Put on the Spot

Chapter 6: Put On The Spot

"Meddling when you don't need to is the essence of a true hero." -All Might.

≈*≈

His first week in Japan had been quite eventful, making the last few days to study and heal all the more appreciated. But now it was finally the morning of February 26th, the day of the U.A. entrance exam. Peter made sure to get up bright and early that day. Early enough in fact to catch Setsuna for her morning run. Seeing as he was already dressed in a sweatshirt and track pants for the practical exam, he decided it would be well worth it to get in a warmup and have some nice conversation.

Their run was considerably more casual than their first. Not only was Peter not dead on his feet like last time. But Setsuna also wasn't as determined to get his blood pumping and push him past his limits. Rather, she seemed to give him plenty of room and set a much more comfortable pace. Considering he had been nursing a concussion, several bruises, and likely even some hairline fractures over the last week, it was a welcome change of pace. While most of his injuries had fully recovered in just a couple days. He knew he should probably still take it easy for another week or so to avoid a backslide while he was still susceptible to further injury, that way he could heal back stronger than before.

"Nervous for the exam?"

"Only nervous about where to go and what to do. I think I can handle just about any test they throw at me. I mean, how much can they expect from regular support course students?"

She nodded as they jogged down the path back home. "From my experience, I don't think it'll be anything too stressful. Some of the other applicants had crazy quirks, but the test was simple enough."

"Here's hoping."

"You'll do great, Peter-kun. I better see your name topping the charts."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

That gave Peter a smile. "Thanks, Setsuna-chan." He checked his watch: a bit past 10. The receptionist at UA told him to just show up before 11:30, so he planned to get to UA at 11 sharp at the latest.

Thankfully, there was a convenient bus stop set to leave from their place to UA at 10:30. And they were just now coming up on their humble abode.

"I've got to start heading out. Wish me luck." He waved goodbye as he ran down a separate path to the bus stop.

"Do your best Peter-kun!"

"See ya later, alligator!" He called back.

"Come back soon, you big baboon!" She replied to finish the other half of their custom farewell.

≈*≈

Peter arrived at the main gate with little problem. He was quite relieved to see the sign designating this as the entrance exam location, though having found the campus mostly empty, Peter soon met with the nearby attendant for directions.

"I'm here for the entrance exam."

"Sorry kid, but you're late. The tests will be done here pretty soon."

"What!? But I was told that the practical exam wouldn't start until 11:30. I should have plenty of time!"

"You heard right. But there's the academic tests before that, and you missed the general debriefing, so you would need someone to explain the exam rules again for you. All the examinees were supposed to be here by 9:00 for all that."

"Oh, no, I already did those tests. The practical is all I have left."

"So you've already applied then. Where's your exam ticket?"

"Exam ticket?" He repeated in bewilderment.

Peter could tell the man was starting to get aggravated. "What's your name!"

The geeky fifteen year old bristled in the face of the larger man bearing down on him. "Uh, P-Parker. Peter," he stammered out as the man used a stylus to scroll through a list on a bulky handheld device's screen.

"Not on the examinee list."

"Huh!? B-but, I was told- Oh! I'm a foreign exchange student, maybe that's why."

The man grumbled but humored him anyway, searching up his name. "Ah, here you are. Support course. Now it makes sense. A lot of students will hedge their bets there when applying if they don't think they can make the practical exam. The tests are taken at different times so you have plenty of time to do both. I can print you out an exam ticket for the practical, no problem."

The device whirred and a slip of paper was ejected out the bottom like a receipt. The man tore it off and handed it to Peter.

"By the way, the database doesn't show that you've finished any of the support course exams either. Don't worry, like I said, you have plenty of time to do both."

Peter took the ticket with both hands and bowed deeply. "Thank you so much. Do you know where the support course exams are being held?"

"The support department is on the other side of campus." He pointed off in a direction. "That way. Just follow the signs, and you'll be alright."

Peter bowed and thanked the man once more before running off in the designated direction.

Okay Pete, nothing to worry about. Still got half an hour until the practical starts. That's plenty of time to find the support department and get the low down.

≈*≈

"Excuse me!" Peter ran upto a lone man standing next to a bulletin board with a map of the UA campus on it. "This is the support department, right? There's no one else around."

The man gave Peter an odd look. "Yeah, the building's just over there. You can call me Power Loader, I'm one of the people in charge of the support department, what do you need?"

