"Hnn!" Julia grunts as she throws a pillow full force into his face. He stands there, unflinching.

"That was the most pathetic thing I've ever seen you do," he comments, slightly amused.

"Don't touch me!" Julia yells right when he goes to take a step toward them. "You're... you're such a bully! Leave us alone!"

"Me?" His voice sounds like acid fuming through his teeth. "You don't know what the word even means! You're the ones who started it, and now I'm going to be the one to finish it."

He slams the side of his tail into her ribs, sending her crashing into the wall behind her. Maria yelps and reaches for her friend, but Scorpion grabs her wrist and pushes her onto the futon. She tries to say something, anything that can stall him long enough for the police to get here. Surely someone must have called the cops once they saw the villain Scorpion carrying two girls across campus! Unfortunately, nothing escapes her mind as he opens her closet door. She wonders why he is going for her closet. Does he have weapons of torture hidden there, or is he going to put her inside while he deals with them one at a time?!

Her eyes widen once she sees what, or rather, who is inside, wrapped up from head to toe in bungee cords. Lauren and Ian Thompson. "L-L-L..." is all she can say before Scorpion speaks up once again.

"I had to take a stop before I got here. It wasn't much of an inconvenience, and it was well worth the detour." He grabs the back cord wrapped around Lauren and tosses her up, throwing her into the middle of the room. She screams through the thick gag and can't stop herself from landing roughly on her side. "They are slippery little siblings, but once I found them there was no way I could let them miss out on the fun." He turns to Ian and taunts, "You still think it was a smart idea to distract me back then?"

"No! This has nothing to do with them!" Maria finally finds her voice, giving Julia enough time to rush to Lauren's side and wrap her arms around her shoulders. Scorpion looks like he wants to separate the two, but Maria keeps his attention. "What happened in New York was because of us, not them. You're wasting your efforts by focusing on the Thompsons!"

"You don't understand, Ria," Scorpion says, putting a hand on Lauren's head. "If you scream too loudly or even attempt to escape, I'll kill them. Tsk tsk, I don't want to harm them, but I will if you make me."

He scrapes the tip of his tail into Maria's shoulder, and although she jerks herself away, she still gets a taste of the poison from his stinger. Her entire arm starts to burn and yet she wills herself to stand up straight and only press her hand against it to wipe the blood away. Mac continues to taunt, "Feel that? You see what only one drop can do? If you try anything, I'll inject the entirety of my venom into her heart."

She watches as he gestures to Lauren as he talks, but her mind is starting to fade away. Trying desperately to think of a way out of this, she looks from Julia holding Lauren to Ian and his pleading gaze. They would be able to untie themselves if not for the strong cords keeping them bound. They look so tight that the siblings are starting to lose blood circulation throughout their entire bodies, especially since every inch of their forms are tied up. Scorpion really overdid it with them.

Then, an idea flickers through her foggy mind. One last option, one last leap of hope fills every muscle as she no longer thinks, but acts. Right as Scorpion turns to Julia to pull her away from her friend, Maria lunges to her desk that rests right across her closet. In a flash, she opens one of the drawers, pulls out a pocket knife, flips open the blade, and presses it to her neck.

No one moves, not even Scorpion, and they all just stare at Maria, waiting for her to make the first move. She shakily opens her mouth and says, "N-not a pawn... If you don't let Lauren and Ian go... right now, then I'll d-do it."

"Interesting," Scorpion mutters, not taking his eyes off her. "Let's not be so rash. Look," he slowly inches away from the other three, "see, I'm not going to hurt them."

Her entire body feels like it's on fire, and sweat pools down soaking into her white shirt. Her hands start to shake even more violently as the poison reaches the ends of her fingertips as well, causing the knife to rub against her neck and drawing a line of blood. "G-get out!"

"Let me explain," Scorpion says calmly as he backs against the front door. "The only reason I'm here is to settle an old friend's debt."

"What are you talking about? We know why you're here, to kill us!" Julia yells, confused.

"There was another matter I never told you about," he starts. Without taking his gaze off Maria, he reaches behind him and takes out a pair of bronze knuckles, throwing them into the middle of the room. Julia and Maria know exactly what it means.

"That prisoner... he is the one who broke you out?!" Julia shivers when she thinks about the first guy to almost kill her when they were trying to find antibiotics at the Sable stations. "H-how does he remember us? We don't even know his name."

"Sampson made a strict request, and I for one am not the type to back out of a challenge so easily," Scorpion says quietly. Maria keeps staring down at the bronze knuckles, remembering how scared she was back then and how terrified she became only moments later when they ran into the Rhino and Scorpion. She can't take her eyes off the metal, her ears not even processing what he just said because of the ringing behind them. She doesn't even hear Julia screaming at her to do something as the arachnid villain swirls his tail behind her and stabs the stinger right into her back.

