The Rise of Omega

A front lotus? A powerful maneuver, the likes of a seismic toss that harmed one's opponent at the expense of the user's own well being. Not necessarily what Akahoshi wanted to see out of the webslinger, but he was impressed at the boy's bravery all the same. He was stuck, about as stuck as a bug. But even in this desperate situation, he popped a grin.

"Nice move. I can't feel my arms at all, so I won't be able to shoot a web to stop us from falling. But am I really worth killing at the cost of your own life?" His eyes beamed down at the concrete pavement welcoming them. They were drawing closer by the second. "I guess it's a little too late for that, isn't it!? I'll see you in hell!"

Death seemed inevitable. And then came yet another webslinger swinging on by. Akahoshi's eyes widened. There was no mistaking that rack.

"So you've come at last!" he beamed proudly as Scarlet Web took them out of the air and into her arms, gliding through the sky. "Reinforcements! Wow, I forgot what a big deal I am!"

She landed safely onto the sidewalk, swooping past a truck that could've splattered them all in one fell swoop. From her palm dripped a potent acid, which bled through the numerous ropes of web Tom had prepared, freeing the both of them. With Scarlet Web's arrival, Akahoshi had to be more careful. There was no time to mess around any longer.
With another stutter of his foot --even from his lain out position on the ground-- he garnered his illusive "flash step", vanishing and reappearing a few feet away from the spider duo. "He's a friend of yours after all, I take it? Good to know."

Scarlet Web was on her knee, right beside the idiot that was willing to kill himself. She sent a punch reeling to the boy's gut. "What were you thinking?" She knocked on the sidewalk. "This is solid concrete. Diving into that headfirst might spare your life on a good day, but there's no escaping the kind of brain damage you'd suffer otherwise. Don't do something so stupid ever again." Was she scolding him? Just when did she become his mother?
She stood to her feet, facing Akahoshi. "Come, I'll be your opponent."

There was one thing that was stilling bothering her, though. Had she not been conveniently swinging around nearby, then there's no way she'd have known about the trouble occurring on the other side of the city. If only there was a way to improve upon her spider-sense...

Akahoshi shook his head. "Yeah, no thanks. I've seen this story before. I'm not cut out to take on the both of you. Besides, there's no more need. I've just about seen everything I set out for. May we meet again, beloved."

A smoke ball dropped from his sleeve and fell unto the ground, covering the area in a deep smog. Scarlet Web shielded her face so as not to inhale any of it.

He was on the ground. He wasn't dead. These normally would have all been good things, except now he wished he had died, because wow that girl knew how to throw a punch! As Tom lay on the sidewalk, trying his best to not puke up his lunch into his good mask, Scarlet and Mr. Miagi had themselves a little tist. What it was about, he only caught in the vaguest sense as he was far more occupied with trying to focus on stopping himself from spinning. Or maybe it was the sidewalk. Or probably just his head.

After a few moments he had recovered enough of himself to get on all fours and look up at where the ninja should have been. There was only smoke. He sighed and coughed up a little bit of something. He was forced to swallow it back down. "Well... Aw geez... I can't even think up something funny to say about this..." He hauled himself up to his butt, sitting on the sidewalk and trying not to hurl.

"Listen, lady, not that I don't appreciate the help, but maybe we try punching the bad guys next time, okay...?" He shook his head, still trying to rattle out the dizziness. "I mean, geez... Who taught you that right hook, freaking Mayweather?"

"Certainly not McGregor. Now on your feet, Spider Monkey! There's much we need to discuss. None of which we can do out here in the open. So let's put a move on, already." Assuming he'd make like the rest of the men in her life and follow her, Scarlet Web planned to lead him through the bulk of New York City. She traveled on foot, by limb, and by web, until reaching a rather deserted area in which very few witnesses could be found.

She approached a single hatch in the ground, and with a glance to make sure he had kept up with her to this point, she dropped herself down into the sewers. But they were far from there. No, she kept traveling a long while after, plunging deeper and deeper down into that which persisted beneath their beloved city grounds. She crawled along a very narrow gap, where the ceiling nearly touched against the filthy water beneath; a place where only a person who had the ability to crawl on walls could tread, a place where only a spider could dare enter.