"Oh! Perfect. I'm Peter Parker, a foreign exchange student. Maybe you can help me out." He handed over the exam ticket.

"Aaah, you must be Curt's student, said you were talented. You came to the right place." He took the ticket, but got a little confused when he started to look over it. Wait a minute…

"Great. I'm here for the practical exam, you know where that is?"

"The Practical Exam!?" He exclaimed as he realized the situation. "Goodness kid, you really are ambitious. But what are you doing all the way over here!?"

"Is this not the right place!?" Peter swung his head from side to side as panic began to set in.

Power Loader pointed at the map on the bulletin. "Kid, you're over here. Your ticket says you're taking the practical in Battle Center D, that's all the way on the other side of campus over there! That's over 4 kilometers away and you've got less than 15 minutes before it starts!"

"4 Kilometers!? How do I get there?"

"That way! Run! Get going! Maybe you can still catch the bus to the testing center!"

Peter nodded and without a second thought, dashed off.

≈*≈

With only a vague direction given, suffice to say, he did not catch that bus. But that didn't stop him from bookin' it as fast as his legs could carry him, which just so happened to be about as fast as a bus anyway.

Eventually, Peter found himself in a more metropolitan area. Which is to say, completely lost. He looked frantically from side to side, but only saw empty streets as far as the eye could see.

The empty UA highschool campus made sense, class wasn't in session after all, and everyone was clustered at the exam locations. But when that had transitioned to the commercial city scape, he couldn't say. What he could say, is that unlike the private campus, the public streets shouldn't have been so empty. It was eerie. And his spider-sense was building. Not enough to be concerning, but definitely enough to be foreboding, like the moments before a shudder.

"This place has clearly been evacuated for some reason, which means that as a civilian I need to get out of here. I obviously overshot the mark or got turned around somewhere. I gotta head back and find the testing area, I only have a few minutes before the test starts." He muttered to himself.

Peter turned on his heel and started to run back in the direction he came when his spider-sense tingled.

Bolting from behind a corner, Peter was confronted with an 8 foot tall military green robot lunging towards him on a singular wheel as it moved to bring its arm down on top of him.

Peter jumped five feet back and avoided the attack just in time to see the armored metal appendage connect with the asphalt where he once stood. "Well at least now I know why this street has been evacuated!"

He eyed the robot's appearance a bit further, and analyzed his surroundings. A closer look revealed several similar robots roaming the streets. "Looks militaristic, this place may very well be a warzone or the site of some kind of invasion. There are villains out there with robot armies, right? There was something like that in the history books. But the fact that this place was cleared out beforehand shows the pros were prepared for this and have things under control. My presence is probably only causing them more problems." With that rationale, he turned tail and ran from the robot.

As concerning and confusing as the strange situation where he now found himself was, there really wasn't anything he could do to help. He had left his Spider-Man costume and web-shooters at home. No need for the costume on a hero school campus filled with pros. And he couldn't risk anyone seeing the web-shooters and connecting the dots; besides, they'd probably be confiscated at the exams as a cheating device.

And Spider-Man was no use in a strategic situation involving teams of pro-heroes anyway. Especially as he didn't really know what was even going on in the first place. He'd just needlessly complicate things as a vigilante. Indeed, in this situation, he was no different than any other civilian.

"As much as I'd hate to miss out on the chance for a front row seat to tomorrow's headline, I've really got to get back to UA to take that test."

If he missed that test, he wouldn't make it into UA. And if he didn't make it into UA, he'd be kicked out of his UA-faculty-only apartment. And then he'd be left as a vigilante fugitive, a homeless 15 year old, and a foreigner stranded with no money and no way to find work. In short, his life would be just about over. So even if it was possible for Spider-Man to somehow help out, it'd be the very last thing he'd be able to help out with ever. Better to hold off so he could fight another day. Besides, the pros had things handled.

Peter ran away from what his spider-sense told him was the center of the commotion. Unfortunately, the many swarming robots were not of the same mind and blocked his path.

"Wait, are those missile silos on that one?" Peter sighed. Oh well, "public quirk use may be illegal in Japan, but no one would argue this wasn't self defense. Besides, with this place fully evacuated, it isn't exactly public either. Time to see just how much Peter Parker's 'Simian' quirk can do."

