Chapter 5
When he woke, he felt more well-rested than he had in… well, since as long as Peter could remember. He supposed there was something that could help with nightmares. After all this time, Peter thought it was impossible. He supposed he shouldn’t doubt anything on this weird planet, though. As he stretched and woke up for the morning, he reminded himself to ask Tony about some kind of sleeping medicine like that.
Maybe this was just one long nightmare he’d wake up from soon.
Quickly after waking up, Peter found a set of clothes folded neatly and set out on the sink in his bathroom. It was a set of plain gray and red athletic clothes that fit Peter to a T. As he slipped on the comfortable athletic fabric, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the colors resembled his old suit that he’d created when he’d first started out on his adventures as Spider-Man. That had been so long ago, and Peter had been so much younger then…
With a yawn, Peter padded out of his room. The smell of breakfast wafted to his nose, and the hungry teenager easily followed the trail back into the dining room he’d been the evening prior. Surprisingly, Lyv wasn’t awake yet. He wondered if she was going to acknowledge their conversation from last night.
Peter sat down. For once in his life, it felt quiet. The restrainer cuffs still locked around his wrists prevented his heightened senses from tuning in to the things around him. It had been years since Peter was able to enjoy silence like this. Still, the circumstances of why he was able to enjoy such silence was chilling.
So Peter drank his juice, and sank into the delicious strips of meat that tasted just like bacon.
In fact, as Peter devoured one plate after another, leaving the struggling workers to keep bringing forth more and more plates, Peter decided that it had to be bacon. This was pork. Maybe some other planet has pigs, too? That would be weird, or would it? Is a normal animal from an alien planet weird or is an alien animal from an alien planet weird? I don’t know.
As Peter let himself ruminate over bacon vs. alien bacon, a sudden thought occurred to him: it was strange that Lyvernae had been able to showcase a small part of her powers last night, entirely uninhibited by the cuffs she had on. Or maybe she was inhibited, and her powers were far greater than just sprouting some wings and changing her skin. Peter decided it was the whole “soul-mate” thing. Sure, the cuffs could dampen powers, but how could science affect something so… so ethereal?
His thoughts were cut short when the subject of his thoughts walked into the dining room. She had bags under her eyes which were still blurry with fatigue; as she entered, she averted her eyes away from Peter’s and let out a big yawn. It was obvious she hadn’t taken the pill she’d likely been offered too, then. Or maybe that was special for Peter because he-
He shook his head. It wasn’t healthy for him to think about what happened to him last night.
“Good morning,” Peter offered as Lyv sank into a chair across from Peter. Lyv only offered a small grunt in response. This seemed backward. Typically, Peter was not a morning person. After all, he tended to stay up into the wee hours of the morning before turning around and waking up for school. He tried to stay chipper enough for May, but it was hard. Lyvernae seemed like a morning-type person. He supposed these games would switch things up for everyone, though.
Lyv watched with wide eyes as Peter devoured a stack of bacon and piled more onto his plate. “You like bacon, I see?”
“Oh my god, space has bacon too?! This is like, actually kind of cool-”
“No, idiot. It’s imported from Earth. I tried it yesterday morning because I arrived here way earlier than you did. They like to bring food from people’s home planets,” Lyv explained dryly, almost in a mocking tone. Peter shrugged.
“Well, I’m okay with that. Hey- do you think they could get some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?”
The rest of the breakfast continued with Peter’s morning antics serving to both annoy Lyvernae and help shake the sleep off of her- she knew she’d need it for the training ahead of them. Peter, on the other hand, had no idea what was coming. Astrid, their cryptic mentor that Peter wasn’t entirely convinced was not an illusion, had alluded to their two days of training. Peter wasn’t exactly sure what he had to train for, but after seeing Lyv’s small showcase of her powers, he was excited to see everyone else, especially after Lyv informed him they took the cuffs off during their training days.
