The Infected got to him in a matter of seconds, Tiger was the fastest though. Most of the agents up the tricarrier had to look away as the first pained scream tore from the lone divers throat.

Tiger got as far as sinking her teeth into the diver's arm before she was interrupted by a hiss. It was loud, but still weak and feeble. All of the Infected immediately ceased their growling and turned to see Spider weakly pulling himself up with his arms. He hissed at them again, before his shaking arms gave out and he huffed back on the ground. The Infected whined in concern and rushed to his aid.

Zabu rubbed his head against Spiders, Rhino offered his horn as support and Spider used one arm to grab it while also supported by Triton's arm and he pulled himself to his feet. Tiger hadn't moved. She looked at Spider in concern; at the sight him shakily fighting off drowsiness she narrowed her eyes in anger and bit down harder on the diver's arm, earning her a whimper.

Spider shook his head, his eyes were blurry as he looked around, but everything was in a fuzzy blob. When everything settled enough that he could tell who was who, his eyes landed on Tiger and the diver and he hissed again. Tiger snarled in return, eyes turning back to the diver who had his head flung back in pain. He whimpered then shouted when Tiger shifted her head. It was clear what Tiger was implying: This man hurt Spider, and now he had to pay.

But Spider took a wobbly step forward, almost falling. The others remained by his side and Rhino acted as a supportive wall so Spider could walk to Tiger. Tiger inched backward, snarling in her throat, but her eyes wouldn't meet Spider's own. She hissed and growled, eyes blazing with ferocity. Spider cocked his head at her, and warbled softly. Tiger shrunk farther down, bringing the diver with her.

Spider crooned, and raised his hand, Tiger flinched as if expecting to be hit. Instead, Spider pressed his palm, ever-so-softly to Tigers head, right between her ears. Tiger looked at him in surprise, obviously not expecting such a gentle gesture. Spider crooned again, and another arm grabbed the divers other good arm. Tiger looked down again, not happy with what Spider wanted, but obediently spat out the divers arm anyway.

The diver shouted in pain, blood flowing from the wound and puddling on the ground beneath him. Tiger sniffed at him, as if disgusted on how much he displayed his pain, before she sulked away. Spider gave her an appreciative nod as she left. She didn't say anything, but her tail did give a content swish. Spider then faced the diver, fully taking in the man's appearance. He was still dressed in his water suit, but his mask had been ripped off to reveal a cleanly shaven face, with eyes wide and blown out with fear. His injured arm hung limply from his body, still dripping with blood, and the diver tried to remain as still as possible.

Spider took one look at the man, then gave a long, dark, and low hiss. The sound made the diver gasp in fear and instinctively try to inch away from Spider. Satisfied that the man feared him, Spider inspected the wound a bit closer. The smell of blood filled the arachnid's senses in an overwhelming rush. Hmmm, his primal instincts purred and urged him to feed on this pathetic man. Spider inhaled deeply, taking in the stench again, his feeding compulsion going mad under his skin. It would be so easy, just sink his fangs in flesh, finally relieve some of the poisonous tension in aching fangs-and get a proper meal out of it too.

NO! DO NOT EAT HIM! DO NOT! The voice shouted. He is a man! A person! You can't eat him! Drop him! Spider huffed, he knew what this man was, and that didn't stop that hunger. There was only one way to stop that hunger. Spider's eyes glazed over, his mouth open, and lips curled back to display his gnarly fangs already dripping with poison. He inched closer to the man's exposed flesh; the blood was intoxicating and its delicious smell took over his brain till that was all that he could think about. So close...

STOP! He's a person! Don't you get it?! A human being! Like-like we once were! The voice was angry, bitter, and harsh, and Spider found himself pausing at its words. He was human once? He was once like this pathetic, wimpy man dangling before him? Spider felt disgusted with the thought, and stubbornly refused to believe that.

So why did he pull away? Maybe it was because of how angry the voice sounded, it had never gotten that harsh with Spider before. Or maybe it was because, deep down, Spider somehow knew the voice was right.

Either way, Spider growled harshly, but pulled his fangs away, fighting his hunger.

Spider just then noticed that the other Infected were looking at him in the upmost interest. They could tell that something was agitating and pulling on him, and it had something to do with this annoying human. He grunted at them, and they all sheepishly turned away. Spider looked back at the man; he inhaled the bloody scent once more, before putting the diver down and hurriedly wrapped the wounded arm in webs. It stopped the blood flow and the diver sighed a little in relief. But the scent was still there, the scent that told Spider that this was prey, and that he was supposed to eat it.

