Chapter 10
[19]
Ren was going for a walk through the red light district in jeans and his hoodie. He had a lot on his mind after today, it was likely that he would be expelled for destroying school property, he had already been on thin ice from the moment he set foot in the school. Now, he had finally done what everyone expected and stepped out of line, and in front of the student council president no less.
‘I don’t know where I’ll go from here, Sojiro will kick me out and report me to my probation officer, after that I guess I’ll be going to juvie for the next few years. But what after that? My parents won’t take me back and I won’t be able to find a job. Maybe I just shouldn’t go home tonight, I could-’
Before Ren could finish his thought, he heard screaming coming from down the street. The neon signs that lit up the side of every building were mysteriously out in the area before him, however he could see a yellow glow peeking out that was the sole lightsource up ahead. Ren knew he should be running the other way but without even realizing it, his legs had taken him forward towards the source of the commotion.
Ren pushed past the crowd escaping the scene and saw a man standing in the middle of what looked to be a miniature lightning storm around him. The sound of laughter could be heard through the buzz of electricity and Ren was reminded of the monster that attacked Shibuya. Ren felt the familiar buzzing in his head and felt the instinct to jump, clinging 10 feet up to the side of a building. Lightning suddenly shot out to where he’d been standing as well as several other spots. Ren had been lucky to dodge, the people around him weren’t so lucky.
Ren knew this guy had to be stopped before he could do any more damage. He landed back on the ground and saw a surgical mask that had been dropped in the chaos, it wasn’t at all sanitary and he would probably regret it later, but right now his identity had to be protected.
The lightning storm died out and the man causing it shouted out some profanities before walking towards a nearby transformer (the kind that transfers energy to circuits, not the robots in disguise) and placed his hands on it. Ren saw this as his chance and jumped at the man, kicking him to the ground.
“What the fuck?!” The man looked up, completely pissed off.
“Kamoshida?!” Ren was surprised to see his former gym teacher here of all places, attacking the public with electricity.
“You know who I am huh? That means you definitely need to die.” He raised his hands and Ren’s head buzzed again.
Unfortunately, at this range Ren didn’t have enough time to dodge and was blasted back by the force of the lightning. Landing on the concrete with a loud thud, Ren groaned and looked to his chest and saw that the front of his hoodie had a hole burned through it and strangely one of his shoes had flown off.
Kamoshida watched Ren struggle to stand up, clearly still alive. “Shit! Not enough juice!” He placed his hands back on the transformer and began absorbing more energy.
“Damn that hurt.” Ren was back on his feet now and saw Kamoshida charging up for another attack. Thinking quickly, he jumped and stuck onto a building behind him and hid in the shadows.
Kamoshida turned back to his target only to see that he was missing. “NO! Where did you go?!”
Ren began crawling upwards, his back towards the wall, eyes never leaving his attacker. However, Ren didn’t realize that his one remaining shoe was barely hanging onto him. It slipped from his foot and clapped loudly against the concrete. Ren gasped as he made a futile attempt to reach out to the shoe.
“What the hell?” Kamoshida saw the shoe that had apparently just fallen from a wall. His signature sick grin appeared on his face. He took aim at the wall before him and unleashed a blast of his power.
The blast disintegrated the bricks two feet to Ren’s left, much to his relief. However the blast had illuminated the side of the building and Kamoshida now knew exactly where Ren was. He scurried across the wall moving as fast as he could on all fours. Lightning blast after lightning blast struck the building closer and closer to Ren as he dodged nervously, his extra sense giving him progressively less warning.
“Come down here and fight like a man!”
“I don’t suppose I could convince you to come up here and fight like a spider?”
Ren’s powers evidently had a sense of comedic timing as he suddenly lost his grip and smacked loudly onto the ground below. “Damn you Murphy’s Law.” he muttered in pain. Kamoshida approached him while he was down, his hands glowing yellow with power.
“You’re supposed to be the new Spider-Man I take it? Guess they don’t make’em like they used to.”
As Kamoshida lowered his hands to blast Ren, Ren went for a hail mary and sent a punch into Kamoshida’s gut. To both of their surprise, Ren’s fist glowed with blue electrical power and when the punch was delivered, Kamoshida was sent flying backwards into a food stand.
Both parties had the same thought as they stood up. ‘What the hell was that?’
It was then that flashing red and blue lights illuminated the area and the wail of police sirens could be heard. “Tokyo police! Both of you put your hands up!”
