Dennis's Pov
The sterile, ozone-tinged air of the Sublevel 1 training center felt heavy with anticipation. Today was Thursday. The Unity Festival. The Green Goblin's debut happens tonight. I stood at the edge of the reinforced titanium sparring mat, my hands shoved into the pockets of my dark leather jacket, projecting a steady, low-level wave of my Level 5 Aura to keep the room focused. Beside me, Frank Castle stood like a sentinel, his arms crossed over his tactical vest, his dark eyes tracking every movement in the room. The Rank 3 bond humming between us was a steady anchor of absolute loyalty and combat readiness.
"Listen up," I called out, my voice cutting through the hum of the dampeners and the quiet chatter of the team. My emerald eyes swept over the assembled Defenders. Scott and Angel were stretching near the weapons rack. Jason Todd was meticulously spinning a combat knife, while William Clayton adjusted the tension on his compound bow. The rookies—Ronnie, Ralph, Flash, and Peter—stood in a tight cluster, looking tense. "Today is the final evaluation. There are no second chances, no do-overs, and no participation trophies. If you fail today, you do not deploy to Times Square tonight. You will sit in the War Room with Legion and watch. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Alpha," the room echoed in a disjointed but sincere chorus.
I nodded slowly, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make them sweat. My gaze settled on the blonde, muscular teenager standing rigidly at attention. "Flash. You're up first. Hand-to-hand combat assessment. Three incapacitating strikes against on of us as the opponent. Originally your only options were Will or Jason but I'll let you choose your sparring partner. And to make it fair your opponent will temporarily be demoted to Rank 1 as well thus depriving them of their higher status increases otherwise your loss is a forgone conclusion."
***
Flash's Pov
The command hit me like a shot of adrenaline. I stepped onto the cold titanium mat, my tactical boots squeaking slightly. My heart hammered against my ribs, but the Dawngleam bond pulsing in the back of my mind steadied me. I wasn't Eugene 'Flash' Thompson, the abusive cop's pathetic punching bag anymore. I was a Rank 1 trainee of the Defenders. I belonged to Dennis.
I looked at the options. Scott and Angel were out of the question the supernatural predators would tear me apart before I could blink same rank or not. The idea of choosing Dennis never from beginning to end crossed his mind it would be sacrilege that left the human combat specialists: Jason Todd and William Clayton.
Jason leaned against the wall, a dangerous, wolfish smirk playing on his lips under the harsh fluorescent lights. He was a street-fighting wraith, built like a tank and trained by gods knew who to inflict maximum agony with minimal effort. Choosing Jason was a death sentence. Will, on the other hand, was leaning casually on his bow. Will was lethal at a distance, a sniper and an archer of terrifying precision. But up close? In pure hand-to-hand combat? He was the weakest of the six main Defenders. He relied on range and evasion, not brutal close-quarters grappling.
"I choose Will," I said, my voice steady.
Will chuckled, setting his bow aside and grabbing a carbon-fiber training staff. "Smart kid. Let's see if my and Jason's drills actually stuck in your head."
He stepped onto the mat, twirling the staff in a dizzying arc. I drew my dull escrima sticks, dropping into a low, defensive crouch. The buzzer sounded. Will lunged immediately, using the reach of the staff to keep me at bay. He feinted high, then brought the heavy synthetic wood crashing down toward my ribs. I twisted, but not fast enough. The blow connected with a sickening thud, driving the breath from my lungs. Pain flared, a sharp reminder of my father's fists, but I forcefully pushed the memory away. Dennis's aura washed over the room, a warm, demanding pressure that refused to let me yield.
I stepped inside Will's guard, ignoring the stinging in my side. Will tried to pull the staff back for a block, but I parried the shaft with my left stick, sliding my right stick up his arm to strike his bicep. *Hit one.* Will grunted, his grip faltering for a fraction of a second. I didn't hesitate. I dropped to one knee, sweeping my leg out in a brutal arc that caught his leading ankle. Will stumbled forward, his balance broken. I drove the butt of my escrima stick upward, catching him squarely in the solar plexus. *Hit two.*
Will gasped, doubling over, but his combat instincts kicked in. He spun, swinging the staff blindly. I ducked under the wild strike, threw my weight forward, and tackled him to the mat. Before he could scramble away, I locked my legs around his waist, pinned his weapon arm with my knee, and pressed the edge of my training stick hard against his carotid artery. *Hit three.*
"Match," Legion's synthetic voice announced from the ceiling.
Will coughed, slapping the mat in submission. "Damn, kid. Good hustle."
I stood up, chest heaving, and looked toward the edge of the mat. Dennis was smiling, his vibrant green eyes shining with genuine pride. A wave of profound, euphoric validation rushed through our bond. I had passed. I proved I could be useful no matter how small to him
***
Peter's Pov
It was my turn. I pulled the black and red mask over my face, the digital lenses immediately whirring into focus, feeding me telemetry data, ambient temperature, and structural weak points. My suit felt like a second skin, clinging to my newly developed, hyper-dense musculature. I flexed my fingers, feeling the subtle shift of the organic spinnerets hidden beneath the fabric and web shooters at my wrists.
