm different now... right, I'm different now..." Under the black mask, Peter's hazel eye once again shone with determination despite the looming threat ahead.

Peter forced himself to think back on all those times and how desperate he wanted to change to become better, the pain of taking that serum... He couldn't betray all that effort.

SLAP!

With a slap to his face to gather the courage, Peter dashed off in Gwen's direction. Soon, he caught on to her on one of the warehouse's rooftops.

Having taken out three armed guards without a sweat, she was looking into the warehouse's skylights, seemingly assessing the situation before executing an act.

Noticing the familiar presence behind her, Gwen greeted him with a smile. "Welcome on broad."

"So, what's the plan?" Given that she had more experience doing this vigilante stuff, Peter trusted her to make the call.

"We get in inconspicuously, figure out what they're doing, stop it, and leave the rest to the police."

Peter blinked at her concise words, still... "Well, simple and straightforward."

"Alright, then stay close to me."

With that said, the two began infiltrating the warehouse through the ventilation.

During this time, they were crawling through the narrow hole swiftly with their enhanced flexibility. Peter had quite a pleasin-hard *cough* difficult time not looking straight ahead, as that was where he met her's... bum. Though a few glances were unavoidable, Peter prayed that she didn't mind.

'Gosh, the body-fit suit really toned her curves up, and I mean by A LOT. Anyway, thank you, God, mother, father, and that weird angel, for blessing me with this holy moment. I will forever keep it on my grave. Amen.'

Through the vent, crawling on the wall, and with careful observation as well as movements, the two successfully avoided the dangerous guards and made it to where they store the crates.

Inside the storage, there were about 40 or so heavily armed guards meticulously checking the goods.

Residing in an inconspicuous conner, the two managed to have a good look at what was behind the mountains of crates.

"Wow, that's a lot of resources." Peter was taken aback by what was inside. Some crates contained hot weapons, some were engineering equipment, and some contained various chemical resources.

"These are some serious smugglings." Peter whispered.

"And it seems like they were selling this to SILK?" Gwen exclaimed as she pointed to the side mark of a crate.

"So, what should we do now-" 

Thud thud!

The two immediately retreated into the shadow as audible footsteps were coming closer.

"Come on, let's wrap this up quick."

"We still have to wait for their people to come pick these up."

"Ugh, let's hope that it won't be the crazy octopus guy. Do all these 'mad scientists' have such a pathetic fetish for befriending an octopus? Pff."

Laughters followed.

"Men! I really hope we get to see the other one, right?" The tone was oddly temptatious.

"Oh, damn right. That girl's kinda bad tho'. Now that you mention it, doesn't the way she moves somehow resemble Spider-woman?"

Peter and Gwen exchange a look of bewilderment, 'Same power as we?' While Peter was wondering where she got the serum, Gwen was speculating that there could have been more than one mutated spider.

"Yeah right, Ghost Spider or something, the one wearing a custom running around the city playing superhero right... Anyway, let's get back to work; I don't want to be caught lacking by those stoic bandages."

"Haiz, things did change a lot after the boss was caught." The goon grunted beneath his breath.

As soon as he finished, two faint silhouettes jumped out from the shadow of the ceiling, knocking both of the goons out cold, though exerting such formidable force ought to cause a small rumble. Followed by the sound of the alarms resounding throughout the entire section of this port.

Snatching the smoke boom looted from them, Peter threw them out into every corner, up into the ventilations.

The two vigilantes nodded as they began to execute their agreed-upon plan, calling it a plane, but Peter found it too simple as the idea was taking them by surprise whilst using the smoke screen.

Well, the plan did work out.

Gwen had no trouble dealing with the remaining guards at the warehouse. Using her incredible senses, moving around the smoked maze while taking out the armed, dazed goons was a piece of cake.

Things were a little difficult for Peter, as he didn't really have much time to practice his abilities prior to this. Still, it takes the young genius a minute to adapt to the situation, as he also began to knock out a few of the KP's goons.

Unlike Spider-Woman, who at least had the basic fighting techniques down, Lizard fully relied on his instinct to fight, which she did notice.

By the time the main guard force came to the scene, what greeted them was a smoked storage dissipating to reveal a bunch of unconscious guards.

"Spread out and fire off anything that moves!"

Peter looked towards where the roaring command was coming from; he was slightly aback. 'What the- Ninjas? and is that the creepy scientist they mentioned?'

Beside the one giving out orders, there were two more ninjas dressed in the same style; prominent red and grey bandages covered their arms, legs, and heads. Each carried a katana.

Behind them was a male scientist dressed like one, wearing rather odd green goggles and short black hair. His demeanour somehow spook creepiness.

"ARGH! Its Spider-woman-" Another knockout.

"Fire!" Peter's eyes filled with admiration as he witnessed Gwen graciously fighting up close. She was dodging those bullets like a freaking Neo from the matrix.

TWIP TWIP! Every time her web shot out, another goon was out of the way. She was like a ballerina performing a battle dance. Kicks and punches sent the goons flying.

"Hey, there's another custom freak here!"

Snapping back to reality, Peter collected his thoughts as he steadyed himself.

"I'm Lizardman! And today you shall face justice, filthy criminals."

Replying him were growls and bullets, which Peter clumsily dodged, thanks to his danger sense.

Due to not having transformed, Peter dared not tank those bullets. Though he did find an opening to take them out once they were reloading,. Using sheer force to conquer close combat.

"Pathetic!" It was then that the ninjas joined the battle, while the scientist paid no mind to these and only observed Gwen closely, which gave her a rather disgusting feeling down the spine.

The ninjas were much more dangerous than the armed KPs. I once saw that their were no amateurs in martial arts. Gwen was having a quiet time, dodging, blocking, and countering their attacks. Two of the three were on her, giving her a hard time knocking them down. But...

'Lizardman.' She was more worried about the new vigilante. Albeit caught up to the ninja speed with his incredible reflexes and danger sense. Lizard narrowly dodged and blocked the ninja's strike resulting in some shallow cuts on his metallic fibre custom.

However, time was on their side as the resounding police's alarm drew near; the number of police vehicles was quite exaggerated, as one could even see two helicopters from afar, which startled the whole port.

"Tsk." The scientist immediately made his escape, but not before giving Ghost Spider a tempting look. "Hehe, Silk will like this."

Catching the brief distraction, Gwen immediately used her webshooters to outmatch the two ninjas, sending them flying through the roof. Then she dashed to help Lizardman.

Soon, the last were also sent flying through the roof.

The two vigilantes gave a final nod before heading towards their own escape routes.

By the time the police arrived, only a few goons remained outside to greet them, which posed little danger.

Captain Stacy was leading another team to secure the warehouse and thus witnessed the aftermath of the battle. Slashes, bullets, spider's webs, and numerous goods overwhelmed the captain, though he quickly collected himself to assess the scene. "Spider-woman?" 

Unbeknownst to Captain Stacy, the three injured ninjas were only watching him with resentment before they slowly disappeared into the shadow.

Outside the port, there were two other silhouettes sitting on high rooftops, watching the lively scene unfold.

"As expected from New York, this is going to be fun, right, Sister?' said the fiery blond man

"Yes, my dear brother... Spider-woman and Lizardman." The blond woman's mouth curled up into a hideous smirk, and her voice was bewitching.

Little did the two vigilantes know, they had managed to leave quite an impression in the eyes of many dangerous figures.