The Preparation Stage

Working with Chameleon was starting to become a headache. He was a cautious man, to Scott's annoyance. Like instructed, Scott called the number on the card at eight PM and was given obtuse instructions about where to meet Chameleon at.

"A street address would be nice dude."

The instructions involved a statue, and looking at a water tower at a specific angle from the west to see a specific building at just the right time. All of this frustrated the poor web crawler, who struggled to piece the instructions together for a long time until he finally figured it out.

On a rooftop was a garden with tomatoes growing and next to it a door that led to a greenhouse. Scott landed on the roof and noticed Chameleon, Black Cat and someone he didn't recognize in the greenhouse.

"I didn't care for the riddles." Scott complained as he stepped inside.

"It wasn't intended to be like a rubix cube Tarantula." Chameleon admitted.

"Yeah well, I'm here now."

"Late I might add."

"Oh well. Who's this?" Scott pointed at the newcomer.

"This is Doug." Chameleon introduced.

Doug was a plain looking man, white, with brown hair shaved into a buzz cut and glasses. He was a little out of shape, and looked like he didn't get outside much.

"His grandmother owns this place." Chameleon continued.

"Nice to meet you." Doug greeted Scott.

"Pleasure's mine. By the way, is your name just Doug?"

"What else would it be?"

"I just assumed you'd have a name to conceal your identity."

"I'm a hacker, not a super criminal."

"Alright alright." Scott put his hands up in defeat.

He took a seat next to Black Cat and smiled at her, then he felt like a bit of a fool when he realized she couldn't see his smile from under the mask. Then he was glad he had the mask on to hide his embarrassment. "How is it that I always seem to look lame in front of her? Well I'm at least glad I know her name now. Felicia Hardy."

"Listen." Chameleon called everyone's attention to himself. "I have considered our options very carefully, and have formed a plan for how to get in and out of Ryker's."

Chameleon slid a blueprint schematic on the table, it depicted a layout of the prison. "There is only one way in and out of Ryker's Island, that being the bridge. We could take a boat but that makes us a 'sitting duck' as one would put it. I have entered Ryker's before, a simple disguise was enough to infiltrate them. The problem is getting a prisoner out quietly, hence I need your help."

Chameleon took a card out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the table as well, it was an ID badge that could be scanned to gain access to rooms within the facility. "I can get inside just fine, what we need is a vehicle that we can drive into the prison and use to get Valentina out."

"How do we do that?" Felicia asked.

"Well, that's where our friend Tarantula comes in. I will find out when a vehicle is leaving and give him the route. He takes the vehicle without harming anyone and I disguise myself as the driver. We now have a getaway vehicle."

"That's a good idea." Scott remarked. "I can take the vehicle easily. There's something else I want to bring up."

"Yes?"

"There's another prisoner in Ryker's that Cat wants to break out. I think she should do that while I help you with this Valentina chick."

"That wasn't part of the plan."

"Well, I'm asking for it to be."

Chameleon wore his emotions on his face, which was odd given what Scott expected of him. There was a clear sense of frustration on him, his forehead tensed with an expression of annoyance. He rubbed his temple and sighed. "Fine. She can do that, but I'm not compromising my goal if her deviation goes south."

"That's fine." Felicia responded. "I can handle myself."

""Very well. Let's go over the plans some more. Then we can steal ourselves a vehicle."

——

Misty walked into the police station with the confidence of someone who owned the place, Gabriel couldn't tell if that was because she'd worked there before or if she was always like that.

"This place hasn't changed a bit." Misty commented.

"How long has it been since you've seen this place?" Philip asked.

"Almost a decade."

The trio walked into a rectangular shaped room with a long wooden table and chairs around them. At the edge of the room was a white board made into a link chart with pictures and lines connecting them. The Deputy Chief, Jean DeWolff, stood up and put her cigarette in the ashtray. Jean was a tall, skinny woman. She was pale, with bright red lipstick and dimples when she smiled. Her eyes were bright blue, and she could stare daggers into you with them. Her hair was blonde, and was cut to not go below her neck. Jean was in her forties, and was well seasoned in crime fighting.

"This better be worth it, I was on vacation in Cali when you called." Misty sarcastically greeted as she entered the room.