Spider-Man might not be able to help out here, but Peter Parker—a concerned civilian—using his quirk to ensure a speedy getaway that also happened to take out a few of those pesky robots along the way? Nothing wrong with that.

With that thought in mind, he jumped into the air and delivered a roundhouse kick that separated two of the small robots' heads from their bodies. "Heh. What are these things made of, cardboard? Flimsy engineering right there."

He backflipped in response to the advance of a robot with a scorpion tail, landing on the head of the big missile launching robot. The scorpion robot of course didn't stop its attack, but its tail pierced straight through the bigger robot's head instead when it tried to hit him. Immobilized with its tail stuck, it was a simple matter for Peter to rip off its exposed head as he jumped over it to continue his escape.

You know, scorpions are a natural predator of spiders. Good thing I'm pretending to be a monkey right now, entirely different matchup.

"At the rate I'm going, the pros should be able to take care of all these things in a few minutes. I mean really, who came up with a design so shoddy that it can be rendered inoperable just by 'going for the head'? Wouldn't that be the first thing someone tried? It's not even a hard target, barely protected at all."

Peter continued to make his way out of the cordoned off area, having to take out probably a dozen robots while he did so, despite his efforts to use his spider-sense to avoid confrontations. That was, until he suddenly heard an alarm blare. What was worse was that it corresponded to a spike in his spider-sense in several directions. If he thought there were a lot of robots closing in on him before, it was nothing compared to the new wave that had just come out of hiding in response to the alarm.

At this point, it would just be faster to charge through the obstacle rather than waste time trying to go around it. So in hopes of getting out of the way of the pros, and then hopefully finding his way to the exams, Peter threw caution to the wind and battled his way straight through the robot horde.

≈*≈

It wasn't long until Peter came across another civilian caught in the crossfire. In this case, it was a very small boy with unique purple hair. He was on his butt, cowering beneath one of the large tank-like robots, and was bleeding profusely from his head.

"You mean this place hasn't been fully evacuated yet!" Peter exclaimed. "What in the world are those pros doing? Hurry up and deal with this already!"

Peter wasted no time jumping into action. He had to be careful to not use any moves that were too flashy to sell the image of a civilian caught up in a bad situation—which was technically true, but still wouldn't do if a pro got suspicious of him—nevertheless, he was able to dispatch the robot easily enough before it could attack the kid.

"What in the world are you doing out here kid!?"

The kid was confused at Peter's panicked exclamation. "Huh? W-what's the matter?"

"Kid, can't you see that this has clearly turned into some kind of war zone! This is real!"

Peter's desperation proved to be contagious. "Wha- ! A, a warzone!?" the small boy cried.

"I don't know what, but something's definitely gone wrong. The pros should have been here by now. In any case, it's not safe here anymore. Get going, hurry! That way's safest." He said pointing in the direction his spider-sense was dullest."

The kid quickly scrambled to his feet, tore some of the purple balls off his head, threw them down the path to create foot holds, and bounced away at an impressive speed.

"At least he's safe." Peter muttered to himself in relief. "But something's definitely not right here. As much as I hate to say it, this is more important than some entrance exam. If people are in immediate danger from these robots, and the pros are being held up for some reason, then I've got to do something. Even if I don't know the whole situation, even if there isn't much I can do like this…" I really need to find a way to better conceal my Spidey gear.

Peter looked around and caught sight of several other civilians, most looking to only be kids, desperately fighting the robot onslaught.

He clenched his shaking fists. "Even if it means my life is over, even if it means my lifelong dreams go down the toilet, if it means I can save just one life, then it's worth it to risk my own."

His spider-sense was going to give him a headache after this, but if he wanted to make the biggest impact possible in staying the incoming tide of battle from reaching the civilians, then the best thing he could do was let his spider-sense lead him towards where the danger was highest instead of lead him away from it.

Using his speed and acrobatics to quickly get him from robot to robot, he efficiently dismantled every one in sight, whether by using his super strength or just by tricking them into attacking each other.

A few minutes into this, Peter began to realize just how gargantuan the task was. The robot horde was just about endless. It would take thousands of people fighting to get through them all. Thankfully, he had been able to save several people already. And the number of robot wreckages counted several more. But still, he had to find a better way.

He soon found himself sticking to the back of one of the bigger tank-like robots that wouldn't be able to shake him off easily. "While I'm at it, might as well see what makes these things tick."