"Initiating Gauntlet Protocol," Legion announced.
The walls of the training room shifted. Holographic projectors flared to life, transforming the empty titanium box into a chaotic, fully rendered replica of Times Square. Virtual civilians screamed and scattered. Above me, three simulated Green Goblin gliders shrieked through the digital sky, dropping holographic pumpkin bombs.
*Tingle.*
The warning bloomed at the base of my skull, a sharp, electric hum that pre-empted danger. I didn't even have to think. I threw myself backward into a flawless backhand spring as a digital bomb detonated exactly where I had been standing. Pushing off the ground with terrifying force, I vaulted twenty feet into the air. I snapped my wrists forward. *Thwip! Thwip!* Twin lines of organic webbing shot from my forearms, latching onto the underbelly of a passing glider.
I yanked backward, using my momentum to violently alter the glider's trajectory, sending it crashing into a digital billboard. I let go, entering a freefall. The spider-sense flared again. Below me, a piece of debris was falling toward a holographic woman. I fired a web-line at the ceiling, swinging down like a pendulum. I snatched the civilian by the waist, touched down lightly on the hood of a taxi, and deposited her out of the blast radius.
For five minutes, I was a blur of motion. I dodged, deflected, and disabled every threat the simulation threw at me. My vision was so sharp I could see the individual pixels of the holograms. I was perfectly in tune with the environment. I webbed the final glider to a streetlamp, flipped backward, and landed in a flawless, three-point crouch just as the simulation faded back to the sterile walls of the training center.
"Gauntlet cleared. Zero civilian casualties. Threat neutralized," Legion stated.
I pulled off my mask, grinning from ear to ear, my chest barely heaving. I looked to Dennis for approval, my heart soaring at the affectionate smirk on his face.
"Textbook, Peter," Dennis praised. "Now for the physical assessment. Hand-to-hand against Scott."
***
Dennis's Pov
I watched intently as Scott stepped onto the mat, shedding his flannel shirt. His red eyes flared, a deep, primal growl vibrating in his chest as his werewolf physiology pushed toward the surface. He wasn't fully shifting, but as a Rank 3 Life Partner, his baseline strength and speed were terrifying. He was the perfect physical benchmark.
"No webbing, Pete. Just fists," Scott said, dropping into a loose, predatory stance.
"You got it," Peter replied, looking confident. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet.
"Begin," I ordered.
The buzzer sounded. Scott moved first, blurring across the distance in a fraction of a second. He threw a heavy right hook, testing the waters. Peter's enhanced reflexes kicked in. He dodged easily, slipping under Scott's arm. But when Peter threw a counter-punch aimed at Scott's ribs, everything fell apart.
Peter's fist sliced through the air with the crack of a sonic boom, vastly overshooting the target. He missed Scott completely. The sheer momentum of his own missed strike dragged Peter forward, destroying his balance. He stumbled, his boots skidding wildly. Desperate to catch himself, Peter slammed his hands against the floor. His fingers gouged deep, jagged trenches into the reinforced titanium plating like it was wet cardboard.
Scott spun, seizing the opening, and swept Peter's legs. Peter crashed onto his back with a loud thud, his limbs flailing clumsily. He scrambled up, his face flushed with embarrassment and panic. He threw a wild kick. Scott deflected it, but the glancing blow carried so much excess kinetic energy that Scott was shoved back five feet, his boots smoking against the mat.
"Legion, halt the simulation!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.
The room froze. Peter stood in the center of the mat, looking horrified at the gouges he had torn into the indestructible floor. He was trembling, his breathing ragged. "I... I don't get it," Peter stammered, looking at his hands. "In the Gauntlet, I felt fine. But against him, I can't... I can't calibrate right. I'm hitting too hard, I'm moving too fast. I have zero control."
I frowned, stepping onto the mat. This made absolutely no sense. The OsCorp super-spider mutagen literally re-wrote Peter's cellular structure to grant him perfect equilibrium and kinetic kinesthesia. Sure the first day or two struggling made sense but he should naturally know exactly how much force to apply to any object by now.
Unless his force wasn't natural anymore.
*System. Open Status Window. Target: Peter Parker,* I commanded mentally.
The translucent blue screen materialized in my field of vision. I scanned past his loyalty metrics and affection levels, zeroing in on his physical stats. Then, I saw it. The realization hit me like a physical blow.