Maria tries to keep a hold of her knife, but her fingers go numb along with the rest of her body as she blacks out entirely. Scorpion catches the knife and throws it up, stabbing it into the ceiling so no one can try for it again. At least, that's what he has planned but Julia doesn't see the purpose of it. She could easily jump up and snag it, repeating exactly what Maria attempted. However, once she gets to her feet he grabs her wrists with his tail and throws her into the closet, slamming the door and breaking the handle.

"You can rest for a bit, little Cricket. I'm going to deal with your friend first," he says in a singing voice through the door. In a situation like this, Julia would try to find something that can break down the wall or get the door open, but the darkness and tight quarters remind her too much of the box by the docks. Frozen, the girl grips her hair by her shoulders and huddles into a ball in the corner, desperately wishing for light.

Lauren tries to kick him as he passes, but all it takes is his hands twisting opposite directions and her ankles are snapped in two. He climbs on the wall over Maria and perches there, taking some syringes out of his bag and filling them with a burning green substance. He says as he flicks the needle with his fingers, "You know, I wouldn't hate you as much if you both weren't so overly persistent. I don't like being tricked and tossed around. You need to understand, no one escapes me. You should have died the first time we met, but now it's going to be a lot more painful."

Maria's eyes shoot open right when the needle pierces through her arm, churning her stomach to the point that she feels like she's going to be sick. Everything is uncomfortable, and she keeps moving her legs and arms to try and relieve some of the burning. Once again, everything goes black but this time something is off.

She opens her eyes and feels herself standing up instead of lying on her apartment floor. Her insides are no longer burning, and she isn't wearing the same outfit she thought that she put on this morning. In fact, she's wearing her green jacket and jeans, her hair out of its braid and in a ponytail. "What is happening?" she asks herself, but then realizes where she is.

The FEAST shelter is burning down and she's up on the second floor. Everyone seems to have evacuated already, at least that's what she thinks until she turns around and sees Julia under a few fallen wood posts.

"Oh my- Jules!" she yells and rushes over to her friend. Despite the burning flames slapping her face, she makes it to her and tries to lift the debris away. "UUUUGGGGHHHH! It's too heavy..."

"Maria... "Julia coughs from the building fire smoke and the planks crushing her lungs. "Go..."

"I'm not leaving you!" she screams back and tries once again to lift the wood. It's now on fire, but she doesn't care if her arms get burnt. After moments of trying to relieve Julia of the weight, her muscles give out and she collapses next to her fallen friend. When she opens her eyes again, she sees Julia's arms twisted in odd angles and her hair scorched. She gasps and backs away on her hands mumbling, "N-no- J-Julia-"

"It was all your fault, wasn't it?" Scorpion's voice echoes like a snake around the atmosphere, but when Maria looks behind her she can't see him through the flames. "You didn't offer to head back after you were attacked by Sampson, resulting in getting tangled in the fight between me, Rhino, and the Sable Agents. If you went back without the antibiotics, Julia wouldn't have gotten trapped with me. She wouldn't have gone through that horrible experience."

"We needed the medicine to heal the sick at FEAST! Her mom was dying from the Devil's Breath you allowed to be released!" she yells back, gripping the wood once again. She lifts it higher this time, but it breaks and comes tumbling back down.

Scorpion's laugh resonates in her ears. "If only you were stronger, you could have saved her from that day at the docks. But no, you said it was fine, that you could meet Hannah at the airport and get back to FEAST in one piece. Too bad Julia went back in pieces."

"That..." is true, she finishes the sentence in her head. That was her fault, wasn't it? If only they kept their guard up during that trip, or if she convinced Julia to stay behind and wait for her then none of this would be happening. They should have stayed at FEAST and told Hannah to get the first plane home, or at least take the ferry to Staten Island. Above her, the ceiling cracks and falls right on her, burying her and Julia beneath the rubble.

She reaches for her friend, somehow finding her limp hand while her eyesight is blocked by all the dust. She taps a few times into Julia's palm, but after waiting, doesn't receive the same motions. Maria's heart sinks and she starts crying, knowing she was too late. She wasn't strong enough to lift the fallen planks.

Suddenly, she falls through the floor and watches as the fire consumes the building above her. She keeps falling, her hair whipping past her, until she lands on her feet in the middle of a dimly lit hallway. At least, that's what it looks like. It takes a few moments until she finds that she is in fact inside an abandoned subway.