He stuck his palm to the back panel and ripped it off. "What the? This has got to be the most rudimentary wiring I've ever seen. You're practically asking to be hijacked. And is that seriously an off switch?" Curiosity getting the better of him, Peter flipped the switch clearly labeled power, and sure enough, the robot shut down.

"You've got to be kidding me. Even I could hot wire this thing and take control." In no time at all, Peter figured out how to commandeer the weapons system. A little wire crossing later, and the robot's missile silo fired off a full volley of heat seeking missiles that instantly destroyed a dozen nearby robots.

"Now we're talking, this is much faster. And I don't even have to use my quirk. No way I'm getting in trouble for public quirk use now."

≈*≈

In a monitor room a couple kilometers away, Peter's actions were causing quite the stir.

"We finally found him!"

"Well, what are you waiting for, who is he?! He's been rampaging through the exam before it even started."

"Examinee number 12150, Peter Parker. Everything about this is strange though. He's a foreign exchange student on recommendation for the support course that somehow barged into the exam last minute, designated for Battle Center D."

"So he's not even in the correct Battle Center!? Scratch that, he's not even a hero course applicant and he's flying through it without even trying to rack up points. Doesn't have a scratch on him either. And if he's here on recommendation, then what's he doing at the entrance exam? I want to get to the bottom of this! This kid doesn't belong here!"

≈*≈

Peter sped through the streets atop his new mecha-tank mount, switching out for a new one whenever he exhausted the weapons. Even though his spider-sense allowed him to take the most efficient path possible, his encounters were starting to get more scarce as the horde thinned.

"As much as I'd like to think I've just defeated them all, I know there's way too many of them for that. They must have been clustered around the center at first and are now spreading out. If they manage to leak out of the evacuation zone and into the greater metropolitan area, who knows what kind of havoc they could wreak. Especially with all the pros occupied. Think, Pete, think! There's no way you can take them all out individually. Gotta come up with a way to stop them all before that happens."

Peter had dissected his way through the innards of several of these robots, but he now took the time to actually sit down and examine the components beyond just how they could be sabotaged.

"Hang on, that's a radio receiver. And it looks like all these things share the same frequency. That means they're all being governed by one centralized control panel. If I can back channel that signal and gain remote access to that control panel, I can send a kill command to all the robots at once. And it's all possible because someone was stupid enough to include a USB port on their killer robots." Peter connected the cord to his smartphone and went to work bypassing whatever operating system the robots used in order to get straight into the hard coding to manipulate the programming and execute commands.

It was shockingly easy, though considering that the robots were mostly mechanical, and therefore didn't need a computer system any more advanced than a calculator's (And Peter had extensive experience hacking calculators.) it shouldn't have been all that surprising.

≈*≈

"What happened!?" one of the exam coordinators demanded as the villain bots across all 7 Battle Centers suddenly powered down.

"Someone got into our system through a back door and sent out a stop signal!"

"You mean to tell me we've been hacked!? Find the source of that signal at once. Do you know what'll happen to us if it gets out that villains started attacking middle school students with an army of weaponized robots they commandeered from us beneath our noses!? We'll be ruined forever! And how fast until we can regain control of the robots?"

"Yes Sir! the signal is currently moving through Battle Center E. And we simply need to reboot the robots, though that will take a couple minutes, and the exam ends in just one."

"In that case I want all the monitors on Battle Center E. And I want all our people searching those monitors for the cause of the problem, immediately!"

"Ugh… Sir?" One of the older judges inclined.

"What! I specifically told you to keep an eye on that Parker kid, yes? So why then are you bothering me instead of switching your monitor over to Battle Center E? Can't you see that's more important right now, Lee?"

"That's just it, sir. Parker… it's him!"

"What do you mean, 'it's him,' what's so important about him?"

"I think he's the one who stopped the robots. It was really rather something, you know. Reminds me of that time, ah yes, I remember, way back in the-"

"Pull him up on screen!" And sure enough, there he was, riding atop a very operational 3 pointer villain bot, fiddling with his phone plugged into it."

"The location lines up, it's him, sir."

"Are you telling me, that an examinee was the one to deactivate all the robots, using his cell phone!?"

"What would you have us do, sir?"

The coordinator rubbed his temples. "Nothing, technically he did nothing wrong. Release the remaining zero pointers, there's less than a minute left in the exam anyways. About time we move to the next stage.

