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[COLOR=darkgray]Sitting on the edge of a rooftop over four hundred feet above the ground, Peter Parker stared quizically back at his phone as he awaited Gwen Stacy's follow-up text. The last of his refrigerated ramen sat in a plastic zip-bag placed to one side, the chopsticks he'd used to consume it at the other. And a small, barely noticeable stain now adorned the torso of his red and blue costume from when a gust of wind forced him to spill some of the broth, much to his annoyance. Which meant that it had been a fairly typical afternoon, given the new life that he'd been growing more accustomed to. Still chewing on a few noodles, Peter pulled the bottom half of his mask back over his face and stood, phone in both hands as he noticed that Gwen was typing.[/color]

[color=white][b]GWENDY[/b]
Have our first practice session at 5. Glory's place. 
Can text you the address when I get there.[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Peter started to respond before pausing, frustrated. The sheer amount of typos was only piling up the more he attempted to compose a message while wearing gloves. He'd considered adding rubber to the fingertips for this very reason. Wasn't sure if that would actually impede his ability to wall-crawl. Eventually, with concentration, he steadied his strokes enough to create something legible.[/color]

[color=white][b]PETEY[/b]
Uh, sure! I can do that!
(You're in a band now?)[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Immediately, Gwen's reply lit up the screen.[/color]

[color=white][b]GWENDY[/b]
OMG DUDE
I've been telling you about this for weeks![/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Beneath the mask, Peter's face dropped. Then he raised his head, lightly smacking his forehead with his open palm. Of [i]course[/i] he remembered Gwen telling him now. Weeks before both of them were due to resume classes at Midtown for the first semester of their senior year, Gwen had gotten addicted to watching a series of recorded punk rock concerts on TikTok. She had even followed one of the bands, The Rocket Racers, before becoming a regular in the comments section. Peter had joked that she was becoming their stalker, but it didn't seem like a phase that his friend was going to grow out of anytime soon. So when she learned that a couple of the other girls in school were following aswell, it seemed only inevitable that they would conspire to start a punk band of their own.[/color]

[color=white][b]GWENDY[/b]
This is the gig. Me on drums.[/color]
[color=ed1c24][Picture Failed To Send, Signal Error][/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Then again, Peter would have remembered this more readily if he hadn't spent all of his free time doing exactly what he was in the middle of now. Since deciding to split his life into two distinct halves, Peter had been doing everything that he could to live up to the promise he'd made. That meant making daily trips to one of the five boroughs, all under different excuses to give to his aunt, before shedding his street clothes for his brightly-colored uniform and going out on what could only loosely be considered "patrol". Because the truth was, he still didn't quite have it nailed down to a science. All Peter really did was go out swinging, patch into the police band feed on his phone, and hope he'd either spot something going wrong or hear about a crime in progress.[/color]

[color=white][b]PETEY[/b]
Oooh. That gig!
Didn't know it was official yet. Sorry![/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]It had produced minimal results so far. This afternoon alone, he'd managed to intervene in three muggings, a burglary-in-progress of a closed antiques shop, a couple of gangland assaults, and an armed robbery of a bodega. All of the perpetrators were left webbed firmly to the nearest pole or ceiling, with the note that Peter had started providing for the NYPD - [b]"Courtesy Of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man!"[/b].

But it didn't feel like enough. For as many crimes that Spider-Man managed to stop, three times as many were often reported throughout the city. Peter knew that because he'd become an avid reader of Deb Donovan's column of The Daily Bugle since deciding on his life's path. Not that he'd taken to doomscrolling or anything, but it always left him feeling a bit unfulfilled. And while the solution could easily be to split time between boroughs every day, Peter barely felt like he was keeping up by sticking to one.[/color]

[color=white][b]GWENDY[/b]
Yeah, finally found a lead vocalist. You're gonna flip.[/color]

[color=white][b]PETEY[/b]
Is it one of the 3 people I know?[/color]

[color=white][b]GWENDY[/b]
You know her.[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]So it made sense that he'd forgotten about Gwen's band. He had alot on his plate, more than what could reasonably be expected of any sixteen-year-old - even one that had been given superhuman abilities during a freak accident that would theoretically make it easier to handle. But as it turns out, one of the few things that the spider bite hadn't gifted Peter was the proportionate ability to multitask social obligations. Still didn't quite make him feel any less like scum for blowing off his best friend's interests. Even if punk wasn't really his thing, Peter felt especially compelled to support Gwen through whatever she needed after the last few months.[/color]