"They need our help, and I'm not going to abandon them!" she hears Hannah's strict voice whisper in the tunnel somewhere.

"I never said I was going to leave, but we have to be smart about this!" Claudia's voice makes her throat feel clogged.

"This was what started the rebellion of your group against more of us villains," Scorpion's disembodied voice says in her ear. "You should have taken a point to reassure your family while the Devil's Breath was in the air so your cousins didn't risk their lives. All it would have taken was one misstep and-"

A train zooms past and the last thing Maria sees are Hannah and Claudia's faces rounding the bend of the tunnel before they are instantly hit by the train. They didn't even get a second to try and dodge it, they literally didn't know what hit them. Maria screams when she sees this and covers her mouth while jumping so her back is pressed against the wall.

She blinks, and the scene changes quicker than it did the last time. She is back in her own State, but something is wrong. She can't see anything and her body is perfectly still. She tries to raise her hand, but it slams against something above her. "What is this? Hey, can anyone hear me?! Hello?!"

Everything pans out and she can see a church filled with her loved ones, including Julia's, Hannah's, and Claudia's family members all sitting in the pews and dabbing their eyes with tissues. She sees a banner with her picture above it, and beside it are three others each with her friends' photos plastered on them. Each banner is above a coffin. Scorpion's voice sounds through the church, "They were brats, I think we can all admit. Every one of us here understands how much these four girls got into business they weren't supposed to, and that's what led to their ultimate demise. Trust me, this is what they asked for when they got between me and my associates."

For one, small moment, everything seems hopeless. Maria feels her arms pressing against the cold interior of her coffin as if she was part of it. But then, after hearing Scorpion's voice taunting everyone she loves, she realizes that she can't let him win. This is exactly what he wants, for her to be scared during her final moments as the poison takes over her bloodstream. How can she be in a coffin yet still be alive?

"THIS ISN'T REAL!" she screams louder than she ever has before, so loud that the people in the hallucination can hear it. She hears muttering from the fake people around her, but ignores it and focuses all her energy on pounding herfists against the walls of the coffin. After a few kicks, it cracks and she tunnels her way out, falling to the floor. "You're not real!"

"Bold of you to assume that, Ria," Scorpion says, but she can hear the confidence dwindling in his voice.

"It sure is, and you're just trying to taunt me! But, you're just what Julia said. A lousy, grade-A bully that has nothing better to do so you decide to take out all your anger on two girls!"

"I AM NOT THE BULLY!" he says and appears at the other end of the church, making everyone turn their heads to the back. His words stammer as his face turns red with fuming anger. "Y-you little-"

"Finish that sentence, I dare you!"

He doesn't finish the sentence, but instead lunges across the aisle, the people screaming in fear when he gets too close to them. Instead of running, or even flinching for that matter, Maria stands still and opens her arms welcomingly as he pulls his claws back to strike. Just as she expected, the illusion fades right before he could rake his claws against her throat.

Right after Scorpion makes sure Maria is well and content with her hallucinations and poison, he crawls over Lauren and pounds the door of the closet open. It lands on Julia slightly who squeals and covers her eyes with her arms because of the sudden light. Without giving her a second to process what's happening, Scorpion grabs the collar of her shirt and tosses her so hard to the other side of the room that her back hits the television, breaking it in half.

"O-ow..." she groans and tries crawling away from the open electric circuits. She tries her best not to get zapped by the cords, but feels a pinch on her foot and thinks it must have gotten caught. Looking around her, Julia sees that Maria's eyes are wide open and darting around as if she was having some kind of fever dream. "What did you do to her?!"

"Oh, nothing much." Scorpion shrugs and lifts up the poisoned girl, throwing her into her room and closing the door. "She'll be fine for a few hours and then she'll die very painfully. It'll feel like her organs are melting and she might beg for death by the time the poison starts attacking her heart."

As he gazes at the door, Julia sees her opportunity and lifts up a huge piece of the broken television. She lifts it over her head and swings it at Scorpion's, but his "scorpion sense" goes off and he turns around, confused as to what could be making it so. There isn't anything here that could potentially hurt him, right? However, he is proven wrong when the black screen slams against his face and he falls on his back. Julia screams through her tears, "I hate you! I hate you so much, why do you want to hurt my friends?! It's bad enough you hurt the Spiderlings, why do you insist so much on making my life miserable?!"

"You made my life miserable the moment you showed your face at the docks. I'm just repaying the favor!" he yells back and swipes his tail at her feet, making her fall once again. Julia keeps herself propped on her elbows and tries to crawl away, but he puts a hand on her ankle and the other secures her knee to the ground. He says more calmly, "Back then, you said something that's been echoing throughout my mind the past few months. Do you know what it was?"