≈*≈*≈*≈*≈ Spidey sense is on the fritz! I might just pass out at this rate. Peter stumbled and had to lean himself against a wall to steady himself. Squeezing his head between his hands. Need to find the cause and escape with as many bystanders as possible.

"Uurgh… you had a good run, Pete. But now it looks like you've angered the final boss. Only so much more you can do now, time to call it quits."

BOOM!

Peter hesitated to look behind him at the source of the sound. That… was way too big to just be Shocker again. He reluctantly glanced back just as the colossal robot took another thunderous step.

"Yep. That confirms it, no way I'm beating that thing. Top priority is to evacuate as fast as possible."

He jumped up onto a lamp post, the high vantage point allowing his voice to carry to as many people as possible. "Everyone! The fun and games are over, the regular robots have all been deactivated, we need to get out of here before the big guy squishes us all! We all need to get to UA high as quickly as possible. That way, hurry!" He called out as he pointed to what his spider-sense deemed was the safest direction.

Thankfully, people were finally getting the memo and the exodus commenced.

Not everyone was able to get out of the massive robot's path of destruction in time though. Many were caught up in its wake and were struggling to get away.

Peter stopped his own retreat and put his face in his hands. "What are you doing, Pete? You know you can't beat that thing, you're gonna die, just get out of the way so the pros can handle it. They certainly can't ignore this," he said, pitifully trying to convince himself to not go against his better judgement. Though he knew the effort was in vain.

Peter took another look back towards the colossus. This time his eyes landed on a particular boy his age wearing a headband who seemed to be having trouble getting himself out from under some debris. just one look was all it took to melt away all hesitation, and his body moved before he had the mind to stop it. "The pros aren't here. That just leaves me. And while I may not be able to defeat that thing, I can help someone else to escape from it in time."

Peter ran towards the kid. Upon closer inspection, it seemed his arm was buried in a pile of small chunks of rubble. "What happened?" Peter ordered flatly, demanding the relevant facts of his situation.

"I'm Awase, my quirk lets me weld things I'm touching together. I found a broken piece of robot armor and welded it to my arm as a shield, now it's stuck, and I can't use my quirk precisely enough to unweld myself while touching so many other pieces of rubble, it might just make things worse. The rubble's not so heavy that it's crushing me, and my arm's not broken, so that's good. But my ankle is sprained, and I can't wiggle loose."

"Got it, I'll dig you out." Personally Peter would have preferred a single heavy chunk of concrete he could throw off in one motion, but he worked his way through the pile all the same.

BOOM The robot had taken another thunderous step towards them. It was pretty close now and the ground shook so hard Peter could've sworn he was standing on a trampoline. Man, that thing could cover ground fast. Peter only shoveled faster.

≈*≈ The shaking had knocked loose some concrete from the building Peter and Awase were crouched below, and the debris was set to fall on their heads.

Time slowed down for Peter as he instinctively moved to catch the debris in a web… crap! No web-shooters, forgot. Gotta dod- No! Block Awas-

Wham! A figure flew above their heads and slammed into the debris causing it to shatter into a harmless shower of pebbles and dust. A figure with a… tail?

He landed next to them. "Name's Ojiro, and I have a big tail. How do I help?"

"Thanks for the save. I'm Peter, I'm a big ape digging Awase here out of rubble. Think you can batter it with your tail to sweep it all off him at once?"

"Leave it to me." Ojiro spun around in the air to perform a roundhouse kic- err, tail whip, to shove the rubble off in one move, making the process of digging Awase out go by much quicker than before.

BOOM! The colossus was practically on top of them now. The next step could spell the end.

Soon enough, they dug Awase out, and Peter draped Awase's good arm over his shoulders to support him. "Thanks for saving me guys, I owe you."

"No problem." Peter then looked up at Ojiro, "Ready to get out of here?"

Ojiro gave a swift nod. "I'll handle any obstacles, you just focus on supporting Awa-"

*rumble* the roof of the building the titan sized robot was resting one of its hands on suddenly crumbled under the weight, leaving the behemoth off balance. To regain balance, it slapped its other hand down on the roof of the building the trio was standing beneath, sending another shower of debris.

