Chapter 17: Chimeras & Phantoms I

Truth be told, Peter always did wonder how much that spider bite changed his biology. Cause he was pretty sure anyone else's blood would rush to their heads if they had been hanging upside down for the past 5 minutes like he has.

Maybe it was a spider thing, you know?

Man, it was kinda concerning how he only understood his quirk in the most basic levels now that he thought about it.

He'll watch a documentary on spiders later or something.

"Uh, Parker-Kun?" Hado's voice broke him out of his thoughts, he turned his head to the side and saw how she was right side up.

Wait, that wasn't right.

"Huh? What are you doing?" Behind his goggles, Peter raised his eyebrow slightly while he rolled his wrist.

"You've been hanging upside down and cupping your chin for the past couple of minutes! It got boring not talking so I tried to see how it felt like! Kinda woozy."

With a small laugh that didn't feel as happy as she normally is, the girl turned right side up in the air and landed on the ground.

Oh, he hadn't been talking, had he?

They should probably plan or something.

Before Peter could speak, Hado decided to cut him off.

"Hey, are you mad at me?"

Peter paused at that.

What?

She sounded… incredibly guilty.

The tone of her voice made Peter feel bad even if he hadn't done anything.

"Sometimes I uh, ask or say stuff without actually thinking and make people feel bad, you know? It's a bad habit and all." She sighed, sitting on the curb they were by. "Sorry if made you feel bad when I pointed out how you looked tired and all, I didn't mean it."

Frowning under the mask, Peter did a flip and landed next to his partner, quickly sitting down on the curb next to her.

He had never actually seen her look… anything but happy, not that he thought about it. In the few months they've known each other, she's normally being a ball of energy and enthusiasm.

It was weird seeing her like that, you know? He'd have to do something about it.

"It's fine, you didn't mean anything by it." Taking off his mask, Peter gave the frowning girl a small smile. "No one had ever pointed it out or anything, I guess I didn't even know I was self-conscious about it."

They sat in silence for a bit, Peter checking his phone to see they still had 3 minutes left of prep time.

"Trouble sleeping?" She asked, making Peter pocket the device and look at her.

"Say that again?"

"I asked if you had trouble sleeping and stuff, is that why you look so tired?"

His gloved hand unconsciously touched the bags under his eyes as he looked at the building across the street, he could see the occasional silhouette passing by the different floors.

Whoever it was must be moving around fast, he'd have to remember that.

"Remember how I told you about the stuff I used to do? When we met at the beach?" Hado nodded instantly. "That uh, kinda messed me up in a couple of ways I'm still trying to figure out how to fix; my sleep schedule is a huge mess, and I'm still trying to de-stress after all of that."

That felt like a good enough explanation, no need to get into the few nightmares he's been having lately.

Hado made a small hum as she cupped her chin before suddenly snapping her fingers.

"I know! I'll help you out!" Cheerily, she beamed a smile at him while Peter looked at her in confusion.

"Help me with what?"

"You said you had trouble getting rest cause of how stressed you still are over your vigilante thing, right? And how you're still trying to figure out how to deal with it messing up your sleep schedule?" She asked, Peter gave a small nod and let her go on.

What was she getting it?

Also, how could someone smile so brightly like that? Can people just do that?

"I'll help you relax the best I can! We could try to go hang out and have fun so you're not like, sulking and brooding all day, you know? It's the least I can do for making you feel bad earlier, anyway."

Peter blinked at her for a couple of seconds.

He had never really had friends growing up, given how he was quirkless and liked to stick by himself. By the time he did get his quirk, being Spider-Man took up most of his time so he didn't try to socialize even though he easily could.

So you can understand why he was so confused right now.

Having someone so eager to help you out when you need it and that wanted to hang out with you was… unfamiliar.

A smile began to spread itself across his lips, his eyes softening as he looked at the girl.

It wasn't that bad though.

"I'd… like that, actually." The girl smiled wider and pumped her fist in the air, shooting off the ground and doing a quick loop before coming back down.

When she landed, she looked at him with an expression filled with positivity and happiness as she grinned in accomplishment.

A small feeling of warmth spread across his chest as he looked at her, Peter decided to ignore it and stand up now that they had talked things out.