"That you're a monster with no common sense who isn't capable of human compassion?!" Julia says in a crazed state. The words keep flying off her tongue and she barely knows what she's saying anymore. "Sounds like something I would say, and even if I didn't before I'm saying it now! You're a freaking monster!"

"NO!" he shouts and slams his fist right on top of her tibia. There is a loud crack that even Ian can hear from under Maria's desk. "You said that I should have gone for the legs first. Well, it pains me to admit it-" another crack on the same leg "-but you were right. One thing you should know about me is I don't make the same mistake twice."

Julia sees Ian at the corner of her eye inching his way to Lauren, who still seems to be in agony from her own broken ankles. She knows she has to stall this guy long enough so they can escape somehow. Whatever it takes, she knows she has to get Lauren and Ian out of here alive so they can get help. She looks back at Scorpion and stutters, "You know what I think? Y-you're just jealous I had a better plan than you. And w-when we trapped you in the Raft, your pride was shattered because four measly little girls were the ones that put you there!"

She really should have kept her mouth shut, and she knows it, but the one thing that even Scorpion now knows is that Julia will never shut up.

It was like tetris all over again, but this time it was a lot worse. Somehow Scorpion knew just how to make the bones in her legs hurt instantly when they broke, and she doesn't even get the courtesy of the numb shock people are supposed to feel when they break something. No, this time Scorpion knows what he's doing. And, that is only the scoop of the ice cream. Since he used all of his poison on Maria, he feels free to stab Julia without risking her dying to poison.

He slices the old scars back open on her arms, the places that were already bruised because of the surgery she had to endure when her arms were broken by him months ago. After what seems like days, but was only thirty minutes, of feeling her legs bend in ways they were never meant to, he slices her shoes off and breaks her feet as well. She stopped trying to get away a few minutes ago, not being able to handle the pain when she would try to move.

"I don't... understand..." she mutters, feeling her sweat roll off onto the floor and a fever starting to take over her upper body.

"Hmm?" Scorpion hums, snapping her ankle to the side with one hand while looking at her. "You haven't spoken in a while, I was starting to think you were finally going to quit."

"What happened... to make you this way?"

The question only startles him for a moment, but his facade falls and Julia is able to see it. That gives her hope, for some reason, hope that there is still a chance to get out of this. Yet, when his expression changes back to its cold and sinister demeanor, she feels that hope starting to run away. Without thinking twice, she uses her hands to push herself upward, and ignoring all the searing pain, she lunges for the bronze knuckles on the ground. Scorpion tries to reach them first, but is too late as she folds them around her hands and turns, whacking him in the jaw with her new weapons.

"OW, you... you...!"

"I'm what? Go ahead, spit it out!" Julia urges him, holding her fists in the air while sitting upright. "I'm listening!"

"You're worthless!" One big swing of his tail to her stomach is enough to knock the wind out of her and send her flying back down onto the floor. Every ounce of strength she had is gone, and to make sure she won't recover, he rips the weapons off her hands and dawns them on himself. Bringing back his arm, he punches her over and over again in her ribs trying to penetrate her lungs. He lets out his anger in each repetition, and even stabs her a few times with his tail all while screaming out of control, "You've- always- been- worthless- you- annoying- and- ungrateful- weak- little- brat!"

"C-c-c..." Julia coughs weakly yet manages to say, "Can I... g-g-get that in... w-writing?"

Punch! One more time in the mouth. She gives him the middle finger. Punch! There's a stabbing sensation through the side of her chest. She spits in his face. Punch! She feels her shoulder break from that force. She is about to try and punch him back, but something happens that makes her blood turn to ice and his boiling in fire.

Her phone rings on Maria's desk, and it's a remix of the Tetris theme song.

Teeth unclenching, Scorpion makes a go for her phone and reads the name imprinted on the front. "Who's Agnes?"

"My i-imaginary friend," she responds without hesitation. Honestly, she has no idea what's going on anymore, her mind just processing all the pain like a warm blanket pressing on all sides. Does she have a friend named Agnes?

Scorpion snaps the phone in half so it won't disturb them anymore and turns back to his prey, but before he can do anything else something crashes through the front door. Through the blurriness, Julia can just make out a silver tank-looking behemoth wrecking the entire wall, making larger chucks and dust fall on Ian. A heavy Russian accent cuts through the noise as the tank yells, "WHERE IS MARIA?!"

"Vacation," Julia answers deliriously.

Scorpion slams his tail on the ground in fury, glaring at Rhino with every fiber of his being. "They're mine to kill! You just couldn't let this one go, could you?!"