Where the two of them ultimately ended up was a large underground cellar, containing small bits and pieces of torn furniture. A very poor illustration of a spider drawn up on a sheet of paper was webbed to a wall like a poster. "Welcome to the Spider Corps. So far there's only you and I." She kept walking, showing him around like a tour guide. Only... there wasn't much else to see. Everything was plain and bare.

"It's not Spider Mon- Ah forget it..." He was in no mood to argue right now. But they seriously had to get something sorted out about that name. It was really starting to get to him.

As she swung off, he sighed and did his best to keep up. As they swung through the city every block made it more and more clear just how new he was to this. Her movements were practiced, graceful, and precise. His were... Awkward and unsure. He almost hit the corner of a passing building a few times and twice he misjudged the distance and nearly went careening down into New York traffic. The blare of sirens sounded angry and hostile. The last thing he wanted was to end the night as some cabbie's free Spidey Hood Ordainment.

But even when the swinging was over, the trip was not. After that was a long series of tunnels and wall crawling. He was fairly certain the water below them was not at all meant for a nice swim. Halfway through the trip he realized that he now knew what that guy in the Shawshank Redemption felt like, except this little crawl through a mile of shit wasn't even worth getting Morgan Freeman to narrate it. It might be Daniel Baldwin money, and maybe not even that.

Soon, they arrived in a small nook, populated with sparse furnishings and a hand-drawn poster. "Wow... The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles run out on their lease or something?" He cracked his neck with a loud pop. "Can't see why they left. Great commute time. So close to all the amenities. I bet this place has tons of market value."

"Haha, very funny." Her hands fell into place on her hips. He was incredibly imaginative. How ironic that he hadn't come up with a name for himself by now. "Now onto business. As I'm sure you probably know by now --or, I don't know, maybe you don't-- but we reside in two separate parts of town. I'm over on one side and you're allll the way over on the opposite side.

Unfortunately, my spider-sense can't reach up to your point. Not on its own. And even more unfortunate than that, seeing as we did earlier today, I can't exactly rely on you to take care of crime on your own there. At least, not yet.

"That's why I think it's necessary that I train you. So that the next time you come face-to-face with a fighter as skilled as that perverted ninja, you don't have to kill yourself to have a chance at beating him." The eye slots of her mask narrowed. She didn't really want to be here alone with him. Her tone didn't shy away from that. But she had a duty to train him. This wasn't for his sake; no, it was for the city of New York and its people. "That sound okay to you?"

It better have. He didn't have much of a choice now that she had showed him her secret hideout and all.

Well, I know now. It hadn't exactly been in Thomas' day plan to try and hunt down exactly where Scarlet lived. And come to think of it, he wasn't really sure how she knew either. Maybe she had more time in the day to devote to this hero stuff. For a moment, the thought struck him that she may very well attend NYU too. They could have passed each other every day and had no clue whatsoever. That was trippy to say the least.

It did sting to know that she didn't trust him to work on his own. He wanted to retort that he had the ninja thing under control, but he had a feeling that she wouldn't have had any of it. As a matter of fact, Tom didn't really need Spidey Sense or whatever to get the hint that she really wasn't head over heels with him. That stung too. He was hoping that their common ground would have been enough to start some sort of bond or friendship. Then again, maybe this WAS her sort of "friendship." The whole thing may have weirded her out too...

He couldn't really pass up on a chance to learn something, though. Especially not from her.

"Yeah, yeah, that's- uh, that's totally okay. I'm all for it."

Maybe if they spent some time together she'd warm up to him. Who knows.

"So, what, you have a secret Spider-Gym down here too?"

"Er.." She bit her lip under her mask. "No, not yet. Maybe one day. For now, this is all we have."

Just a bunch of empty space. Only time would tell what the two of them could do with it all.

"Before we proceed with any training, though, there's something I want to test out. It's regarding our spider-sense and why this thing doesn't alert us of one another." She approached him, slowly. Lifting her hand, she aimed to place it on top of his head.

"My spider sense?"

She approached him and laid her hand on his head. He hadn't been expecting that. Her hand was warm. He was partially worried that her sticky fingers would rip the tufts of his hair that stuck out from his hood straight out of their follicles. Granted, she probably had more control over it than he did.

"Uhhh... Okay... So, what now. We say some magic words, or...?"

