25 Players Prepare

Peter carefully headed down the steps, his hold over his strength strengthening after each passing second.

He walked down to the hall and found Aunt May sitting on a table with a uniform with the letters F.E.A.S.T embroidered on it. She was on a video call with a man who looked distinctly East Asian, animatedly talking to him about the charity.

Meanwhile, Uncle Ben, who seemed to have just come back from work, was cooking dinner.

He looked up the moment Peter entered his vision and grinned. "I swear to God, you seem to grow taller every time I see you."

"Did I?" Peter frowned, acting confused. "Maybe I did..."

"Ah, to be young again..." Uncle Ben sighed. "One day you can shrug off tumbling down the stairs, and before you know it, you're old and your body screams at you for getting up in the morning."

"Old people problems, I see," Peter walked over and grabbed an apple from the refrigerator before biting into it. "Well, they say age is just a number, but I guess they forgot to mention that number comes with a few extra zeroes."

"Ha. Ha," Ben fake grumbled before smiling. "So, how'd your day go?"

"Went as well as I could've hoped," Peter shrugged, inhaling half the apple with a few bites.

"I heard Gwen comes over far more often," Ben gave him a knowing grin. "Anything I should know?"

"Not yet," he mumbled with a mouth full of apple flesh. "May have some good news in a week, though. Keep your fingers crossed."

"Then I wish you the best of luck. She's a good kid," Ben chuckled placing the mashed potatoes to the side. "George and I are rooting for you."

"Mr. Stacy is? Really?"

"Oh yeah," Ben nodded grabbing the salt shaker. "Got him to admit it after a few drinks. He turns into a different person after that. He's a lightweight, you know."

"That's...surprising. He looks like he'd put the pub out of business."

"Looks can be deceiving," Ben chortled before pushing the salted potatoes forward and looking up at Peter. "Want some?"

"Not right now," Peter politely refused, throwing the apple rind into the dustbin. "I'm heading out for a bit. Can you save me some in the fridge?"

"You're heading out?" Ben immediately stopped what he was doing and looked at Peter as though he'd gone mad. "You know how it is out there? Everybody's gone mad. The Riots, looting, you name it. The airports, no nowhere is safe."

"Of course, I've heard about it, but I'll steer clear of those areas, trust me," Peter put on his most convincing voice. It really didn't matter if he didn't get the permission as he'd go out either way, but getting permission was always better. Fewer questions asked.

Ben's worried expression faltered as he looked at May who sat at the other end of the hall.

"You do know that your aunt will murder me if I let you go, right?"

"I'll cook dinner for the next week," Peter offered.

"Three weeks," Ben countered.

"You're ripping me off!" he quietly exclaimed. "One and half."

"Two."

"Deal," Peter sighed holding out his hand which Uncle Ben grabbed with a smile on his face.

"Nice doing business with you, Parker."

"Oh, Shut up."

***

Tension and anger thickened the air as throngs of people filled the streets and roads near the airports of New York City. The plane was landing in only one of the airports, but humans were stupid. People from all walks of life held billboards that were plastered with numerous slogans and posters.

[ Power Without Accountability Is Tyranny!!! ]

[ FUCK THE PRESIDENT!!! ]

[ We Want Answers!!! ]

[ FUCK THE VICE-PRESIDENT TOO!!! ]

[ Protect Our Streets, Not Superfeats!!! ]

[ FUCK THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND!!! ]

[ Why Nuke Nagasaki? Nuke them SUPES!!! ]

Yells of pain and anger echoed in New York City as citizens pushed against the blockades around the airports while hundreds of policemen and women stood behind the temporary walls decked from head to toe in riot gear. Helicopters flew around the large airports whose insides were evacuated and empty. The army waited around the perimeter of the specific airport, waiting for the plane to land to flood it.

There were talks about shooting the plane down before it got to the city, but the surviving passengers on board and the superterrorist insisting that he wished to land the plane made them stay their hands. Of course, they were still primed and ready.

[ I do not wish to crash the plane, you see. Instead, I'll burn buildings down personally. ] is what he said using the pilot's communication equipment.

They would rather not kill the surviving hundred passengers if they could help it, but if the plane seemed to show signs of deviating from its course, it would be obliterated in the air with SAM's, Anti-aircraft missiles and more - passengers be damned.

***

Four invisible figures, each one holding the other's hand, slowly made their way past the initial blockade. If one could see them, they would believe them to be family. A large, well-built man was being led by a short, young girl with loose brown hair and hazel pupils while holding onto a similarly aged high-school boy with black hair and icy blue eyes.

They all wore similar black suits with a small, yellow 'X' symbol at their waist.

"They hate us, don't they?" the boy whispered, looking back at the crazed rioters practically foaming at the mouth, while the police trying their hardest to keep them away.

"Let Kitty focus, bub. We can talk after the mission," Logan whispered back, the sounds of the rioters muffling their own.

"But I'm right, aren't I? Why do we even help them?" the boy grumbled. "They would've succeeded in lynching me if it weren't for the professor. The humans hate us."