"Scorpion's been mad for too long of time! His anger is not good for anyone, and he taking it out on defenseless girls!" Rhino shouts and lowers his head while shuffling his feet, preparing to charge. Without him having room to dodge, Scorpion is taken head on, quite literally, as Rhino rams him with his horn and sends them both crashing through the far wall.

Lauren has no idea how she didn't get trampled, but she considers it a miracle and knows she needs to make the most of this time while the arachnid is distracted. Trying to move her ankles as little as possible, she wiggles over to a dazed and injured Julia, placing her head on her friend's shoulder and letting out some silent tears.

Ian shakes the ceiling off of himself and searches for the one thing that might be able to help them. After searching around for it and getting scared that it might be lost under the rubble, he finds Maria's pocket knife that fell from the ceiling when Rhino came charging in. Ian falls in the direction of the knife and scrambles to pick it up with his fingers (which are also somewhat tied by the way). He shifts the knife weakly back and forth, pressing as hard as he can against the bungee cords. Heart pounding, he can't see any way of getting through the rope in time.

Come on, something has to give. Please, cut through! Ian's hands start shaking, the sweat making him almost drop the knife altogether. If he takes too long, this is it. This is where he dies along with his sister. No, this can't be the end. Not when he still has time to think of a plan!

He screams through the cords around his mouth when Electro flies through the open wall where the front door used to be, but settles down when he recognizes Claudia hopping off his back along with another girl. He thinks her name is Agnes, but is only guessing because he overheard Scorpion yelling about her moments ago. Claudia holds a white box in her hands and rushes over to Ian saying, "Where is my cousin, Maria?!"

With his eyes, he points over to the room Scorpion threw her in and she bolts inside. Agnes grabs the pocket knife from his hands and more effectively starts cutting through the cords. Finally, his mouth is free along with his arms and he can feel the warm blood rushing through his veins once again. "Thank you. Wow, that hurt. Get my sister!"

"'Course I will," the bushy haired girl says, wasting no time before cutting Lauren's bonds away.

All the while, Electro looks around the scene with a bit of fear crawling in his chest. He knew Scorpion was angry, but he never expected him to go this far. All he personally wanted to do was get some light revenge for the Raft thing, not go on a massacre.

He steps over the fallen ceiling and almost accidentally crushes Julia's hand under his boot, but he fixes his movements so his foot lands beside her instead. He laughs a bit and says, not thinking she can hear him, "Look at the mess you've gotten yourself into this time, kid."

"Y-you should see me on my worst days," she says back with humor lacing her words.

"How in the world are you still awake?" he asks. Electro crouches down and moves some of the bigger chunks of ceiling off her so she can hopefully breathe easier.

"I have the same question." Her voice is like a broken whisper, sometimes louder when a vowel comes around but mostly crushed due to her most likely bruised lungs. "You're late to the party. How did a scorpion outrun a man of volts?"

"Had to pick up a few things," he answers, nodding to Agnes who has just finished untying Lauren.

"You're going to be just fine, Julia. Oh, God, how do you always manage to piss off the wrong people?" Agnes asks, her voice shaking slightly. She takes a medical backpack off from around her shoulders and puts her old lifeguard training to good use.

Suddenly, Julia is no longer in a daze and she can feel every inch of pain once again the moment Agnes tries to move her legs. "LEGS, BROKEN, OW, PAIN!"

"Ah, I'm sorry! I'll focus on the upper body, then-"

"OW, RIBS, BROKEN!" Julia yells and pushes her friend's hands away. "D-don't you have some anesthetic or something?"

"I only brought necessary items I thought I would need to patch you up," she says, her eyes starting to water slightly. "Is there a part of you that isn't broken?"

"Actually, yeah. Arms, and some of the face." Julia extends her arms out so Agnes can wrap them in gauze. "As you can see, I still have the good looks."

As Agnes chuckles, Electro sits on the pieces of the broken television and responds, "Yes, because we were so worried about that."

Claudia finds her cousin sprawled on the floor, her skin so pale that it appears grey. She knows she has to hurry, soshe opens her tablet and Agnes's friends immediately answer on the other line. They start giving her directions on how to fill the syringe with the antidote and where to give Maria the shot in her arm vein. "I hope I'm going this right..."

"You're perfect. Just - yep - slap her arm for a second to reveal the vein and you'll need to stab it at an angle. You can tell if you push through the vein once you feel the needle move in another direction. If that happens, then just pull the syringe out and try again in the other arm," the science student explains.

"Okay, I got it, I got it. Like this?" Claudia asks, resting the needle on Maria's arm once she pierces the shot into the vein.