[color=white][b]PETEY[/b]
Pretty sure Harry's not a her.
Unless...[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Especially after Uncle Ben. In the weeks following his death, Gwen had never failed to check in on Peter and his aunt multiple times a day. She had delivered them food, gotten her father to fix some things around their apartment that the landlord had neglected, encouraged Peter to spend time with her and Harry in the city, even stayed up until the early hours of the morning to watch movies with them - movies that Peter knew she'd seen a million times. Anything to get their minds off of the terrible loss. It was these acts of kindness that had proved crucial to Peter's ability to move forward, even if his growing list of responsibilities meant that he'd had to turn her down every once in a while.[/color]

[color=white][b]GWENDY[/b]
Trust me, she's got pipes. And Glory's on keyboard. 
Also have a new bassist.[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]This wasn't one of the times Peter had to, though. By the time that he'd be expected to head back before May got suspicious, he'd already be well on his way to the band's practice. And given what he'd come to expect from the criminal element of the Bronx, Peter figured that at most, he'd have sustained a couple of minor bruises to explain away. For as much as he felt like he wasn't doing enough, Peter had to admit something to himself: his spider powers made it entirely too easy to take on these idiots. Whereas he would have never hoped to be able to fight one, let alone multiple enemies before the transformation, Spider-Man was capable of knocking out as many as ten at a time. And that was [i]before[/i] he even had to make an effort.[/color]

[color=white][b]PETEY[/b]
Have to ask May if I can come.

[b]GWENDY[/b]
Sure, sure! My dad's gonna be there after work to drive us back, so she's probably good w/ it.[/color]

[color=6bc1ff]"Alright. It's a date."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Peter winced as soon as the words escaped him. He'd never thought of Gwen in that way, so even vaguely referring to a date was something that he considered to be the most awkward thing in the world. Thankfully, he'd only said it aloud and hadn't been dumb enough to respond with that in text. Noticing that his battery was quickly dwindling to less than five percent, Peter decided to pocket his phone and update Gwen whenever he could get to a payphone in the city. Looking over at his bag of ramen, Peter sighed to himself, greeted by a flock of pigeons pecking at it. Gingerly grabbing the bag and upturning it, he allowed the remainder to slide into a small puddle for the birds' consumption.[/color]

[color=6bc1ff]"Bon appétit, fellas. Hope you like extra salt."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Stuffing the emptied bag into his belt, Peter took a few steps forward and stopped on the very edge. He smiled to himself, briefly, thinking about how he'd spent fifteen years of his life terrified of heights. Those days were definitely over. A new world had opened up to him, and he wasn't going to let himself waste a second of enjoying the thrill. Taking a deep breath, Peter took another step forward - and fell directly into free-fall.

On second thought, he'd make the call later. 

Something told him that Spider-Man was needed.[/color]

[i][b]THWIP![/b][/i]

[color=5eb792]"We're showing a sixty-seven percent increase in neural response rate."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Curt Connors watched with intent as the device on the table infront of him started to move. The titanium coils overlapping part of a thick cable glistened off the overhead light as the three pincers of the claw-like head slowly began to flex, bending the protective rubber coating. The small blue lights began to hum as they came to life, signifying a successful link between man and machine that - thus far, anyway - had never truly been accomplished. But after eleven months of tedious coding, research, trial and error, [i]Project Fenrir[/i] had finally borne some small fruit from the labor between Connors and his longtime business partner. 