So Spider turned to Squirrel Girl and handed her the human. She looked at him wide-eyed, as her hands closed around the small frame. Spider grunted at her, and jutted his heard toward the exit. She chittered, but understood, and dragged the man away to put him somewhere secure. After grunting at the others too, they grudgingly followed at Squirrel Girl. Zabu lagged behind a bit though, rubbing and purring against Spider until the big cat was extra assured that Spider was fine, then followed them out.

Before Spider left though, he turned to the cameras still watching, his eyes narrowed dangerously and he flashed his fangs threateningly at them. Then he too left, following his pack.

Up in the tricarrier, everyone watched the screens with rapture. Nick Fury's hands clenched hard at the desk, his teeth grit in frustration. "Damn it!"

((LINE BREAK))

"And Nick didn't tell us?!" Amadeus demanded, looking up from the papers he was inspecting in his hand. Similar papers and screens littered the rest of his bunk, and piled on the ground below. Amadeus had 'borrowed' a microscope from one of the labs, and as well as another sample of the gas to conduct his own research on.

Agent Venom paced in front of Amadeus, the rest of the teen heroes sat around, listening as Agent Venom just told them about the exploits of earlier that morning; something he overheard a few of the guards talking about. "Yeah he didn't!" Agent Venom growled. "I didn't get one notification last night! Not one!"

"So much for trusting us." Power-Man scoffed, crossing his arms sourly.

There was a murmur of agreement as they all fumed. Dagger sat up in her bunk, glaring into her hands as she willed sharp, dangerous looking daggers into her hands. Cloak wasn't too far away, his eyes burned and swirled aggressively, "I wonder what happened to notifying us if anything important happened."

Nova added from above: "Yeah, and whatever the frick happened last night definitely sounded important." He wasn't hovering in the air this time; instead he was lying face-up on his own bunk. Even Iron Fist, who had been doing some meditating in the corner, didn't seem as calm or Zen as he normally did. "This distrust will drive a wedge through our alliance with Fury." He commented. "Perhaps we should call him out on his dishonesty."

Kazar, who was next to him shrugged. "When I was living Savage Lands with Zabu, we lived freely with no adult hold on us. But ever since coming to S.H.I.E.L.D Academy, I have noticed that grown-ups tend to not listen when we're around. Why is this?" he sounded genuinely confused, and for a guy living on his own for so long, it was understandable.

"Because they think we're 'just kids' and that we don't understand the 'grown-up' talk they always do." Nova replied, emphasizing the 'just kids' and 'grown-up' statements in his words with a sneer.

"Though Kazar does have a point," Dagger noted, "Who's to say Director Fury won't slap an excuse at us, and say that: everything is under control. If we're being totally honest about all of this, then Fury won't give us the full-out truth like he promised." The others mulled over her words, noting the truth in them.

Power-Man leaned off his bunk toward Amadeus and said, "Hey Cho, do you think you could hack into the monitors and pull up this morning's footage? Dagger is right, and before Nick goes and seals all of this from us, I want to see it myself." Amadeus looks up from his papers again.

"In my sleep," he smirked. "Just give me a moment." He set down his papers and a few plugs exited his suit and plugged themselves in the wall. A holographic screen displayed Cho's progress as he flitted through S.H.I.E.L.D's mainframe. "Ah-ha!" he smiled a moment later, successfully pulling the video footage up.

Everyone huddled around Amadeus, mindful of his papers, and watched as the footage replayed itself. They watched the divers go in, then them fixing the door, the attack from Spider, the gas, the rest of the Infected coming to his aid, and lastly Spider looking straight at the camera, seemingly at them, and hissing before scuttling off. Once it was over, they all just sat there taking it all in.

They'll admit that it freaked them out. Spider didn't kill the diver; why? He certainly looked like he was about too, he almost looked...hungry. And that was freaky enough as it was. The way he poised his fangs over flesh, definitely looking ready to sink them in. But he didn't... so why? Something was unsettlingly different about Spider. The other Infected acted a bit different, they acted more rash and aggressive, but Spider... he observed, he watched, he evaluated, then he attacked. He had a weird, eccentric gleam in his black, beady eyes, an intelligent gleam that hinted that something more was going on than they fully realized.

What was going on in his head? Amadeus had watched with a most attentive gaze, his hand rubbing his chin in thought. "Why does Spidey act so differently than the others?" Dagger asked.

