He began putting himself in Colleen's shoes. Her goal was to train her students, so she wouldn't go too far. She needed somewhere open where she would be easy to spot, preventing the students from hiding and ambushing her.
So, a park-most likely Central Park. It wasn't far from Chinatown, and she had plenty of time to get there. But where in Central Park? She needed space where she could both hide and fight, while avoiding interruptions from unsuspecting passersby.
Peter took out his phone, opened the map, and kept searching until he settled on the perfect spot.
He waved to his teammates. "Come on. I know where Colleen is."
Aggie's eyes went wide. "How do you know?"
Peter merely smiled and offered two words: "I guessed."
With a mix of coaxing and dragging, he led them toward Central Park's southwest entrance. This area had the fewest people and plenty of open space, exactly as he had predicted.
Sure enough, within a few minutes, they spotted Colleen beside a fountain. She was leisurely eating an ice cream, completely unaware of the cluster of students hiding behind a tree.
Marcus immediately started laying out tactics: Aggie and Brandon would approach from the front to draw her attention, while he and Peter circled behind to grab the sword. Once they had it, he would take it and head for the dojo first.
He had barely finished when Peter scoffed, sparing his feelings not at all. "That plan is unbelievably stupid."
Marcus frowned, about to pull rank as the senior student. Peter sneered inwardly. Trying to throw your weight around with Peter Parker? Who do you think you are?
He raised a hand and pointed at the open space. "There isn't even any cover here to hide behind. Colleen chose this place specifically to prevent ambushes. The moment you show yourselves, she'll spot you from half a mile away. You'd just be feeding her kills."
He laid out his own thinking: either wait for her to move somewhere else, or deliberately create a disturbance to draw both her attention and the passersby's away. Only then would it be safe to act.
Brandon kept shaking his head, finding the approach too far-fetched and insisting on Marcus's plan. Aggie nodded in agreement.
Peter's gaze turned cold, and he washed his hands of it. "Fine. Good luck. I'm going solo."
Marcus grew agitated, keeping his voice low. "This is team training!"
"A stupid plan will still lose, no matter how much you talk about teamwork," Peter said, refusing to budge. "We have to distract her first."
Marcus sighed, looking as though he couldn't be bothered arguing. "Then don't come if you don't want to." The other two said nothing more either and went to find their positions.
Watching the three of them brimming with confidence, Peter silently began counting down.
Six minutes later.
Colleen walked away from the fountain with a smile, three limping unfortunates trailing behind her. She lectured them as she walked. "You really just charged straight in? Use your brains! Distract me before making your move, understand?"
Marcus rubbed his aching shoulder and said dejectedly, "Actually... Peter told us the plan wouldn't work. We should've listened to him."
Colleen paused, a little surprised. "Peter? He didn't attack with you?"
Aggie sighed. "He said the plan was too stupid and refused to join in... Looks like he was right after all."
Colleen looked thoughtful. As she crossed a small bridge, she was still muttering that she needed to have a proper talk with the boy later.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, a dark figure suddenly swept down beneath the bridge.
Peter landed before Colleen like a phantom. Before she could react, his left hand seized the katana's carrying strap, and his right foot slammed into her lower abdomen.
Colleen went flying backward. Peter pulled with the momentum, slipping the sword's strap straight over her head.
He turned toward the three dumbstruck kids and winked. "Thanks. Full marks to you three for playing bait." With that, he turned and ran without a moment's hesitation.
Marcus's mouth formed an O. It took him a long time to squeeze out, "So cool..."
Clutching her stomach, Colleen climbed off the ground, grimacing in pain. Seeing Peter running away with the sword over his shoulder, she roared, "Get back here!" and took off after him.
Marcus and the others snapped out of it and hurried forward to stop Colleen, but how could their meager skills hold her back? She shook them off in a few moves and stayed hot on Peter's heels. Peter looked back as he ran, grinning-now this was training. Everything before had been playing house.
He burst out of the park and darted straight through traffic without even waiting for the lights. The curses from pedestrians behind him were swept away by the wind. Turning into an alley, he spotted a fire escape on the wall, kicked off, and shot up onto the roof.