"Hey, let's talk about this stuff later, alright? We gotta go beat up Amajiki and Togata in a bit." He put the red mask over his face, quickly putting on the goggles and letting the lenses widen and squint to adjust

By his count, they should 1-2 more minutes before the exercise started.

It should be enough.

"Oh, right! Hey, do you have a plan? I can try to come up with that but I'm better on the fly and stuff." She bounced up to her feet, hopping from foot to foot next to Peter in excitement.

"Well, they're probably on the higher floors since that's where most hostages are kept, I'd say either the sixth or seventh floor." Peter cupped his chin, quickly hopping up to the lamppost and hanging upside down from it on a web.

Weirdly enough, it was easier to think that way sometimes.

"Amajiki said his quirk lets him manifest properties from the stuff he eats, so far I've only seen him do that with animal parts but it may go beyond that, and it most likely only lasts as long as it is in his system. 

You know how some transformation and emitter quirks change the body to better use the quirk and stuff?" Peter looked at Hado, who had hovered up to his level.

"My body is a bit more durable than normal since it's adapted to the recoil of my blasts, something like that?" The girl titled her head, Peter snapped his fingers and smiled under the mask.

"Yeah! So, maybe his stomach takes longer to digest or keeps stuff in his system for longer so he can manifest food more often, right? That means that waiting his quirk out is out of the picture."

Peter hummed and narrowed his eyes in thought before looking at Hado again.

"He only seems to be able to do one manifestation at a time from what I've seen even if he has multiple at his disposable, so the plan would be to try and overwhelm him to the point he can't switch fast enough and take him out, sound good?"

Amajiki probably had the most versatility out of all of them, but he could only do one thing at a time no matter what.

Peter was planning on exploiting that.

"Sound good! I can probably keep him at a range but he has those tentacles he can make, so maybe you'd be better suited for it. Wait, what do we do with Togata-Kun? Doesn't he have some sort of warping quirk? He didn't tell me what it was when we met at the exam." The girl asked him.

Peter thought about it for a moment, remembering how Togata had sunk into the ground the day before and how he said his costume was made out of his hair so it wouldn't fall off.

"It has to be some sort of phasing! Remember how he sunk into the ground during the race yesterday and popped up at the end of the track without clothes?"

The girl hovering quickly thought about it before nodding.

"I think he phased through matter, and gravity took effect on him and pulled him down since he still had mass! Sounds freaky." Peter deduced, earning a thoughtful look from Hado as she looked at the building.

"Then how did he pop back out?"

"Well, matter can't overlap, right?" Hado nodded at his question. "Well, in theory, if he were to materialize while in the ground, he would be repelled and shot outwards! But if he still has a major weakness."

"Wait! If he phases through his clothes and the ground, then he has to phase through everything!" Hado put her fist on her open palm.

Man, it was nice to plan with someone who could follow along for once.

Crawler was the most teamwork he has done, and the guy couldn't follow along too well.

"Yeah! That means he goes through stuff like sound, air, and light! It'll be like falling in an endless void! Woah, that sounds super scary now that I think about it."

"Yeah, but it's still cool! Wait, how do we counter him? We can't really know where he pops out from."

Peter couldn't help the smirk that appeared on his lips.

His spider-sense really was great.

"Remember when I told you I had a sixth sense back at the beach?"

The boy grinned at seeing the girl's eyes widen in realization.

"Yeah! You could use it to predict when he comes from! Awesome!" The girl pumped her fist in the air before doing a barrel roll in excitement and landing back on the ground, with Peter doing the same with an elegant flip.

Peter reached into his belt and checked his phone, should be about a minute and a half before it starts.

"You go for Amajiki and I go for Togata, deal? Best case scenario we capture them both and if things get messy we can just grab the dummy and run." Peter held out his fist toward the shorter girl.

Almost immediately, she returned the gesture and smiled widely at him. "Deal! Let's do our best!"

Peter grinned back, ignoring the feeling of warmth that swirled in his chest at seeing her smile.

He'd figure that out later.

Probably.

"Let's do spectacular!"

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Can I ask you guys to throw some power stones To elevate the ranking

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