"Shut up," she said rather bluntly, closing her eyes. She remained like that for several minutes, concentrating heavily. At times, too heavily. Beneath her mask, her eyes tightened and a vein protruded from her forehead. She was attempting to forcefully awaken her spider-senses, somehow trying to use them to scan through his being. But it didn't work the way she wanted. Heck, it didn't really work at all.

Retracting her hand, she turned around and began to walk away. "No luck. We'll try that everyday from now on for at least 10 minutes. Until I manage to figure out just what the hell that's all about." She continued walking until there was sufficient enough space between the two of them, at which point she turned back around in his direction and took her fighting stance. Her knees were bent drastically, and she hunched her torso over while touching the tips of her fingers to the ground.

"This is what I've dubbed the 'Scarlet Fighting Method'. It might not nearly look as appealing as it sounds, but trust me, all that matters is results and it'll get them for you. The idea here is to use our superhuman equilibrium to our complete advantage; our opponents may be quicker than us, perhaps even stronger and more physically well built. But not everyone can balance themselves in every position like we can. By staying this close to the ground, we're forcing them to fight on our terms."

They must have been sitting there for at least ten minutes. All that time, Tom had to admit that he had absolutely not a single clue what the hell they were doing. At some point, he was fairly certain that Scarlet started to shake. It was a little bit unnerving. Whatever she was trying to do, Tom had no clue if he was supposed to help or not.

He was just beginning to think that Scarlet might explode into a sticky glob of webbing or something, she must have abruptly decided that whatever she was doing wasn't panning out the way she wanted it to because she quickly broke contact. Try it every day until she can figure out what the hell it's all about, she says. I barely know what the hell it was about...

Once she was on the other end of the room, she got down on her haunches and told him about her special fighting method. He had to admit that it did certainly make her look especially arachnid-esque.

Still, he had a few concerns.

"Alright, okay. That's all really cool, but I barely know how to throw a punch. Isn't it a little early to be starting with all this Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stuff? I don't want to seem combative, pun fully intended, but I think you might be over-estimating me here, lady."

She regained her posture, standing upright. "Is that so?" She nearly face palmed herself. For once she had thought just the slightest bit highly of him. And this is what she got. She sighed. "I suppose we'll have to start with the basics, then."

Aiming her hands toward the ground, she expelled large, concentrated amounts of webbing all at once, carefully molding it into a shape of her liking. The result was a large rectangular figure, a punching bag made out of pure organic webbing. Shooting another web up toward the ceiling, she hung the bag up and gestured for him to come forward.

"I don't know how developed your spider-senses are, but mine enable me to see movements in not only greater detail, but they almost slow down the world around me to a certain degree. Use what God gave you to its potential. Focus here, focus on me. Watch as I repeatedly punch this thing and be mindful of my fundamental form. It should come naturally to you."

Pacing her dominant foot slightly before the other, she turned her shoulder and cuffed a wide fist, throwing a fundamentally sound punch at the bag for demonstrational purposes. "After all, spiders are never taught to crawl around or spin webs. It's all natural to them. Its an innate feeling, so movements that you're exposed to should come easier to you. Just think about that for a moment.

"With an actual teacher, your progress should multiply tenfold. Now concentrate and study." She began repeatedly punching the bag, switching her hands around as well as the method of the punch itself, throwing in some uppercuts, some jabs, hooks, the whole arsenal as far as punching was concerned. "I myself learned from watching movies, believe it or not."

Spider Monkey see, Spider Monkey do.

She had a pretty good point. After all, he'd never seen a spider learn how to spin a web. Granted, he'd seen some pretty bad webs in his time, but he had always just attributed that to the weather or people messing them up. He hated when people did that. He understood if the web was in a really inconvenient place or something, but he had known people who would go way out of their way to destroy something that he had always thought looked really cool. Besides, spiders were firmly the "Bros" of the insect world. They keep mostly to themselves, only bite if you try to crush them in your sleep or something, and in return, you get a cool, eight-legged house mate who catches all your flies for you. Tom had always thought it was a pretty sweet deal.

As he watched her punch, it did kind of start to make sense to him. He wasn't sure if it was his "Spider-sense" that was doing it, but he was starting to get what she was doing. And come to think of it, back when he was fighting that ninja dude, his body had almost seemed to move on its own at times. Maybe he did need to give himself more credit. Maybe he could do this.