"We are humans, Bobby," Kitty whispered in the front, keeping her concentration so as to not accidentally reveal everybody. Her mutant power was the ability to phase through objects and with practice, and the help of the Professor, she'd gained the ability to allow other people to phase with her as well. Currently, she was phasing Logan, one of her mentors, and Bobby, Robert Drake, with her - allowing all forms of light to pass through them, effectively turning them invisible.

"Mutants. That's what we are," Bobby countered following Logan and Kitty who carefully maneuvered them through the throngs of the police and the army to reach the entrance of the gigantic airport. "How are we able to see anything, anyway? If photons are passing through us, then it wouldn't be able to reflect off our eyes, effectively mak-

"Shut. Up. You'll reveal our position," Logan growled, stepping over a soldier and looking up at the enormous walls of the airport. It looked abandoned - cars were nowhere to be seen, and the greenery surrounding it looked dull. The large trucks and vehicles of the military and the soldiers walking the perimeter made it look like a giant prison.

'Why does Shaw want that terrorist? Is it revenge or something else? What about the word 'Extremis'. What's its significance?' Logan pondered as he saw soldiers readying their guns while looking at their watches. 'Whatever it is, I'm not letting Shaw get his hands on him'

'That terrorist will be mine.'

***

Meanwhile, in one of the airport's many bathrooms, the surprisingly clean floor began to tremble. Small cracks neatly made a circle around the toilet before getting pushed upward to the ceiling, revealing two large, mechanical, metal tentacles holding it up.

It extended upward silently before depositing the large circle with the toilet to the side, uncovering a large hole that evidently led to the sewers.

KRRR!

With a near-silent hum, two other tentacles extended out from the hole, bringing up a short man encased in a metallic suit covering his body from head to toe. Unfortunately, it was also slathered in muck and shit.

Tiny octopus-shaped robots climbed down his body and out of the bathroom. They would act as scouts and trackers. He had prepared for this for a long, long time and he would not fail - not like he had with the reactor.

[ Killian will be mine ]

***

BAMF!

Shaw and his team appeared in an empty aeroplane in the middle of one of the airports. The scent of Brimstone washed over the many seats as he looked behind him, looking at two woozy individuals and Nightcrawler who lay splayed on the floor - exhausted. He had teleported four people continuously for two miles to escape scrutiny, which exhausted him to no end.

'Of course, Olivia could do the distance, but not the quantity', Shaw thought while looking at the woman with pure white hair and grey eyes. She had pale skin but it was nothing compared to the emo kid next to her. 'Her shadow jump, while useful, leaves much to be desired. Extremis would serve her well.'

Olivia was one of the few mutants whose powers were situational. She could jump from shadow to shadow with no known limit, becoming nearly intangible while applying her power. But the more often she did it, the more it tired her out and she could only jump to shadows that she could clearly see. She couldn't, for instance, jump to one of the craters of the moon by looking at the night sky.

On the other hand, the emo kid, Harald, had powers related to light. Well, a twisted version.

He could suck out a person's lifeforce, which manifested as armour created from light. The more lifeforce he sucked out of people, the stronger said armour grew although it dissipated after a while. There was a limit as it seemed to strain him every time he did so.

'I could do it without them, but it always better to be prepared. Olivia is my escape card while Harold would be the distraction.'

He looked out of the window, at the night sky. The plane would land in an hour and he would finally get his hands on the thing he'd been funding for years.

"Killian will be mine."

***

The sun had set hours ago, covering New York City in darkness but the Rioters seemed to have inhuman amounts of endurance - some even deciding to sit before the police and have their dinner. The officers of the law had orders to arrest people only after the terrorist threat had been dealt with, thus they could do nothing but watch as the assaulting pieces of shit happily ate while they stood for hours on end.

While the police bemoaned their fate and the rioters regained their energy, a large shape traversed the rooftops, effectively invisible to even the helicopters. It carefully avoided the lights and seemed to take the background's color and texture, making it impossible to spot in the dead of the night.

Peter's muscles could finally show their true power as he traveled from rooftop to rooftop at dizzying speeds. His previously reddish-brown armor was perpetually changing colors while his powerful muscles released their latent power, making him run at dizzying speeds. His incredible brain mapped the terrain and landmarks, deducing a perfect method to infiltrate the heavily fortified airport while his streamlined body cut through the air like a knife.

He jumped from roof to roof, somersaulted from building to building, and squeezed his giant form through alleys with inhuman flexibility, while using his tail to help make incredibly fast turns to finally reach the airport.

'This is totally not what I expected,' he thought as he snuck past a large group of soldiers that were checking their guns and watches.

"...eyes...making..."

Peter's reptilian slits narrowed as his head snapped to the side - to the voice coming from seemingly nowhere. He looked around once more but couldn't see much of anything - even his enhanced vision couldn't pierce through the veil which made him begin doubting whether he'd actually heard it.

He then looked to the ground and spotted multiple faint depressions in the shape of footsteps that humans would find hard to see, heading toward the airport. They stopped for a while before continuing towards it. He watched what seemed to be three people escape the scrutiny of the law just like he had.

'Third parties', Peter's pupils narrowed further before numerous possibilities whirred through his mind. It was hard to be certain that this universe was quite different from any of the others. 'Change of plans'

His large figure disappeared into the darkness, the black cloaking his very existence, a faint growl leaving his reptilian throat.

{Killian will be mine}

***