Another man who currently stood adjacent to Connors, with both hands locked on the table and his head craned downward. He wore a headpiece connected by wires to the table, with similar lights to the device, and modules that kept a constant scan running of the different sections of his brain, both to monitor neural activity and provide feedback to the receiver on the arm. Connors was cycling between checking the readout on his laptop and focusing back on the table, barely able to contain his astonishment as the top of the arm mechanically began to rise off of platform.[/color]

[color=5eb792]"Sixty-eight. And it's climbing every second."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]A vein appeared in his partner's forehead. He was evidently locked in focus, unable to respond or even move a fraction of an inch without compromising the connection. Connors had to admit to himself that, despite his initial skepticism - after all, his own [i]Project Pelops[/i] involved taking a dramatically different approach to the same outcome - there seemed to be a clear winner in the race towards Horizon Labs' promise of eventually replacing missing limbs. A race that, either way, Connors was personally invested in winning.[/color]

[color=5eb792]"Seventy-three! You've already cleared the record!"[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Sweat began to appear on his partner's forehead. His brow furrowed, and his fingers clenched against the table. Even with his eyes hidden by a pair of tinted spectacles, the wearer of the response unit didn't dare try to strain himself to maintain the connection now. That had been the error of the previous trials, the impatience to make the arm really move with a degree of effortlessness. But as he stayed locked in, and the arm began to respond to his direct commands, the harder it physically became. It was just as he'd feared from the beginning: he and Connors weren't just trying to solve how to make the brain control a piece of technology, they were actively trying to cheat an entire central nervous system into believing it had a natural appendage. And that was where science and nature seemed to be clashing the hardest.[/color]

[color=5eb792]"Dammit! The numbers are falling. We're back to sixty-four. Hang in there, Otto."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Hearing this, Otto Octavius latched onto the table even harder. There was nothing that the man could stand more than to hear that he'd been so close to success just to end up falling short. Even as the lights blinking next to his ears shifted from blue to red, and the machines began to beep, Octavius was determined not to break concentration. The veins were now pulsating on his neck and his teeth were grinding against themselves. His heart rate was elevated. Connors knew that the test was already over and that they'd failed again, but he knew better than to try and tell Otto the truth. Like all the other trials, Octavius wouldn't hear of it until the arm had fully collapsed into lifelessness.[/color]

[color=5eb792]"Neural response rate has dropped to forty-three percent. Forty percent. Thirty-eight. Otto, you need to..."[/color]

[color=ddc278]"I can... still... [i]do[/i] this..."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]All it took was for Octavius to breathe just a little too hard - and the connection was immediately, irrevocably severed. The metal arm hit the table with a loud "thunk", and the frustrated doctor's hands balled into a pair of fists. He wanted to hit the table. Wanted to [i]obliterate[/i] the table. But the sight of Connors frantically shutting the scan down and the sound of the beeping coming to a stop brought him back to reality. There would be no frustrated and dramatic outbursts, this time. It clearly wouldn't change anything.[/color]

[color=5eb792]"Sorry, I know you wanted to keep at it. But we were close to hitting single digits. And I don't know how the programming would react to that level of decline, nor do we really know the effect that it would have on..."[/color]

[color=ddc278]"It's perfectly fine, Curtis."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]With a sigh, Octavius removed the headpiece.[/color]

[color=ddc278]"You can say it if you wish. Another botched attempt."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Connors shook his head.[/color] [color=5eb792]"On the contrary, my friend. We've never gotten this close before. You should have seen the feedback whenever the apparatus began to recognize cognitive input. It was beyond what we could've hoped for!"[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Otto took a step back, quickly sitting down to catch his breath.[/color]

[color=ddc278]"I can believe it. There was a moment, a curious... glimmer of something. It was as if I could feel the arm actually become part of me."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Connors approached his friend with a water bottle, which Octavius graciously accepted. His mind was already deep in thought.[/color]

[color=5eb792]"Sort of the opposite of phantom limb syndrome. We knew it was certainly [i]possible[/i], but if you actually experienced it? This could change everything."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Otto took a hearty swig, his eyes never leaving the table.

The project had been, up to this moment, entirely for the benefit of men like Curt Connors - people who had lost something and needed to be able to experience a replication of natural function. There had never been a serious consideration that the project would lead to fully-intact human subjects being able to [i]gain[/i] anything that they never had in the first place. That possibility was something that intrigued Octavius far more than he'd have expected.[/color]

[color=ddc278]"Yes..."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Nevertheless, it was a curiosity that he kept to himself. In the morning, the two men would go over the data and see what exactly had gone wrong, then go about refining the process until they got ever closer. There were still dozens of other high-priority projects that they and the rest of the staff at Horizon were hard at work on, including Connors' own formula-based approach to cell regeneration. But it was this breakthrough, brief as it was, that would keep Octavius wide awake during the nights to come.[/color]

[color=ddc278]"It very well could."[/color]

[B][I]THWIP![/I][/B]

[COLOR=darkgray]Less than ten minutes after beginning his next round of patrol, Spider-Man started to feel it again. That peculiar buzzing in the back of his head. It had started just as he'd rounded the corner above tenth street, then increased with alarming frequency as he'd swung his way over to twelfth. Letting go of his line, the webslinger somersaulted through the air and held out his hands as he advanced upon a brick wall. Clinging to it immediately, he slowly crawled forward as he heard a faint noise. Then another, louder noise, followed by screaming. 