He also learned that they were going to be observed by the Gamemakers over the next two days, and at the end of it all, would be given a score. That made him a little nervous. What were they going to think of him? Peter knew he had superhuman abilities, but compared to aliens, would they just be normal? Maybe even subpar? He hoped they had something he could make web shooters with. Maybe that would help him stand a fighting chance…
When the workers began to clean up breakfast, Astrid strolled into the room. She snagged a mug of a steaming, strong-smelling liquid that Peter thought might be a space version of coffee before pouring an amber-colored liquid into it. “Good morning, children,” Astrid lazily greeted. Lyv rolled her eyes, and Peter remained expressionless. He was getting a little irritated that his lifeline was currently getting drunk at breakfast. “Ready for training today?”
“As ready as we can be without your sorry excuse for help,” Lyv immediately spat back. Her quick, sharp response caused Astrid to spit some of her coffee out into her cup.
“Oooo, feisty, the Gamemakers are going to love that. You’re going to need all the help you can get with this year's tributes. “
Lyv turned away from Astrid and huffed, crossing her arms and sharing a cross glance with Peter. Peter could only offer a shrug; he wasn’t sure how to get through to the brute of a woman.
“So, like… considering I’ve never really watched any of this go down before, or, you know, received any kind of information about these games other than the whole killing people thing… any advice for the next two days?” He glanced at Lyv, trying to see if he was saying the right things, but she simply had her eyes closed and was shaking her head.
Astrid leaned against the wall behind Lyv, sipping on her drink. “Considering you two both ran away from the table last night quicker than Orloni running from anything, I wasn’t able to go over allies and strategies with you both-”
“I’d like to remind you that you were the one who excused yourself from the table first,” Lyv snapped back, interrupting her mentor. Astrid cast a stern glance down at the younger girl, and surprisingly, Lyv backed down. Peter did have to admit that the muscled woman was rather intimidating. He wondered what she’d done to win her games, what she could do…
“-as I was saying, there’s a lot to go over regarding potential allies, your opponents, and strategies. You’re being summoned down to the training room in,” Astrid glanced at a screen on her wrist, “about three minutes, so this is going to be an ‘over-dinner’ conversation. Hope you guys last that long.”
As if someone had been listening to their conversation, the workers swooped in and cleaned up the rest of breakfast while the door to their main apartment slid open, revealing an armed escort. “Peter Parker and Lyvernae Zoln, we are here to escort you to the training center,” one of the armed guards gruffly spoke. Lyv’s face blanched a little. Peter, seeing this, stood and made his way around the table. He gently touch Lyv’s elbow, and when she looked up at him, he gave her a reassuring nod. As the two left the chambers, Astrid made one last comment. “Oh yea, watch out for One and Two. Nasty little buggers, they are.”
Peter and the rest of the tributes gathered in a loose group around a raised platform where a muscled woman was explaining what would happen over the next two days to them. He flex his wrists. The cuffs were thin and didn’t hurt Peter, but they weren’t comfortable. It felt good to have them off. He had a difficult time listening to her spiel, and instead, investigated the crowd around him. His brain was still in a state of semi-permanent shock, but far less than it had been during the parade of tributes, and so this was truly the first time Peter was able to get a good look at everyone else. There was a good mixture of different species, though Peter did see about a quarter of the tributes appeared to be human just like him. Maybe they were species like Lyv who were close to humans but not quite.
He met several pairs of eyes while he glanced around the group. It seemed he was not the only one sizing up his competition. Some eyes flitted immediately to the ground, shy and seemingly anxious about what was to come. Others were nervous and trained their focus only on the trainer speaking to them, trying to gather any crucial information they could to help them during the games. Others, much to Peter’s dismay, sneered at him and narrowed their eyes when he saw them. Those were the kind of people he figured he should stay away from if he wanted to avoid killing anyone. Peter saw flames licking around one tribute’s hands, and he swore he saw another tribute flexing his fist, and every time he did so, it reverted from metal to skin from metal to skin seemingly at will.
Peter gulped.
He was super strong, he could climb things, he was pretty quick and agile, and, well… he was smart. But he couldn’t summon fire with his hands, and he couldn’t turn himself into steel.
Peter turned his attention back to the trainer as she seemed to be concluding her short speech. “…important to focus on survival and technical skills as well as weapons and combat. Please do not start fights with one another; monitors will be around to prevent that sort of thing from happening. There will be plenty of time for fighting in the arena. With that, tributes, your first training day commences.”