"Alright. I think I get you. Besides, I watch a lot of Bruce Lee movies. I guess I must have picked up something by now, huh? Let me have a go at it." He walked up to the "bag" and swung his arms at the shoulder cuff a few times, warming up. He didn't want to pull anything. Then again, he had gotten a whole lot more flexible since the accident. He wasn't sure if he even could pull something anymore. Still, better safe than sorry.
He did his best to stance up like she had. He took a breath and then threw his best jab at the punching bag.

It was much harder than expected.

"Yeaow!" He jumped back and cupped his aching knuckles. "Oww ow ow ya tatatata! Yeesh... What the hell? You never told me you could shoot friggin' steel outta your hands, Red!" Was her webbing really that strong, or were his hands just not used to throwing a punch? Probably both if he had to guess.

Scarlet Web merely gazed at him, expressionless. For some reason the thought had never crossed her mind. Not up until now. "Oh, that's right..."

She folded her arms beneath her chest. "You rely on webshooters, right?" She shook her head. "That's no good. That's one huge weakness. Anything with a limit like that lacks in versatility. Let me show you what I mean."
This was becoming a total training session, more than just hand-to-hand practice. Tom was really getting his money's worth.

She put her hand on the punching bag. "Take this for example. The reason its as sturdy as it is is because of the amount of webbing it took to create. This is the result of many layers of webbing. I don't know how much those canisters of yours can hold, but making even a small construct like this could drain your supply quick."
Though it didn't seem like it, this was a pretty serious letdown. The severity of the matter had her brainstorming for potential cover ups.

"If I were you, I wouldn't waste any of my web swinging around. Doing so would be arrogant."

Arrogant? "Imagine running into a powerful enemy while you're running low on your reserves. It could spell great danger, perhaps even death."
She wasn't his mom, so there was no way she could ever force him to comply to anything she was saying. They were already a bit off topic, so another suggestion wasn't going to hurt anyone further.
"If transportation is a concern, might you consider the application of 'wings' to your suit? Even I do so from time to time, admittedly it is rather enjoyable.

"Sticking a thin webbing beneath your arms should do the trick."

Now he was starting to feel a little touchy. He had to admit that his webshooters weren't as good as having the source right there, literally on hand, but he thought his solution was pretty good. He'd was proud of his homemade little beauties.

"They can actually hold quite a bit... I mean, yeah, the canisters run out, but I've got a ton of them." He lifted his shirt, revealing a belt lined with the small cartriges. "I mean, yeah, I can't waste it on making punching bags and stuff, and I don't think its as strong as yours, but It does me pretty well. I've found it takes about a week before I have to whip up another batch.

"But but uh, yeah. Wings. I'll keep that in mind."

He fully intended to stick to web-swinging. He'd taken enough physics classes to know how well the whole wing thing would work. If Scarlet liked the idea, well, whatever worked for her.

Time went on. A week eclipsed since Akahoshi had infiltrated the hospital, taking who knows what with him to who knows where. In the mean time, the two spiders went about their days, stopping crime alongside one another on occasion, and remaining consistent with their training sessions. Little progress was made concerning their spider-senses, but it didn't stop Scarlet Web from trying again and again.

The city of New York was covered with a steady snow. Students around the country were gearing for the end of the semester, locked into libraries and the like to maximize on studying time. Even with it being such a crucial time of year for Thomas, Scarlet Web wasn't the kind of person to cut him any slack. She prioritized crime fighting even before education.

All this crimefighting was really getting in the way of his education. Thomas understood that protecting people was important, but so were the thousands of dollars he and his Uncle were pouring into a college education. He'd barely been keeping up and it was getting harder and harder. Granted, it was easier to keep Uncle Matt in the dark about his activities, with the exuse of studying for exams.

Still, it was hard work, burning the candle at both ends. He knew Scarlet was helping him, and he felt like he was improving, but she could be such a drill sergeant sometimes. He wasn't sure what she did for a living, or how she lived, but she sure did have an unwavering metal in the pursuit of justice. It was a bit of a pain if he was honest. Admirable, but still a pain.

Still, he had to forget about this. Next class was an important review before the exam. If he could just take some good notes and then cram with the time he had, he should have the exam in the bag.

Then his phone rang.

He looked at the screen. You gotta be kidding me, Red...

He sighed and answered. "Good morning, Red. How's the weather treating you? Is that getup weather resistant and insulated, or what?"