"Yep, exactly. Now, all you'll need to do is push the medicine inside. It should work instantly on getting rid of the poison. Think of it as pumping her full of steroids," the lab professor, who accompanied the students when he saw them all using chemicals in the labs without permission, adds to the conversation.

Claudia does exactly as she's told and starts seeing instant results. Maria's skin has color again, even though it's the lightest shade of pale she's ever seen, at least it's no longer grey. "What should I do about the fever?"

"Place the pulse reader that we gave you on her finger," the nursing professor orders. "Our goal is to rest her heart rate to 180 beats per minute. What is it reading at right now?"

"220 beats per minute," Claudia says, starting to internally freak out.

"You'll be fine, Claudia," the professor says and tries to calm her down. "Get a cold towel or some ice if you can and apply it to her head and chest. Cool her off, but be careful of the needle."

"I can't leave, though! I-I need to hold the needle in its position or it'll fall out!"

"Do as they say, Claudia. I can handle the needle." Claudia turns her head over her shoulder and is so relieved to see Hannah running inside and crouching on the other side of her cousin. She gently takes the handle of the syringe from her and holds it steady. The redhead nods and leaves the apartment to find some running, cold water and ice.

"Hannah, where's Vulture?" Electro asks, peeking his head into the room.

Without taking her eyes off Maria, she answers, "He's helping the police get here. Apparently, two villains were out making sure they couldn't reach the apartment area no matter how much they tried. Something about broken roads and mind controlled officers."

"Sounds like Mr. Negative for sure," he thinks out loud.

"It wasn't just him," Vulture says sternly, leaning against the edge of the broken wall with his arms crossed. He pushes Shocker inside what's left of the apartment.

"Look, all I was told was that there was a big score here and all I needed to do was take care of the fuzz. I'm not part of this whole kid business," Shocker growls with his arms crossed.

"Urrggg..."

"Ah, oh my gosh, Maria!" Hannah gasps, seeing her friend's blue eyes flutter open for a moment. She reaches her hand up to her head and rubs her palm against her hairline, trying to get some of the sweat off.

"Where's Julia?" Maria asks weakly. "Hannah, is that you?"

"Yep, it's me. You really stuck it to Scorpion this time. I'm just finishing this up, it's taking all the poison he injected into you out of your body for good," Hannah says reassuringly. "And Julia is being treated by Agnes. Do you know who she is?"

"Mhm," Maria tries to nod her head but feels her neck stiffen. "She's got curly hair and goes to school with Ccii. Is she here, too?"

"Yes, she's looking for some ice to cool you off. Electro brought her over."

"I got it!" Claudia runs inside with a giant bag of ice wrapped in a white towel. "I'm going to put this on your head, Ria. We need to get your fever down so your heart slows."

"Okay," is all she manages to say before she feels the bliss of the ice towel pressing on her forehead. She chooses to focus on that instead of the burning stab wound on her back.

"Everyone, put your hands above your head and file out of the building!" No one can believe it as the SWAT team starts crashing through any windows that were still intact, surrounding the premises with armed men and leaving no escape route for the villains. Mr. Negative can be seen in the back, a pair of handcuffs complimenting his fancy suit.

Electro rolls his eyes but complies to make things easier. He knows that he was most likely going back to prison anyway, and he is so wiped out from flying across the State (with two women on his back) that he finds the idea of a Raft bed rather welcoming right about now. Vulture does as he says as well, deactivating his wings for the police and handing them over in a polite manner. Just then, Rhino crashes what remains of the wall and holds Scorpion up by his tail. "I have defeated the bad man! Haha!"

He throws Mac into the back of a SWAT truck, allowing the officers to lock the doors. Yet, when they move to put him in handcuffs as well, Rhino backs away. "What? But Aleksei helped the girls! Gargan was the evil one!"

"If you are confirmed to have helped by the victims themselves, then we can settle this. We just need everyone in one place so we can discuss what happened here, okay?" one woman officer tries to reason with him in a calm manner.

"Only if Aleksei can sit with Maria. I need to know if she is okay!" he yells.

"The victims are all going to be transported to the hospital in the ambulances. There is no room for you, but once they recover you will surely see her again," she responds.

Right when she says this, the paramedics arrive and rush inside with stretchers and tons of medical supplies that Claudia and Agnes weren't able to bring. Lauren and Ian are piled into one ambulance because they are quickly identified as siblings who suffered almost the same injuries. Agnes, Claudia, and Hannah are urged into an ambulance, but they press that they arrived after everything went down and are left alone. Julia is carefully put on a stretcher along with Maria, and both are loaded into the same ambulance. The villains all watch as the doors shut behind their bodies and the sirens blare when the trucks start moving again.