Next to Peter, he felt Lyv immediately peel off and head for a station at the side of the room. He glanced around, realizing he’d paid too much attention to the people around him rather than listen and investigate the different things he could do here. He had caught the last part of the trainer’s speech, though, and figured she was right. He should start with a skill he could improve at. Though, he knew he needed to figure out a way to intertwine him learning new skills with the skills he had already honed over the years to try to impress the judges. Lyv and Ingrid made it seem like getting a higher score was a good thing.
The first station Peter went to was actually a station revolving around plant life. He knew a lot about ecology from school, and he’d even ventured out into the woods surrounding the Avengers compound a time or two. Still, he had to admit that nature like this was far from the physics and chemistry and engineering that he considered his forte. As he approached the station, he realized he was the only one to come here first. The instructor at the station seemed pleasantly surprised and pleased someone had come to visit him, and gave Peter a warm smile as he approached. As Peter sat in a chair at a holotable that project various images in front of him, the trainer began to speak.
“Identifying different plant life in the arena may seem like a trivial skill, but in many games it has been the difference between life and death for tributes, and sometimes, even victors. For example, telling the difference between the Venomdrop and Starshimmer berry is crucial for survival in the arena.” As the instructor spoke, Peter watched as two nearly identical berries popped up in the hologram in front of him. To him, they looked pretty much the same, and if they weren’t next to one another, Peter wasn’t sure if he’d be able to tell the difference.
After the instructor’s short speech, she took Peter through a series of guided exercises consisting of holograms on the holotable and real, live specimens that popped up through a small door on the side of the table. He learned characteristics of plants that were usually edible, characteristics that meant something could usually be meant for healing, and a variety of other things that Peter would have had not an inkling of.
He was also afraid that all of this new information and alien plant life would mean everything in this arena was stuff so literally alien that it would be unrecognizable to Peter. He was seriously at a disadvantage here. He wondered if any other tributes were from planets who had no exposure to these games.
Nobody ever joined Peter during his time at the plant station, and once Peter learned just about everything he thought would be useful, he bade the instructor goodbye and looked for the next place he should go. He spotted Lyv braving the towering climbing wall in the center, and he couldn’t help but smile. She was scaling the wall with moderate difficulty. Peter knew he probably wouldn’t be able to give her advice, because when he went to climb things, he just… did. His hands and feet stuck to walls. He didn’t really know why or how, but just accepted it as part of what he could do.
There were various stations. Peter spotted two girls huddled over a teepee of wood, trying to build a fire. He knew survival skills well enough — he hoped that if he could find plants, he wouldn’t have to hunt any animals for food. If it came to that, he knew he didn’t need any training to catch a rabbit or a squirrel.
Peter glanced around the large center and almost became overwhelmed — people were fighting with swords, shooting bows and arrows, throwing knives at targets much farther than a normal person should be able to throw. He realized that despite all the advanced, futuristic technology he’d seen employed thus far, there were no guns, no blasters, no technological weapons of any kind here.
They wanted kids to stab each other with swords.
Great.
Just one more reason Peter wanted to focus on evasion and aversion rather than the actual combat. He was good enough at that already, anyways. He wondered if anyone else here had real combat experience like him, if they were vigilantes who also happened to be a part of the most famous superhero group on their planets.
Maybe, maybe not. Peter liked to think that was one leg up he had on them.
That doesn’t matter, Peter. You’re not fighting anyone in this arena.
After studying the stations for a little more, he decided to make his way to “Strategy and Tactics” room. It could be helpful for Peter to get a better idea of what was going to happen here, and any strategies that might be worthwhile. As much as he’d been told about the games, he still felt like he knew nothing at all. He knew: other tributes would be trying to kill him, the Gamemakers would introduce creatures and dangers in the arena for the tributes to survive, he had to make people like him, and most of all, he knew that there was only one winner.
Other than that, the actual contents of the games and everyone participating was a mystery.
When Peter entered the station, he saw several holotables similar to the ones he’d just come from, only these ones were much more intensive and seemed to include tactical simulations. There was one other person in here; the majority of tributes seemed to be participating in more physical training. The girl’s back was facing Peter, but he could see bright, bubblegum-pink skin underneath chestnut colored hair. Her chin was resting in her palm as she guided figures through several fighting simulations and seemed to be fighting against artificial intelligence.
