Chapter 21: Predator or Prey?
Miles crawled through the warehouse, stalking the Oni men who were currently in disarray as they were trying to figure out where the hell Miles had gone. Fortunately for Miles, that meant that they had spread themselves thin.
'Ah, my first victim.' Miles smiled as he saw a lone figure toward the end of the warehouse.
Slowly and quietly, Miles lowered himself with his web until he was right beside the Oni guard, making sure to keep his cloak activated at all times.
'Nice and easy.'
With one quick motion, Miles ripped the mask off the man's face before webbing his mouth. The guard, preoccupied with getting his mouth free left himself wide open for Miles as he webbed his head and slammed him down to the ground, putting him right to sleep.
With the guard out for the count, Miles grabbed him and put him over his shoulder where he pulled himself back up to the ceiling. Thanks to the darkness, it would take someone with incredible vision to notice this guy up here.
"Don't worry, I'll bring you back down when I'm done," Miles whispered to the unconscious man before continuing his hunt. "Right, who's next?"
Miles continued to crawl through the ceiling but felt that it was taking too long to traverse the whole warehouse.
'There has to be a better way to do this.' Miles thought about it for a moment before a memory came to his head. Looking across at the other side of the wall, Miles shot a web before connecting it beside him. With his finger, he checked the tension and saw that it was pretty tight.
'Right, now to get on top of it." Miles placed one foot on top of the line. Using his hands as support, he placed his other foot on as well. After taking a few deep breaths, Miles pushed himself off the wall and tried to balance himself on the line. At first, he was a little wobbly and he felt like he was about to fall, but he remained calm and spread his arms out to keep himself balanced.
To test the waters, Miles took a step forward. The line moved up and down a bit causing Miles' balance to shake. He worried that the webs wouldn't be able to manage his weight, but that was just the fear in his mind talking. 'Come on, these are Peter's webs. Of course, they'll hold me.'
Miles took his time, taking one step at a time until he reached the other end of the wall. Halfway through he started to get a hang of it. It most likely had to do with Miles' enhanced body and Spider Senses working in tandem to keep his equilibrium.
Making his way toward the middle of the line, Miles saw two masked Oni talking to each other. They were surrounded by large crates, separating them from the others, which meant that they were ripe for the taking. 'I should also try to learn how to do a double takedown.'
Lowering himself to the two, Miles thought about what best way to take them out without alerting the others.
'Let's try this out.'
Getting behind one of them, Miles slammed their heads together which momentarily stunned the two. That gave Miles enough time to unmask them and web up their mouths before he punched the one on the left and kicked the one on the right after, where the two plopped to the ground with a thud.
'Not the worst, but I could do better.' Hiding the two in a corner, Miles started to feel pretty confident about his stealth abilities. Now he wouldn't call himself anywhere near as good as Peter in the Spider-Man games but for someone who was giving it a crack for the first time, he had to give himself props. "Time to finish this."
...
After a half hour, Miles managed to get all but one guard tied up. He had created an intricate line of webs across the ceiling of the warehouse where he had webbed up countless guards already. For each one of them, he tried out a different takedown, trying to find out which one worked the best for him. Why was this one the only one left alone? Well, Miles was trying to give himself a challenge.
'Alrighty, let's see if I can do the cocoon.' Miles took a deep breath, shaking and blowing his hands to prepare himself. He looked down at the guard, who was currently searching around the warehouse, frantically. The guard probably didn't appreciate being the only one left while each one of his buddies got picked off.
Steeling himself, Miles shot a web at the guard and pulled him up. He yelled as he was yanked from the ground, but his yells stopped as Miles began to spin the guard's body, creating a cocoon of sorts. Miles could see that he missed a few spots but all in all, he had managed to take down the guard. Albeit a bit loudly.
"I'm not going to put myself down. It was the first time I tried it." Miles said, turning to look at the man he had just webbed up. "What do you think?"
The man replied with a muffled voice seeing as his mouth had gotten sealed up.
"You always know what to say," Miles smirked, slapping the guy's face. He leaped off his intricately designed spiderwebs and landed on the ground where he made his way to the hostages.
When they saw Spider-Man, they couldn't help but sigh in relief.
A few minutes later, Miles managed to free them all.
"Thank's Spider-Man." One of the workers said, an older man with white hair and a bushy mustache. He was rubbing his wrists which had been zip-tied moments ago.
"Don't mention it." Miles shrugged, taking a look at the workers. "You guys have any idea why these lovely people would want to steal things from this warehouse?"
"Eh...I don't know how to say it." The old man rubbed the back of his neck.
"Oh, come on! Spider-Man saved our asses." Another worker, this time a young woman, yelled back at the old man.
"Fine!" He grumbled, turning back to Miles. "This warehouse, while under the name of Eric's Shipping Warehouse, actually belongs to a man named...uh...Wilson Fisk"
"Kingpin?" Mile's eyes narrowed. 'That confirms these are the guys Aaron was talking about.'
"Is there anything you guys know?"
The old man shook his head. "No. We were one of the few legal businesses that Mr. Fisk had."
"I highly doubt that," Miles said, stepping out of the warehouse. He saw a few crates still lying around. Walking toward them, Miles ripped the top off one of them and was surprised at what he found.
"Is that an RPG?!" Inside the crate was a whole rocket launcher along with a few rockets. "Was Kingpin going to war or something?"
Turning to look back at the workers, he cleared his throat before speaking, "Look, you guys should start thinking about finding another place to work. Once the police get here, this whole place is going to get shut down."
"Yes, we understand Spider-Man." This time it was the lady who answered him.
"Good, now one of you guys call 911. I'm going to get the criminals tied up for when the police arrive." As he left, he turned toward the workers. "And whatever you do, don't touch the crates."
...
A half-hour later, Miles saw police cars and a swat team arrive at the scene. Hell, there'd probably be a bomb squad pulling up as well. And to no surprise, the person to arrive first was none other than Miles' father, Jefferson.
'God dammit! Are there no other officers in Brooklyn?!'
"Spider-Man," Jefferson greeted, tipping his hat. "What do we got here?"
"Just one of Kingpin's operations. Seems some people want a piece of the pie." Miles replied, pointing at the masked Oni men who were all tied up on the ground.
"it seems your throat is still messed up. You should get some cough drops for that." Jefferson said, pointing at his throat. "There's a pretty good pharmacy a few blocks down. You could get them there."
"I'll make sure to do that." Miles nodded before turning away. "I'll see you later, officer. Oh and be careful of the stuff in the crates."
"Will do, Spider-Man," Jefferson chuckled, shaking his head. He turned to look at the men Miles had left behind. "Boy, this is going to be a lot of paperwork."