Eyes widening beneath the large mirrored lenses of his mask, Spider-Man stood upright -actually sideways, given the way he was perched on the wall - and hopped into a direct sprint. He could see a faraway set of figures running away from a particular building. As he approached more rapidly, the wall-crawler held out his hand and placed two fingers above the hidden trigger of his web-shooters. Pressing down, he allowed the sticky substance to fire out, coil itself, and hit a building just above the area.[/color]

[color=35aaff][i]Jeez. Don't need a map to tell me where to be.[/i][/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Leaping into another swing, Spider-Man vaulted over the panicked bystanders and immediately spotted a street lamp that could give him a better vantage point of the scene. Dropping from the line, he flipped twice and landed perfectly atop it, his feet practically wrapped around the pole. A woman ran past, too scared to notice him, clutching her infant child in her arms. Too timid to try and stop her, the teenager cleared his throat and looked towards an older man who was similarly fleeing.[/color]

[color=35aaff]"Excuse me! Sir, you got a sec? What's going..."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]The man took one look at him - this bug-eyed teenage boy covered head to toe in spandex, suspended on top of a street lamp high above the street  - and immediately turned on his heel, breaking into a frantic run.[/color]

[color=white][b][i]"OH, GOD! IT'S ANOTHER ONE!"[/i][/b][/color]

[COLOR=darkgray][color=35aaff][i]Another one?[/i][/color]

Spider-Man was struck by how weird a statement that was. How many other sixteen-year-olds in colorful tights were busy breaking the laws of physics in the area? His curiosity was almost too much to contain, so he looked ahead and watched as more civilians piled off onto the sidewalk, blending into the perplexed crowd that had been in the middle of their day-to-day commute. Quickly, the webhead realized that they were all looking to get out of the same place: a building with a large turquoise banner that read "fresh seafood" below a smaller sign. [i]Randazzo's Seafood.[/i][/color]

[color=35aaff]"Never had to stop a holdup of crab and oysters before, but it [i]is[/i] the Bronx we're talkin' about..."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Backflipping off the street lamp and landing gracefully on the ground, Spider-Man fired two weblines into the opposite sides of the building's entrance, which he then noticed was heavily damaged. Infact, the door to the place had looked as if it were ripped off its hinges, with glass and debris everywhere along the outside. There were also, very strangely, massive puddles of water leading into the area. Almost as if they were tracks made by an enormous animal, like a bear...[/color]

[i][color=35aaff]Or something even bigger.[/color][/i]

[COLOR=darkgray]But the webslinger put aside such concerns, knowing that any hesitation meant the difference between life and death. Tugging on the weblines and arching his back, Spider-Man flung himself into the fish market that seemed to be the epicenter of the chaos. Once inside, he performed a handspring and spun himself, latching his feet onto the ceiling. It was a bizarre sight, but it felt as natural as anything he'd done since learning to use his abilities.

Once upside down, Spider-Man noticed a darkened figure looming over a large, broken crate of fresh fish towards the back. And despite all of the panic that had been provoked from the place, this seemed to be the extent of the disturbance. There were no ski-mask-wearing thugs with glocks and a series of hastily delivered demands in sight. On some level, the wallcrawler felt a tinge of disappointment. But as long as he was here...[/color]

[color=35aaff]"Hey! Bartering 101, pal!"[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]The figure paused. Then turned.[/color]

[color=35aaff]"You're supposed to offer a price less than standard, look especially smug about it, [i]then[/i] the seller's entitled to call the cops on..."[/color]

[COLOR=darkgray]Then rose, revealing a more massive height than expected.[/color]

[color=35aaff]"...you..."[/color]

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