"I have a few ideas." Amadeus admitted. "I've noticed that the physical change of the Infected varies a lot. Most of the Infected had been growing at an exceptional rate, before stopping abruptly later on. Although Squirrel Girl continued growing, she is reaching the peak of her growth. Spider-Man, on the other hand, he's still growing."

"That's ironic," Agent Venom snickered. "Ya know, because Spiders are supposed to be small."

"Ironic indeed," Amadeus agreed, though he didn't seem to find as much humor in it as Agent Venom did. "Which leads to the question; Why is he still growing while the others have stopped, or are nearly finished?"

Power-Man looked at Amadeus expectantly, "And I suppose you've already come up with a brilliant idea to why this is?" he asked with a smirk. Amadeus smirked back, "Of course I have, they don't call me a genius for nothing!" Amadeus searched through his papers, shrugging off a few, before smiling triumphantly and grabbing a certain stack. He handed them out to the rest of the group.

"I hacked into Tony's research so I could see a basis of what he and the other scientists were coming up with-"

"Wait, wait, wait-you hacked into Tony Stark's research?" Nova interrupted. He broke into a wide grin, "Dude, that is awesome!" Amadeus gave a sheepish smile, and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Well, yeah. I mean, I did run in with a few problems with his A.I, uh-JARVIS, but he gave me a pass."

They all looked at him incredulously, "JARVIS let you take a peek at Tony's research?" Power-Man gasped, mouth ajar. Amadeus nodded, "Um...yeah, I guess he did." He coughed awkwardly into his hand, "I mean, he almost told Tony about my prying but I managed to convince him not to."

Cloak smirked, "Man, you've got some skills."

"I know," Amadeus casually replied, "Anyway, after looking over the data, I found that they didn't have a reasonable explanation for this either. I was baffled for a while, but then I figured out that I was thinking too much on what was happening, instead of what happened."

They all gave him a look, "Say what?" Agent Venom asked.

Amadeus simply smiled, like he expected them to react that way. "Since I couldn't find anything about the effects by watching the data, or calculating what was going to happen in the future, I decided to look back instead. I went over the reports from when the gas was first released, to when Cloak teleported us all out-that's when I found something interesting. White Tiger, Zabu, Rhino, and Triton were all teleported out with the first group. Squirrel Girl was in the second group; Spider-Man was the last one Cloak teleported out." He looked at them excitedly, watching them like they were supposed to start clapping for something.

"Uh...and?" Nova prompted. Amadeus rolled his eyes, "Don't you see? Their growth rate depends on how much of the gas they breathed in. The first four stopped growing together, because they left the gas together. Squirrel Girl is growing more than them because she was part of the 2nd group to leave; and then Spider-Man is still growing because, out of all of us, he was the one to breathe in the most gas. It means that there are a lot of growth hormones weaved in the gas, and the more Spider-Man breathed it, the more hormones he got. Thus, he is growing at an exponential rate!" This time he was met with a murmur of approval.

Dagger whistled as her eyes skimmed over her paper, "You... are a genius." She told him. Amadeus smiled and puffed out his chest a little, "I know," he said smugly. Rolling their eyes, they all gave him back his papers, which he neatly stacked and put back into their designate spot.

As Iron Fist handed his paper back he asked, "Will you be telling Tony about your theories?" Amadeus blew out a little, nervously shuffling some of his papers and looked away from Iron Fist's questioning gaze.

"W-well..." he muttered. "I mean-I'm not 100% certain with any of this, there's still the odd chance I could be wrong... and well... maybe I should wait until I'm a bit more confident in my work." Iron Fist wanted to point out that Amadeus had been pretty confident in his data mere seconds ago. But then the genius added bitterly under his breath, "I mean, I'm just a 'child' anyway. So why would they take anything I say serious?"

Iron Fist nodded understandingly. It made sense that Amadeus would be nervous about poking new information at a fellow genius, especially when said genius was Tony Stark. Amadeus could be cocky and smug at times, but that didn't make any less of teenager. He felt intimidated. "It's okay to be nervous when confronting an older peer." Iron Fist told him wisely.

"Nervous?" Amadeus squeaked, before awkwardly clearly his throat and adding, "I'm not nervous to talk to Tony. I just...I want to be 100% correct with my research before I shove it all in their faces that I'm just as smart and capable at researching an unknown chemical, that's all." He didn't fool Iron Fist. Danny could easily use his Chi energy to figure out what Amadeus was truly feeling, but didn't because that could be an invasion of privacy. So he simply nodded, "If you say so," but Amadeus wouldn't look at him, because he knew Iron Fist didn't believe him.