Ren instinctively complied, he looked over to Kamoshida and saw him preparing another blast. “Get back!” He cried out. Lightning struck the hood of the car and caused a large explosion, forcing Ren to avert his eyes. Kamoshida used this opportunity to escape unnoticed.
One officer was lying with their back to the ground. Ren moved to help the downed officer, but the other officer cut him off. Stepping out from the smoke and in front of her partner, the officer’s gun was trained on Ren. “Get on the ground and put your hands behind your head.” She was wheezing from smoke inhalation.
“Wait! I just want to help-”
“GET ON THE GROUND!”
Ren held his hands in the air, but took a step back instead.
“STOP!”
He took another step.
“I MEAN IT!”
Ren turned around and sprinted up the wall behind him, his bare feet and hands clapping against the brick. The sound of a gunshot echoed through the area and Ren felt a sharp pain go through his left calf. “Shit!” He finished scaling the building and hopped across to the next rooftop, his enhanced strength making the task fairly easy, even with an injured leg. Landing however, was another story, as he slammed chest first onto the gravelly rooftop Ren let out another cry of pain.
“Ngh... Gotta get home.” He looked over the rooftops before him that would lead to Yongen Jaya. He sighed, “This is gonna be a long night.”
[20]
Kamoshida entered his apartment hunched over and out of breath. He slammed the door behind him and tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter, they bounced and slid right onto the kitchen floor. Kamoshida rolled his eyes. “Of course.”
He hobbled into the living room, fiddling with the buckles of his harness. When he finally managed to slip out of it, he collapsed onto the couch. Staring up at the ceiling he reviewed the night’s events in his head.
He was testing out the new gear on some unsuspecting civilians when all of the sudden some guy in a hoodie and mask pretending to be Spider-Man attacked him. What’s worse is apparently the guy recognized him, now his identity could be revealed to the public and there’d be a manhunt for him. That is, unless that bastard was gunned down by the police, Kamoshida had heard a gunshot while he was escaping but he doubted that a man that could dodge lightning bolts would go down to a single bullet.
“Either way, I can’t risk going out with my face revealed. That guy, annoying as he was, had the right idea, I need a mask.”
The former gym teacher rolled off of the couch with some effort and went into his closet. The first thing that caught his attention was his green tracksuit, with a couple modifications it could make for a good costume. After all if he was going to be one of them now, he needed a costume.
He brought the tracksuit as well as an old yellow t-shirt out of the closet and set to work with a pair of scissors and golden spray paint.
Kamoshida awoke to sunlight hitting his face the next morning with his head resting on his kitchen counter. He didn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep the night prior. He lifted his head, feeling the skin of his cheek peel off of the granite countertop. His work lay in front of him, he frowned as he took in the fruit of his labor.
“I could’ve sworn it looked better last night.”
Glancing to his right he saw that someone had left a message on his phone. The number was unknown but he let the voicemail play regardless.
“It’s me.” Came a low, gravelly voice on the other end. Kamoshida recognized it as Tombstone, Kingpin’s personal bodyguard.
The voice continued on, “Our boys on the force gave me some interestin’ news about an incident in Shinjuku last night. Apparently, a guy shooting lightning from his hands killed 6 people and injured 8.”
The voice on the other end paused for a moment before chuckling, Kamoshida’s blood ran cold. “Y’see the thing is, I don’t remember ever asking you to do that. You remember what the boss said... right? You work for me, you do what I say.”
Another pause sounded through the phone, the sound of Kamoshida’s heartbeat was deafening. “H-hello?” Kamoshida asked the phone before remembering this was a message.
“But I’m a nice guy, so I’m letting you off with a warning, your one warning. Pull this shit again and I will crush your head in my palm.” The message ended with that and the automated voice asked Kamoshida if he wanted to delete the message or not.
Kamoshida didn’t hear it though, he had dropped the phone and stumbled into his bathroom. He was hunched over the toilet, vomiting loudly. When he finally finished emptying his stomach, he dug into his medicine cabinet for any pills he could find, popping a few into his mouth and swallowing them dry.
A wave of calm fell over him and the tension in his muscles relaxed. He closed the cabinet and came face to face with his reflection. He saw in himself the eyes of a coward, afraid of more freaks with powers threatening his position.
They had cost him everything! His fame, his career, his job. But no more, Kamoshida’s expression turned stern. Now he was the one with powers and after he got his payback on the school that wronged him, he was coming after the people who threatened him, who thought they had power over him. He was the king and he would show them all that fact.
Kamoshida marched back into his kitchen and stared at the suit sitting on the counter, pulling the homemade mask over his face.
After all, he was always meant to be a star.