The chase on level ground escalated straight into a rooftop parkour battle.
He had just landed on a building's rooftop when Colleen rushed into the alley with the others. They all craned their necks, watching dumbfounded as Peter leaped and darted between buildings.
Colleen shouted from below for him to come back. Peter laughed and called back, "Come up and take it yourself if you can!"
The chase lasted a full hour. Peter finally landed on the roof of the building housing the dojo, climbed down the wall, and sat on the curb, gasping for breath. Even with his spider physique, an hour of running and jumping had brought him close to his limit.
Only ten minutes later did Colleen arrive with the rest, all panting. Peter stood, raised the sword in his hand, and gave her an infuriating grin. "Thanks for going easy on me. I win."
Colleen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She waved a hand. "Fine, you win... Just let me catch my breath." The others collapsed straight onto the steps, without even the strength to raise a hand to point at him.
"Next time..." Marcus panted. "Next time, we'll do everything your way." Peter smiled and nodded, and that settled it.
Rubbing her stomach, Colleen complained, "You've got one hell of a kick, kid. Like getting kicked by a mule. You nearly knocked my lunch out of me." Peter scratched his head, a little embarrassed. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't hold back enough. Went a little overboard."
Once all the students had arrived, Colleen publicly declared Peter's group the winners and asked him to explain his thinking to everyone.
Brandon immediately admitted that Peter deserved all the credit. Aggie added that he had not only found the right location, but predicted that their plan would fail.
Peter shrugged and briefly explained how he had worked backward from Colleen's objective to determine her location. The students listened with shining eyes, their faces full of admiration.
As a reward, Colleen bought everyone a Coke. They sat on the curb, drinking and chatting.
Peter quickly became friends with Marcus, Aggie, and Brandon. Making friends apparently wasn't that hard. The original owner of this body simply had such a terrible reputation at school that everyone always viewed him through a lens of prejudice.
Marcus talked to Peter about chemistry, complaining about his poor grades. Peter offered to tutor him, and Marcus was immensely grateful. They discovered that they both lived in Queens, though Marcus lived in a poorer area.
After class, they took the train home together. Marcus led Peter through his neighborhood. The streets here were dilapidated, with an air of decay. Peter made no comment, simply listening quietly as Marcus complained about his studies.
Suddenly, a shout came from up ahead, followed by gunshots.
Marcus grabbed Peter and dragged him into an alley beside them. He told Peter to stay hidden, then poked his head out to look.
Five gangsters dressed in green were waving guns as they chased another man down the street. They fired as they ran, their bullets clearly meant to intimidate rather than kill outright.
Peter asked in a low voice what was happening. Marcus shushed him and pointed at the men, saying they were the Grass Stain Gang, the rulers of the local streets. They preyed on everyone, and the police could do nothing about them. Half the students at school had become drug addicts because of them.
Peter narrowed his eyes. It seemed he had found his first target.
Once the street grew quiet again, Marcus took Peter home. It was a small, filthy, rundown apartment, but Peter didn't mind at all.
They spent a day reviewing chemistry. During their breaks, Peter indirectly fished for information about the Grass Stain Gang. They operated out of a strip club, dealing drugs, loan-sharking, extorting people, and even taking part in gang shootouts.
Peter knew he had his work cut out for him.
After returning home, he began investigating the club. The body's original owner wasn't a hacker, but he knew some computer basics. Peter thought he would have to learn hacking someday. That skill was essential.
The Grass Stain Gang's boss was called Razor, a tall, vicious bastard. He was the prime suspect in four murders over the past year, all brutally committed. But he had a fatal weakness: lust. He was also a thoroughly rotten person.
Peter had to take this gang down. Too many people had suffered because of them. Destroying a gang meant not only defeating its members, but destroying its reputation so it could never recover.
He spent the rest of the weekend improving his Silk-Shooters and designing a new suit. He really didn't want to wear spandex. It might look cool, but the feeling of it against his skin was disgusting.
On Monday evening, after returning home from Colleen's class, Peter finished dinner at seven and pretended to go to bed. At eleven, after confirming that Uncle Ben and Aunt May were sound asleep, he put on dark clothes and a ski mask, then slipped out of the house.