"Misty." Jean answered back. "It's worth the trouble, I promise."

Jean walked over and hugged Misty. Then she pointed at the other person in the room, a stocky built Irish man with blonde hair and blue eyes.

"This is Captain George Stacy, and of course you've already met Detectives Hunt and Chen." She explained.

"It's nice to meet you, Captain Stacy."

"Pleasure's all mine."

"Let's get started if everyone doesn't mind."

All eyes were on the whiteboard, it was detailed with crime photos, suspect pictures and a composite sketch of Black Tarantula's costume.

"In just this month we've seen a spree of superhuman related crimes." Jean explained, "On April fourteenth a masked superhuman criminal fought a vigilante who calls himself Hydro-Man, after the masked individual robbed a corner store. This masked criminal has no name."

"We've started calling him huntsman, like the spider." Philip commented.

"You started calling him that." Gabriel countered.

"Whatever his name is..." Jean raised her voice, cutting the two detectives off. "He was also involved in two fights that happened in the apartment of a woman named Belle Sinclair. One group attacked her at night, claiming that this man sent them to do it."

Jean then pointed at a picture of Vincent, "This is Vincent Patilio, age twenty three, who was reported missing on April seventeenth while his parents were on vacation. His family's warehouse reported a break in the same morning, police arrived and found blood stains on the ground which informed us that Vincent might have been violently kidnapped. Three days later his body was found dumped in a river with severe blunt force trauma, the kicker is that he was wearing stolen Stark Industries technology that we were searching for. Linking him to superhuman crime as well." She continued.

"And then there's the hospital." Captain Stacy said in a grave tone. "On the eighteenth at roughly four in the morning a violent attack happened in The Brooklyn Hospital Center, leading to the deaths of four men."

"Harry Driscoll, Marcus Rodriguez, Franklin Moore and Benjamin Poindexter, the latter goes by the name Bullseye in the criminal underworld. He's a hired hit-"

"I know who Poindexter is." Misty cut Jean off. "Who are the others?"

"We would've said common thugs, but Harry Driscoll was a man the NYPD was tracking due to his connections to Lonnie Lincoln."

"Tombstone?" Misty remarked.

"He's grown in power since you were on the force Misty. He's the head of a Maggia family."

"Damn. Didn't think he'd be the brains behind anything."

"Neither did we." George joked.

"Who is the kid circled in red?" Misty asked, having noticed a picture of Jamie taken from his driver's license.

"Jamie Reyes." Jean explained. "Aged seventeen, moved from Puerto Rico to New York with his family four years ago after his brother David was murdered in prison. He was admitted into the hospital after a car hit him and drove away, and he seems to be at the center of this hospital attack. Someone brought tranquilizers with him, in what we suspect was an attempting kidnapping. He is a registered mutant, and used his mutations in an act of self defense against the attackers."

"We questioned him after the investigation." Gabriel commented. "We have no motive for why the kidnapping happened, he was cooperative but didn't tell us anything useful. All we know is he is at the center of this attack."

"Maybe it was because he's a mutant?" Misty speculated. "You know how people are about them."

"Maybe." Jean rubbed her chin with her finger. "Here's the files on all three cases, take a look and tell me what you think."

Jean handed Misty the case files. Misty looked down and smiled. "Can you have one of your lackeys run and grab me a coffee while I work?"

——

It began to rain, like it always did this time of year. The day wasn't over just yet, but the clouds blocked out the sun and cast shadows over the still lively city. Scott was perched on the balcony of a vacant apartment close to where Chameleon said the truck would be. He checked his watch, it read '5:50 PM'. It wouldn't be long before the truck would arrive, and the biggest crime Scott attempted up to now would start. The anticipation and fear made his nerves jittery, but he took a deep breath and steeled himself.

"This is it. This is do or die. I can't mess this up. If I do, it's all over for me. Hopefully the rain helps us, maybe the guards won't see us? Who am I kidding… What if this all goes south? What do I do then? No. I can't think about that. I need to stay focused, I know the plan and I have the skills. This will work." The rain always had that effect on Scott, made him stop and reflect on the important things in his head. He tried not to get wrapped up in those thoughts.