The child genius stubbornly went back to reading through his data and scribbling down notes. He compared to a few papers taped to the wall, before leaning back down to examine a graph. The teens let him be; once he entered his 'super genius mode' there was nothing (besides himself) who could snap Amadeus out of it. They turned to talk to each other, "So are we going to call Fury out on his lie?" Agent Venom asked, clenching his fist.

"I say we do," Dagger agreed, "He promised we would get full access to the others; including facts in case anything important happened. I hate it when people don't keep their promises." She and Cloak glanced at each other, both thinking of their time with Taskmaster. Power-Man, Nova, and Iron Fist shared a look of doubt. They've been with S.H.I.E.L.D a while now, so they knew from experience that calling Nick out on his errors rarely did anything. He would usually narrow his eyes, give them a look that all but screamed that he was superior, and say in the flattest tone: This ain't my first rodeo.

Power-Man scratched the side of his neck uncomfortable, "I don't know if that's the best solution." He replied honestly. Cloak, Dagger, Kazar, and Agent Venom gave him a pointed look.

"I agree with Power-Man," Nova added, "It's not like confronting Director Fury will even do anything." Iron Fust nodded in agreement and piped in, "Take it from us, we're experienced when it comes to this."

The remaining New Warriors looked down glumly, "Yeah, okay." Agent Venom mumbled, laying his face on his hand. It was quiet in the dorm room. Everyone thought to themselves, some wondering what to do about their predicament, and some curious about what the Infected were currently up to. Before they could say or do anything though, the communicators came to life.

Nick Fury appeared on the screen, and for a moment all they all hoped that he would tell them some important news. But their hearts immediately dropped once he started talking; "All of you are to report to the training rooms. No arguments. Agent Coulson will be there to walk you through the exercise today, and will be the one to monitor and observe you." Nova resisted the urge to snap back: Yeah, because Spidey won't be able to do it with us anymore. But it sounded childish, so he bit his tongue and forced himself to remain quiet. "Am I understood?" Nick Fury finished.

They all hesitated, glancing at one another to see if anyone was going to point out Nick Fury's latest contradiction. But, surprisingly, everyone remained silent. Nick Fury eyed them through the screen, "Am I understood?" he repeated. This time they all muttered a quick and quiet, "Yes Sir," before beeping out. They all remained planted on the floor for a few moments, before Dagger sighed loudly, "Well, let's go guys."

They all got to their feet before shuffling towards the door. Kazar stopped though, turning to Amadeus and asking, "Iron Spider, are you coming?" Amadeus looks up briefly, before shaking his head.

"No, I think I'll stay here and dig a little deeper into this chemical. Somehow... it looks familiar to me." He muttered, squinting at the chemical formula intrigued. Kazar wrinkled his nose; he didn't know much about modern medicines or chemicals. But he knew some, especially when Kraven and Taskmaster had kidnapped Zabu, knocking him out with tranquilizers. It was frightening, because they had never heard Kraven coming. Thankfully, Spider-Man and Wolverine had been there to help.

Kazar simply shrugged, and turned to leave. "Sorry Cho, but Nick Fury said all of us." Power-Man piped in. "He'll know if you skip out on it, especially with Coulson baby-sitting us." Amadeus groaned loudly, looking desperately at the graphs and formulas, before giving Power-Man a pleading look. "Sorry dude, its Fury's orders." Power-Man said.

Amadeus groaned again, but got up anyway. His face plate slid up to cover his disappointed frown as he followed the rest of his team out and toward the training rooms.

((LINE BREAK))

It was during their 4th or 5th time repeating the exercise it happened. The teens were in the middle of fighting off a group of L.M.D's mimicking the looks of Batroc the Leaper, Electro, and Red Skull. Coulson watched from the side lines, pointing out their flaws and mistakes, and offering advice on how to take down the opponent.

It was different than with Spidey, the arachnid-themed hero was always in the exercise with them, getting beat up with them all while teaching them some basic ways to take down their enemy. They missed his slightly annoying pestering. But, thankfully, they were interrupted by the alarms going off and red lights flashing on. "Oh please tell me it's not another gas attack!" Agent Venom gasped, covering his head and scrunching down.

Everyone gave him a weird look, but otherwise didn't react much to his outburst. "Remain calm." Coulson told them before speaking into his ear piece. "Oh yes, because we're going to start panicking all over the place." Nova muttered under his breath.

Coulson looked back at them a moment later, "Come on, you're needed on deck."

"Why? What for?" Dagger asks.

"The Tricarrier is under attack."