The ride there is mayhem, and the people inside the ambulances don't really know what's going on, only focusing their efforts on making sure the girls and Ian stay stable long enough to arrive at the hospital. It isn't until Electro, who is riding in the back of a SWAT car next to Vulture, catches the second ambulance turning down a road in the opposite direction of the other one. He tests his luck and says skeptically, "Uh, are we sure they are going to the same hospital? Why are the ambulances branching off?"

"Shut up back there! Of course we know what we're doing!" the driver says strictly.

Electro leans back casually and glances at the rearview mirror, trying to see their faces and read their expressions. He has no idea how no one caught it before, but their eyes are faded and lightly colored, almost as if they were under the influence of- "Negative," he whispers to Vulture and nods his head at the SWAT officers.

"Time for one last fight," Adrian says and bursts out of his seat with his talons. He rips open the back and finds his wings, quickly putting them on as Electro magnifies the entire truck, lifting it into the air. It comes crashing down and the officers are jostled. To make sure they stay down, Max reaches his fingers through the bars and zaps their temples, knocking them out.

"I'll take to the skies! You follow the rogue one," Vulture says, pointing to the direction the second ambulance took. He puts his mask on and flies out the window, soaring into the air and hovering over the one that is still on track.

"What happening now?!" Rhino asks in his earpiece that the officers never bothered to check.

He hears Vulture explain, "Maria's and Julia's ride went off course. The SWAT is being mind controlled by Mr. Negative."

"RAH! Aleksei knew there was something fishy about that woman!" It doesn't take much for the Rhino to bust out of his truck. The officers from around here just never had to deal with villains of his strength, so all of their material is like paper to him. "Which way they go?!"

"There's a winding road off to the left. Do you see it?" Vulture tries to explain. This would be a lot easier if they were still in New York where they knew the names of the roads. "It's the first one you'll come across."

"Rhino sees. Thanks, bird man!" he says with a smile and takes off toward the rogue ambulance on foot, charging through any car or SWAT vehicle that gets in his way.

"Rhino, keep the traffic clear. I need to hone in on the ambulance so I can get inside!" Electro orders, dodging cars left and right with crazy speed.

"You very bad at driving, Electro!" Aleksei points out.

"I'm a New Yorker, I take the subways. Or, you know, I fly."

"Yeah, yeah, this is all very inconvenient isn't it? Luckily, I have a driver's licence." A new voice comes over their earpieces as Electro sees another hijacked SWAT vehicle clearing away cars on his other side. He recognizes the new man as Shocker. "I can make sure the ambulance goes through that tunnel, but you'll have to be quick. Once they're in, you should have a few seconds at most to get them out."

"Copy that, Mr. Vibration Man." Electro smirks at the name, knowing Shocker will hate him for it, as he gets ready for the plan.

Vulture lands on top of the siblings' ambulance and is about to pierce his wings through the roof to make an opening when a sword slices at him. Climbing on top from the driver's seat is Mr. Negative, twirling his weapon around. "Don't ruffle your feathers, old man. I wasn't going to hurt them... much."

"Leave these kids alone and I'll make sure not to tell Sampson you failed him!" Vulture offers.

"Cute, you think I care about him? I serve a bigger purpose. You should join me in this endeavor, Adrian! These four hold the key to all of our troubles!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Think about it, if I'm here with precious Lauren and Ian, who would be with the other two? Someone who could make them tell us the identities of the Spiderlings."

"What did you do, Li?"

Inside the ambulance that Electro, Shocker, and Rhino are chasing, Maria and Julia are having a hard time processing what is going on. The ambulance is taking so many sharp turns that they would surely fall over if not for the straps keeping them connected to the stretchers. No medics came inside their ambulance either, but all of them rushed over to Lauren's and Ian's before they started driving off. They hear a deep voice say, "Keep it steady," before they see who their reckless driver was.

"Who the heck are you supposed to be?" Julia asks, about done with scary figures popping out of nowhere and torturing her and Maria.

He has thin, white hair in a military style cut and albino-looking skin. He's big and menacing, and he doesn't even flinch at the question. "I'm the guy who's finally going to kill the Spiderlings once you tell me who they are. The name's Tombstone."

"Not ringing any bells whatsoever, sorry," Maria chimes in.

Tombstone laughs, finding them amusing, and sits down in a stool. Somehow he is able to keep his balance while the ambulance is rocketing from side to side. He picks through a few medical supplies, testing the lengths of the syringes with his fingers. "You even remind me of them. Funny, charming, full of wit and spunk. It's something I admire about them, and now about you."