The instructor for the station beckoned Peter to his own table and gave Peter a quick run through of everything the table contained. He decided to watch previous games. He’d seen snippets of one of the games during his strange welcome ride after the stylists plucked him like a chicken, but Peter knew he actually had to see what he was getting himself into to formulate any plans. He needed to know what he had to do in order to survive long enough for the Avengers to get here and save him.
There were 73 games to choose from. Unsure of which one to pick, Peter just went with 69. Despite everything he’d been through, he was still a high-schooler and a teenager. 69 would always be funny to him.
Peter glanced at the time of the video. Two hours? The instructor had mentioned that games typically lasted around two weeks, though some were as short as a few days and some were as long as months. The recording Peter was about to watch was condensed down into a movie-length feature for people to rewatch for entertainment.
Jesus, these people are sickening! Peter thought to himself.
Well, Peter supposed he had nothing better to do.
He clicked play, and watched.
Peter was about twenty minutes into the games, and he was already horrified.
The recap did not seem to stray away from the brutal nature of the games — in fact, it seemed to highlight the gore, the horror, the terror that these children faced. This universe was full of sadists, Peter determined. There was no chance that people actually enjoyed this kind of thing.
All of the tributes had wild, unpredictable powers. One of the tributes that was being highlighted in the recap as a favorite based on the amount of screen time and the positive framing was actually able to manipulate gravity. He would pin his opponents to the ground, and would proceed to overload his fist with as much gravity as he possibly could. This would cause it to pummel down on his victim's head with such extreme force that their heads would just explode into a red mist. At least that was quick. Other times, he’d taunt the tributes and let them float in the air before killing them in some other sadistic, twisted way. He saw a variety of abilities like energy manipulation, psychic projection, and even time dilation.
Peter was going to be so, so outclassed here.
As Peter watched the film, horrified but too engrossed in studying the nature of the games to look away, he felt someone approach him from behind. Peter turned before the figure could get to him, but he didn’t feel like he was in danger. He saw the girl that had been at the table next to him approach. “This part is really good,” she said, pointing at the screen in front of Peter. Peter, furrowing his brows, turned back to the screen.
The tribute who could manipulate gravity was walking through the forest. He seemed relatively carefree — he wasn’t trying to be quiet, he wasn’t guarding his resources the way he should’ve been. It was actually a rather boring shot, to be honest.
Suddenly, Peter watched as blood began to spurt from the tribute’s throat. The tribute’s hands flung up to his neck as he tried to stop the blood from gushing out, but it was futile. He fell to his knees, eyes wildly glancing around for an attacker, but there was no one to be seen. Seconds later, the tribute fell facedown onto the forest floor, and the loud cannon that signified a death shot off in the sky. Confused, Peter watched as the air next to the tribute seemed to shimmer. A small, fourteen-year-old girl stood next to the tribute, staring down at him with a sadistic smile on her face, a bloody knife in her hand. She’d been invisible the entire time, stalking the tribute until she murdered him.
Peter’s stomach churned.
“She ended up winning. Proves you don’t have to be the biggest or strongest. Sometimes, brains beats brawn.” The girl pulled a chair up next to Peter and sat down. “She’s actually a mentor now. Only nineteen years old. Crazy, right?”
Peter glanced at the girl. She was rather pretty, Peter decided. The girl softly smiled at him. “Sorry for intruding. I just…” she glanced around before turning back to Peter. “It’s hard making friends here. My counterpart is a total moron. Figured out I’d come say hi. It’s hard to win these games without working with someone else, you know?” She stuck her hand out to Peter. “Shayna.”
Peter, stuck between being impressed by her bubbly and outgoing personality and being creeped out by the thought of making friends with someone you might have to kill, carefully shook her hand. “Peter.”
The two continued to watch the recap in front of them. The recap had suddenly shifted from framing the gravitational tribute as the winner to now framing the young girl as the hero. There were only a few tributes left. Shayna was right. The girl was small and not particularly strong, but she used her ability to manipulate light waves in all the right ways. As they watched, Shayna provided commentary on the games to Peter, explaining many different things like the traps the Gamemakers would set for the tributes, and the silver parachutes that occasionally floated down above tributes. Those were gifts from sponsors, Peter learned, which is why he needed to get people to like him. He quickly realized that Shayna had a very dry sense of humor, and she came off as a very mean person.