≈*≈ "Ojiro, watch ou-" unfortunately for Peter, he had misjudged the cause of his tingling spider-sense. It wasn't for the falling concrete, but the fast acting blonde boy in front of him, who had also recognized the danger immediately. But rather than waste time by shouting a warning like Peter did, Ojiro had opted to throw Peter and Awase out of harm's way by slamming his tail against them full force.

The two teenagers were thrown to the other side of the street and forced to watch helplessly as Ojiro disappeared beneath a mound of rubble.

BOOM! The giant regained its balance as its massive foot slammed down onto the street, between them, separating Ojiro from Peter and Awase's view. The sound carried the finality of a tomb closing.

≈*≈

The world fell away as Peter's wide mortified eyes stared unthinkingly at where Ojiro once stood. He didn't know how long this tunnel vision lasted. A couple seconds? But to him, it had felt like an eternity had passed.

"O- Ojiro…" it was all Peter could muster. People had died indirectly because of his actions before, but it was another thing to see it, and a whole 'nother thing to see them sacrifice themselves directly for—and because of—him.

peter… peter… "Peter!" Awase shook him out of his haze.

"Huh?"

"Come on, we've got to do something to help, or at least get ourselves out of here. This is no time to just stand and stare.

Peter brought himself to focus. "Right. Sorry, Awase. We gotta get you outta here."

"But what about Ojiro? We can't just leave him!"

"I'll come back for him after I get you out. If I were to save him first, that sprained ankle would leave you as a sitting duck." Peter explained as he tried both to convince himself and formulate a plan.

"A sitting duck!? Ojiro saved us and now he is literally sitting under ducts!"

Peter hesitated and didn't move. He looked around in near despair at the impossible situation. Ojiro and Awase weren't the only people in need either. On the next street over was a group of people next to the building the robot was gripping with its other hand. As a result, the building was threatening to fall over sideways and crush the people.

So which did he choose? The only sure choice was getting Awase out; there was no guarantee that Ojiro wouldn't already be crushed when he got him out of the rubble. And without his web-shooters, he couldn't be sure he'd get to the other group in time either. And even if he did, he wasn't sure he could pull them all out of the way in time without webs anyway.

On the other hand, he still had to try, didn't he? Awase was also the one most likely to survive without his help. And if Ojiro wasn't crushed already, he would most likely suffocate by the time Peter got Awase out and came back. But what if something happened to Awase because he left him behind, and it turned out helping one of the others was a lost cause anyway? Shouldn't he do something that would work for certain rather than try and do it all only to fail and save no one?

Peter was just about ready to scream in frustration. It seemed like no matter what he did, he was doomed to witness the death of his third set of unwitting victims of his actions.

His breaths became labored, and his edges of his vision started to darken. "I-it's helpless, I can't do anything. I, I'm gonna die. We're all gonna die here." His breathing accelerated as he began hyperventilating.

NO! Peter admonished himself. He refused to think like this any longer! This time, this time for sure, he was going to do both. He wasn't going to be a slave to this either/or mentality any longer. Not strong enough, not smart enough, no more! He was going to stop the villain, prevent further damage, AND save everyone. There had to be a way. He just needed the determination to find it and see it through.

"Okay Awase, here's the plan: I'm going to need your help. I'll distract it for you, think you can fuse its foot to the ground?"

"You got it. I can even fuse the joints together so it can't move." Awase declared as he tightened his headband, determined.

Peter nodded. Picking Awase up bridal style, he jumped over to the massive column that was the titan's leg, and set Awase down so he could get to work.

He then jumped out into the open, directly beneath the behemoth's gaze. "HEY! BIG SHOT! DOWN HERE!"

The giant's response was immediate. It slammed its hand down, as if Peter was nothing more than a spider to swat. Thankfully, spiders were notoriously difficult to catch, and Peter deftly jumped back and out of the way of the massive palm.

From there, it was a simple matter for Peter to jump on the back of its hand and begin running up its arm.

The robot tried to lift its arm to shake Peter off, but this time it was Awase's turn to come to Peter's rescue. Jumping with all the strength of his good leg, Awase lunged headfirst at the robot's hand. Though he became a human skidmark in the process, Awase's outstretched hand brushed against the hand of the colossus, allowing him to activate his quirk and fuse it to the pavement.