Wearing his newly made Silk-Shooters, he headed for the slums of Queens. Marcus's home was only a few blocks away.
Peter climbed onto the roof of the Grass Stain Gang's club, found a ventilation duct, and crawled inside. Crawling through the narrow, filthy duct was nothing like the movies. The music downstairs was deafening, and the strippers' names were tacky enough to leave him speechless.
He crawled above a windowless room in the club's central area and looked down through the slats. Several people wearing only underwear were packaging cocaine, surrounded by guards carrying submachine guns. This really was their drug distribution center.
He crawled on until he reached a lounge. Several small-time thugs in green were smoking marijuana, while a tall man sat on the couch with a gun on his lap.
It was Razor.
Peter held his breath and listened to their conversation.
Razor was cursing, saying Cottonmouth had been getting increasingly uppity lately. Those two cousins should take a piss and look at their own reflections. Who did they think they were, trying to redevelop Harlem? His underlings all chimed in agreement.
One underling suddenly brought up the big battle in Harlem, saying he had seen Hulk with his own eyes. Another added that there had also been a gray-skinned badass. The two had brought down a military helicopter together, then started beating each other up.
A third underling grew even more excited, saying a little guy had suddenly appeared, taken down the big guy in five seconds, and saved everyone there.
Razor's interest was immediately piqued. His underlings gave vivid descriptions, saying the kid had strangled the other guy with sticky rope, then stood on the corpse laughing like a lunatic.
Peter rolled his eyes hard inside the duct.
Who was laughing like a lunatic? Who was a freak? At most, I gloated a little to myself. These people are really letting the stories get out of hand.
After only a little more chatter, Razor stood and urged his men to hurry with the packing, saying the Mexican buyer would arrive tonight.
Once they switched off the lights and left, Peter quickly backed up and followed them to the packing room. Razor shouted for everyone to hurry. When the last box was sealed, the whole crowd headed downstairs.
Peter crawled back onto the roof and took a deep breath of the cool night air. Running to the edge, he looked down and saw a large van parked in the rear alley. Razor and his men loaded the goods, then hit the gas and plunged into the night.
Peter took two running steps and leaped off the building. His fingertip triggered a shooter, and the web stuck firmly to the opposite building. Momentum carried his body through an arc in the air.
Wind howled past his ears. His thin clothes did nothing to keep out the cold, making him shiver. He truly couldn't understand how the body's original owner had swung around late at night in spandex. Was he really immune to the cold? He definitely needed to get some long johns later.
He chased along the rooftops, following the van to the port. It stopped outside Warehouse 153. The door rose, and the van drove straight inside. Peter pried open a skylight, slipped through, and crept forward through the shadows along the wall.
Inside the warehouse, a Mexican man in a tailored suit was waiting, a briefcase at his feet and a row of bodyguards behind him.
Razor got out, and his men began unloading. The Mexican man handed over the case. "Your money."
Razor opened it, glanced inside, and nodded in satisfaction.
The Mexican man said Mr. Kingpin was very grateful for their cooperation. Manhattan had been crawling with soldiers lately, and getting the "goods" in had been no easy task.
Hidden in the darkness, Peter's heart lurched.
Kingpin??
I was just following a street gang. How did I walk straight into one of Kingpin's deals??
He quickly took out his camera, aimed it steadily below, and began recording. This was good stuff. If he ever really went head-to-head with Kingpin, it would be solid evidence. If that blind lawyer was willing to help, it would be even more effective.
At that moment, Razor suddenly raised his price, saying he wanted double the money next time, or he would sell the goods to Cottonmouth.
The Mexican man sighed, saying they were already paying three times the market rate. Razor remained belligerent: take it or leave it.
The man's gaze turned cold, and he snapped his fingers.
The bodyguards behind him instantly raised their guns, and gunfire erupted. Within seconds, Razor and several of his trusted men had been riddled with bullets.
Peter held the camera rock steady, making sure the footage didn't shake, but inwardly he was still deeply shaken. They just killed them? Without even giving them a chance to fight back?