Peter liked her. She reminded him of Mr. Stark.
As they got later and later into the games and Peter grew more comfortable in her presence, even beginning to crack his own jokes and formulate his own strategies and theories out loud, Peter had an important question for her. “So, uh… why were you voted here?”
Shayna snorted. “The stupidest reason ever. My counterpart and I— he’s actually my cousin—were voted on here as a joke. When people with stupid-but-funny powers are born on planets that are focused on by the Gamemakers, we’re latched on to. I guess people think having unconventional powers are fun for the games.”
Peter nodded slowly. “Okay. So what’s so unconventional about your powers?” He inquired.
“Well, Spider-boy-“
“Woah, wait. How do you know that?” Peter cut her off. Shayna gave a mischievous smile.
“Your mentor paid us a visit last night after you went off to the bathroom to throw up, or so she told me. She told me all about you, and even showed us tapes of you from your home planet,” Shayna explained.
“Okay, fine. Ingrid told you about me. So what about you does she like so much?”
Shayna sighed, and rested her elbow on the table, supporting her chin with her hand. “It’s stupid. You can’t laugh at me.”
“I know a talking tree. It can’t make me laugh more than that does.”
“Fine,” she said through an exasperated sigh. She stood up from her chair and grabbed Peter’s hand, dragging him away from the holotable and towards the end of the training station. He watched her eyes scan the room, but she didn’t seem to be looking at any tributes. “There,” she softly said, inconspicuously pointing at a guard at the corner of the room. She stared at the guard, and Peter’s gaze flitted between her and the guard.
Suddenly, the guard leaned over, vomiting all over his shoes.
After he was done vomiting, he tried to walk away, but could not walk in a straight line for the life of him. Several other guards rushed to his side, and the man threw a very limp, sloppy punch at the other guards. They cuffed him and carried him away while he limply thrashed about and shouted.
Meanwhile, Peter and Shayna were stifling their giggles as much as they could. THe instructor watched them disapprovingly. Peter clutched his stomach with one hand and had a fist over his mouth, trying to keep themselves lowkey as he swallowed back laughter. Shayna, seeming proud, bit the inside of her cheek and kept shaking her head as silent laughs shook her body. “Ohmygod, did you just make that guy drunk?” Peter said, voice quivering with retained laughter.
“I told you it was dumb, didn’t I?” Shayna said, cocking one eyebrow and looking at the shorter teenager. “I can spawn alcohol into living creatures' bloodstreams when I look at them.”
“Please do not do that to me right now,” Peter wheezed, suddenly a little afraid. Shayna chuckled.
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I have to save that for Ingrid.”
The two took their seats again in front of the holotable, though this time they were much less invested in the recap in front of them. “My cousin, Allen, he can turn organic material into alcohol. A little different, but same idea.”
Ingrid sighed.
“That’s why I’m at this station. Yea, my powers are unique, and probably useful to some, but it’s not gonna win me the games. I need to come up with a strategy to maximize their potential.”
Peter frowned at Shayna’s words. “I mean, in theory, couldn’t you just make anyone who tries to kill you drunk?”
Shayna shrugged. “In theory, yea. But it’s not that simple. A lot of people that come here have powers where they can turn themselves into things without blood, they can control water and liquids and get the alcohol out of their bloodstream immediately, and some of the tributes here with us can even control fire. They’ll simply light themselves on fire to burn up all the alcohol, so then I’ll be defenseless, useless, and about to be burned to a crisp.” Shayna paused. She seemed like she wanted to keep talking, but hesitated for a moment. Peter could tell she was contemplating her next words. She decided to keep going. “Or people like you. You have incredibly enhanced metabolism. It would take a lot of concentration and willpower from me to create enough alcohol in your bloodstream to actually affect you, in which time… I could get hurt.”
Peter knew Shayna didn’t want to say In which time, you could kill me. He nodded. “Yea, I guess that makes sense. Still, I wouldn’t say you’re useless.” He looked back at the recap in front of him. “I hate this place,” Peter mumbled.
“Yea. Me too.”