Peter was a Rank 2 Companion. The Dawngleam bond automatically granted a flat forty percent increase to the subject's *base* physical stats,
powers to well everything about them to ensure they could survive alongside a future Succubus god. When Peter was a normal human that was below average physically, that forty percent buff was negligible—just enough to make him above average for their age group but not anything to be impressed about in the grand scheme of things. basically after seeing this he figured out because the stats come from him and he's still pretty weak himself the weaker you are the less the boost effects you for now at least, the stronger ones like Jason who is already peak human or Ben who was also peak before his health problems the better effective the status increase is because it's directly pushing them from peak human to superhuman levels. But the spider-bite had elevated his base stats to massive, superhuman levels overnight.
The Dawngleam bond hadn't broken; it had multiplied his new, god-like strength by forty percent. He wasn't just Spider-Man. He was a magically amplified, pack-boosted Spider-Man. His genius brain was trying to calculate physics and momentum based on his new spider-strength, completely forgetting of the massive influx of fae magic constantly skewing his output. seeing as it's not a flat 40% increase either that increase is coming from my own stats so as I get stronger which I did recently that 40% starts to feel more like 50 or 80 in the future. Let's not even mention that fighting a live person requires a whole different set of calculations then the robots and holograms Peter's been training with since he got his powers.
I walked over to Peter, dismissing the screen. He looked up at me, his gold-flecked hazel eyes wide with frustration. "Dennis, I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm so sloppy. it feels like I'm swinging a wrecking ball. I'm so scared I'm going to accidentally kill someone like this."
"Hey. Look at me," I murmured softly, letting my Level 5 Aura bleed out into a concentrated, soothing wave. I reached out, placing my bare hands on his cheeks. The moment our skin made contact, the bond flared with intense, electric heat. I triggered my Chi-Share, I allowed a microscopic pulse of my own, grounding chi to flow into him, harmonizing his chaotic mood.
Peter let out a ragged gasp, his eyelids fluttering as the sheer pleasure and intimacy of the connection washed over him. The tension in his shoulders melted.
"You aren't failing, Peter," I explained, my thumbs stroking his cheekbones. "But you are using the wrong calculations this is your first time fighting a living person not a bot or hologram and it's throwing you a little off not to mention your movements are based on what the spider gave you. But you are forgetting what *I* gave you. The bond we share... it makes you forty percent stronger, faster, and more durable than your new baseline even your other abilities like your webbing is enhanced. You are fighting the magic because your probably worried that if you get any stronger you might not be able to stop yourself from hurting someone by accident don't be. Stop trying to do the math. Trust yourself and me. Let my energy carry the extra weight."
Peter stared at me, his breath hitching. The pure, unadulterated love and devotion radiating from him through the bond was staggering. "Okay. I trust you."
I leaned in and pressed a firm, possessive kiss to his lips. He kissed back eagerly, grounding himself in the sensation, his chaotic internal energy finally aligning with the magical tether between our souls. When I pulled away, his eyes were clear, focused, and burning with confidence.
I stepped back to the edge of the mat. "Scott. Again."
"Ready for round two, wolf-man?" Peter quipped, his voice laced with a newfound, buzzing confidence.
Scott grinned, baring his fangs. "Show me what you've got, bug."
The buzzer sounded. Scott lunged, faster than before, aiming a sweeping kick at Peter's ribs. This time, there was no hesitation. Peter moved like liquid. He dropped low, his movements tight and perfectly controlled. He caught Scott's leg mid-swing with one hand, absorbing the bone-shattering kinetic impact without moving an inch. Scott's eyes widened in shock.
With a sharp twist of his hips, Peter used Scott's own momentum against him, hurling the Alpha werewolf over his shoulder. Scott hit the mat hard. Before he could recover, Peter bounded into the air, fired two precise, non-lethal impact webs that pinned Scott's wrists to the titanium floor, and landed lightly on Scott's chest, his fist poised an inch from the werewolf's jaw.
The room was dead silent.
Scott let out a booming laugh from beneath Peter's boots. not caring about Peter using his webs without permission "I yield! Damn, Pete. Where was that five minutes ago?"
Peter stood up, offering Scott a hand, his face glowing with a triumphant, breathless smile. He looked at me, the unspoken gratitude loud enough to deafen me through the bond.
I clapped my hands once, the sound echoing like a gunshot. The tension broke, and cheers erupted from the rookies. Even Jason and Frank offered a slow, approving nod.
"You have all done exactly what I asked of you," I said, my voice echoing with authoritative finality, projecting my aura over the entire team. "You are focused. You are strong. And you are ready. Except for Ronnie and Ralph whose test is next you can get showered, get your gear, and eat whatever Gordon has prepared. In exactly seven hours, we deploy to Times Square. Tonight, the Defenders and Aegis Defense officially goes on the clock, and the Green Goblin learns exactly who owns this city."
///////
Hey there everyone just wanted to remind you to check out my new book Dungeon God: a new beginning nobody said anything good or bad yet also third book yes or no I have over a hundred chapters written so you'll be good for a while if your standards aren't high.