"The truck is coming." Felicia said over the radio comms.

Sure enough, Scott could hear the rolling tires over wet concrete, and the heavy hum of the truck as it approached. "Now or never Scott." The wallcrawler leapt off the balcony and used a web to pull himself to the street. Scott landed on the side of the vehicle and stuck to it, with one hand he opened the truck door and unhooked the passenger seat belt. With a forceful tug he tossed the guard out of the vehicle. When the guard's back hit the road Scott fired a web and trapped him on the ground. Suddenly the hairs on Scott's neck stood up and without a second's hesitation he pulled himself onto the roof of the car, narrowly avoiding a bullet hitting him.

The driver aimed his pistol to shoot the masked criminal if he tried anything else, but was caught off guard when the driver's side door opened behind him. Black Cat was there, she grabbed the driver by the arm and threw him over her shoulder and out of the truck. The driver hit the pavement with a thud, and while dazed from the impact she placed a chloroform rag over his mouth until he went unconscious.

Chameleon and Doug sprinted for the vehicle as Scott and Felicia dragged the guards into the back of the truck where prisoners are kept. The guards had their mouths bound with tape and their arms and legs restricted with zip ties. Their guns, radios and any other tools were taken off of them. Scott put the pistols into his jacket pockets, which he zipped up. Felicia looked at the one guard that was still conscious.

"Knock him out." She ordered.

With a punch to the temple Scott put him to sleep. By now Doug had started driving the vehicle, and Chameleon was at work disguising himself. Scott watched as in mere minutes Chameleon transformed into one of the guards, and as his appearance changed so too did his voice and mannerisms. Scott felt a rush of unease as he realized how uncannily he could mimic another person's likeness and behavior. Like Felicia, he truly lived up to his name.

"Okay everyone." Chameleon belted out in the guard's deep, boisterous voice. "You know your jobs, let's do this thing."

——

Misty sat in her old office cubicle with case files strewn about from a day's worth of analyzing information and cross referencing it. Being in her old workplace was nostalgic for her, it reminded her of different times. She came to some interesting conclusions while looking through the files, at the cost of a headache. Though she thought it could also be the jet lag that was causing her head to hurt. Jean stepped into the doorway and knocked.

"Here's the Tylenol you asked for." Jean said as she handed her a small pill bottle.

"Thank you, sweets." Misty replied warmly as she opened the bottle and downed three pills.

"Find out anything?"

"Yeah. I think you're looking at this situation wrong."

"Really? How so?"

"The reason you have a superhuman crime spree is because they're all linked. There's a couple of things that struck me immediately."

Jean pulled up a chair next to Misty. "Go on."

"First, the involvement of these men." Misty pointed at a picture of the four masked super mercenaries. "These men are The Wrecking Crew. They're notorious over on the west coast, fighting teams of superheroes and killing politicians for money. Yet here they are working for Tombstone, which means that old Lincoln paid a pretty penny for their help."

"Okay."

"Then there's Vincent. I believe that he is a bigger player in all of this. The men you apprehended at Belle's apartment were sent by him, which we know. The thing is, I want to point your attention to this."

Misty flipped through Vincent's case file until she found a printed photograph, evidence labeled 12. In the picture were dried blood stains and burn marks on the ground."

"Notice the burns on the floor? They're identical to burns left in the hospital by our mysterious Jamie Reyes."

"You think he attacked Vincent?"

"Yes, and Tombstone sent men to retaliate because they were working together. Maybe using his warehouse to smuggle narcotics."

"Shit."

"But Jamie isn't alone. He's working with this Huntsman guy, and I think even more superhumans. Belle Sinclair may be one herself, given her involvement and using a false name."

"A false name?" Jean asked, taken aback.

"I had a gut feeling that it was a fake name. Sure enough, there's no Belle Sinclair in our records."

"And you think there's more of these guys running around?"

"I'm confident."

"Why?"

"They scared Tombstone enough to pay for the Wrecking Crew to help. That's a bit overkill for just a skinny teenage mutant and a guy in a bug mask you think?"

"You may be right, Misty."

"Jean, I'm pretty confident about this. The reason you have a superhuman crime spree is because New York is on the verge of a gang war."