"Oh, the Spiderlings. You mean Holly and Reggie's kids. What were their names again, Maria?" Julia asks, seeing the needles and thinking lying is the best way out of this. "That's right! Her name is Sky and his is Matt."

"Didn't your parents ever teach you that lying to elders was a bad choice? It always leads to something worse down the road," Tombstone says, knocking the heartbeat monitors with his fingers. Great, he can tell if they're lying or not based on their change in heart rate. "Now, who wants to go first?"

"We can do this another way, Li!" Vulture yells, flying above the scene. He dodges a few negative energy beams sent from Mr. Negative's sword and then swoops down, swiping at him with his talons. "You don't have to hurt innocent people just to get a few names!"

"No, I've waited too long to get my revenge on Osborn, and they come along to screw it up! They got what they deserved. They took your attention away from the bigger picture and the Spiderlings had time to recover because of those girls!" he yells and spins horizontally, catching the tip of his blade in Vulture's left wing.

"I helped them!" At Vulture's confession, the fighting stops. Li looks as if he's going to say something but Adrian beats him to it. "I helped them imprison us in the Raft!"

"You... WHY!?"

"One of them... has a life threatening illness like me. It opened my eyes when I found out, and I couldn't just let Scorpion or anyone else kill them! If you had an ounce of kindness still inside of you, then you would have seen that ages ago!" Vulture hits his undamaged wing against Martin's hands, making him knock his sword to the ground and out of sight.

"Traitor!"

"It's over, Li. Just give up, no one is on your side anymore." And that sentence alone is what made him understand that he finally took it too far.

Right as the tip of the needle touches Maria's upper arm, the entire ambulance flips and scrapes against the side of the tunnel. Rhino rips open the doors and lifts Maria up in his arms, Electro doing the same to Julia as carefully as he can while Shocker seals the doors closed against Tombstone.

"I think I need a nap now," Julia comments with a sigh of relief now that she's out of that situation. She leans her head on Max's chest and says, "Is it weird to know that I can only trust you guys now? Like, what are the odds? Unless you're going to bring me to Kingpin, that is."

Two of the villains laugh at this, but Rhino is too focused on the woman in his own arms. He brushes some blonde hair out of her face that flew out of her braid and holds her close saying, "Aleksei never leave you again. It's now right time to help."

"And I will in any way possible," Maria responds with a smile, reaching her hand up to touch the side of his face lovingly.

The three villains leave and bring them to a hospital, a real one this time. They quadruple check to make sure the place is legit before they leave the room and allow the surgeons to do their thing. Vulture makes sure Li and Gargan are properly taken into custody, and leaves an anonymous tip at the NYPD that there are some villains missing from the Raft found in another State, along with the drug dealer Tombstone. Lauren recovers quickly, but has to stay off her feet for a few days and Ian babies her while they're in the hospital. Hannah, Claudia, and Agnes inform their respective colleges the outcome of what happened, and everyone was rewarded with a pizza party and the easiest exams of their lives (since they basically pulled off something amazing as a community, they were all exempt from their Spring exams). The professors who helped with the antidote and the ones who upgraded Vulture's wings along with some students received awards from the science committees.

Maria and Julia eventually get back on their feet, the latter needing more time to recover because her legs were, well, you know. But, they still made it in time for the Hearing of the Heart, which is what the court case was named for when Electro, Vulture, and Rhino were being accused of hurting the victims. They were dismissed of the recent charges against Julia, Maria, Claudia, Hannah, Agnes, Lauren, and Ian because of their courageous hearts and helping to save them against Scorpion, Mr. Negative, and Tombstone. Since Shocker had no knowledge of the plan and was just intending on robbing money from local banks, he was charged with a few years with heavy possibilities of parole since he also saved Maria and Julia from Tombstone. Scorpion was shipped back to the Raft, the jury needing no further evidence to convict him of kidnapping and the such, while Mr. Negative was sent to prison for assisting the malicious intentions of a drug dealer. Tombstone was arrested on account of property damage, kidnapping, and attempted murder, yet was also sent to the Raft to be with his villainous pals.

Months later, Maria is still working with Aleksei by talking through his problems, and all of the students and teachers who won awards for their efforts at the universities are working together to try and get his armor off. Hannah and Adrian keep in touch, updating each other on how life is going and being there for one another when the going gets tough. Julia and Claudia give Electro a reason to try and stay clean of crime (easier said than done), but he can't say he doesn't like their sense of humor.

All in all, this was a trip they never would have imagined, and it will be a story to tell in the years to come.