Meanwhile, Peter continued his sprint up the arm of the robot and once he reached the shoulder joint, he slipped in between the cracks. Now wall crawling around the interior of the robot, it didn't take him long to find the wiring for the main motor controls in the head of the robot, which also conveniently held all the robot's camera feeds so that Peter could see outside. Thankfully, the wiring was just as simplistic as the smaller robots.

He started tearing open a cable connected to the power source, the frazzled ends of the now exposed live wire sparked wildly in his hands. "Now to just cross this wire with the ones to the servos and I should be the one in control."

He reached for one of the nearby cables. ≈*≈ "Not that one." He extended his hand towards another. ≈*≈ "Or that one."

Eventually he found a collection of wires that felt right, and held the ends inches apart from the live wire in his other hand. "Alright, here goes nothing." And he brought the live wires together.

≈*≈

Back in the monitor room, the judges watched in astonishment as they lost their connection with, and then their control of, the massive zero point robot. The test had ended a few moments ago, so they were about to deactivate it anyway, but to see it be hijacked like this was something to behold.

The robot had abruptly stopped its movements and gone dormant before its free arm whirred back to life. Taking its grip off a building that was now falling over, it moved its hand to instead catch the falling building before it could land on the heads of a group of examinees.

After setting the building down gently, the zero pointer then used its arm to pick up a boy lying next to its other hand and place him next to the group of examinees he had just saved. Then, the robot used its massive fingers to gently brush away a pile of debris to uncover a boy with a large tail buried in the wreckage.

≈*≈

Having finished playing the giant robot's wiring like a fiddle (an improvised instrument Peter had affectionately dubbed 'the hotwire harpsichord') Peter deemed his work finished. He dropped the sparking power cable and let the robot power down as he climbed back down to the ground.

Sadly, nothing could have prepared him for the sight he would see next.

Ojiro was still in one piece, but his body was battered, and he wasn't moving. His tail looked like an old squashed banana. Black and purple, clearly broken in several places, and bleeding heavily enough that Ojiro was now laying in a quickly growing pool of blood.

Peter fell to his knees, and lifted Ojiro's torso off the ground, holding the unconscious boy in his arms. But Ojiro didn't stir. Instead, he momentarily morphed into the form of Uncle Ben bleeding out from a gunshot.

Peter could only scream: "MEEDIC!"

A/N: There's the entrance exam! Our first conversion with canon events (sort of).

You may have noticed I changed the name of the story to "Beyond Responsibility" A clear riff off of U.A.'s motto: "Go Beyond, Plus Ultra" and Spider-Man's motto: "With great power comes great responsibility" I think the new title has more identity and is less generic. Shows how this is a story about Peter's growth and development into a true hero.

While on the topic, it would also be nice to get some original cover art so that I don't have to keep using some placeholder cover off the internet. If anyone has something for me (or if you just have questions about the story in general) feel free to PM me.

I know it's no fun to break immersion and question things too much in fantasy when you're supposed to just "go with it." But it's still a little odd how U.A. Campus has multiple city blocks worth of fake cities, and a totally disposable robot army that includes a dozen skyscraper sized robots that Deku and Todoroki can one-shot and topple over without consequence of collateral damage beyond Deku breaking an arm. Disregarding where they get the money for it, that's super deadly!

And by the way, the robots are built with intentional design flaws so that less combat focused students can easily fight them. (I also imagine it makes them cheaper and more convenient to mass produce) Deku one-shots a 1-pointer with nothing but his own strength and a piece of scrap metal, so definitely quantity over quality. The off switches is also the canon reason why Koda and Hagakure were able to pass the exams. The exam proctors just weren't expecting someone to take advantage of those flaws to do more than incapacitate the robots.

If you're wondering, Peter's examinee number (12150) is the enzyme code (EC) for the "Spidey" gene, which is the gene that gives flys the ability to stick to walls. Also, seeing as only 1 in 300 people are accepted to U.A., and there are 40 spots across two classes, that means there must be around 12,000 examinees. so it fits.

Now, the butterfly effect deemed Mineta to lose out on one of those 40 spots, since he ran away and quit the exam early because of Peter's misunderstanding. Which means someone else might get in. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Mineta, but I do think his antics can be a little much at times, and I think the fan service is a little low brow for the story I'm going for here. There's definitely a place for Mineta in the story, just not in this story.

As for Ojiro, well you're just going to have to wait to see how that turns out.

P.S. I totally forgot to add a Stan Lee Cameo this chapter, so I had to quickly add one in after posting.