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chapter ten
FAST AND FIERYOUS
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LENA FINDS PETER OUTSIDE of the hotel. She weaves around the small number of business professionals loitering on the sidewalk and the bellhops pushing luggage carts to and fro, moving as quickly as her long legs can take her, and locates him standing beside a large potted plant next to the grand entrance. As soon as he notices her, he perks up.

"Hey," she greets him, quickly scanning his face for any signs of distress. He's notably calmer than he'd been after Fury's tirade, which makes her relax a fraction. "What's up?"

"I think I found a way to fix everything," he says with a small grin. "Thanks to EDITH, nobody will be near the Carnival of Lights tonight."

Lena wrinkles a brow. "What do you mean?"

"Just come inside," Peter urges, slipping his hand to hers and entwining their fingers. "Mr. Harrington will explain everything."

He pulls her along with him into the hotel's cream-colored lobby. It's busier than it had been when they'd arrived, packed with people preparing to leave for the night's festivities. On the side of the spacious lobby that hosts several plush sofas and armchairs is their Science Trip group. It seems that everyone is already accounted for— even Graham and the twins are taking up an entire couch together due to their long legs. Each student is adorned in neon glow-sticks.

"Lena! Peter!" Mr. Harrington greets them enthusiastically, motioning for them to take a seat. Lena perches on the arm of the Seagers' sofa while Peter plops into the chair beside it, thus releasing his grip on her hand. "You're right on time to hear our news. A few seconds later and you'd be, well, late."

"They were probably too busy canoodling to check the time," Flash jibes as he carelessly types away on his phone. He's slouched in his own chair, a few glow-sticks connected around his neck to create a necklace of mismatched colors. "Santos and Parker sittin' in a tr—"

Before he can finish the song, Cindy reaches over and snatches the phone from his hands and sits on it. Flash releases an outraged cry of, "Hey! My unfinished tweet!" while Cindy catches Lena's eye and gives her a supportive smile.

"Okay, Flash, no more teasing. We're all friends here," Mr. Harrington says in an attempt to bring things back on track. "Anyways, I have some good news. We're going to the opera!"

His "good news" is met with blank stares from every member of the group. Then, a moment later, nearly everyone bursts into a flurry of protests. Flash even momentarily forgets about his phone long enough to chime in with the madness. Owen removes his star-shaped, neon-yellow glasses with a huff and mutters, "That's lame."

"Don't look at me," Mr. Dell says, raising his hands in innocence.

"What happened to the carnival?" MJ questions.

"Well, this is upgrade living, guys. Come on! The tour company just gave us these tickets! For free!"

As Mr. Harrington speaks, Ned and Graham discreetly share glances with Lena and Peter. The latter widens his eyes as a signal to go along with it.

They chime back in just in time to hear Mr. Harrington finish his rambling. "—Do you have any idea how much opera tickets cost?"

"No," Flash deadpans. "Because none of us have ever wanted to go to the opera. Ever."

"Well, my parents took me for my eleventh birthday," Graham speaks up. "It was a really insightful experience."

Max pinches his face in confusion. "I thought you said you hated i—"

He's cut off by Graham's elbow ramming into his side. Ned, in an attempt to alleviate the tension, smoothly lifts the attention off of the siblings. "I agree with Graham. I think this will be really culturally enriching for us."

"Thank you, boys," Mr. Harrington says with a grateful point to both of them. "Everyone, this is gonna be — maybe — the best four hours of our whole trip."

"Four hours?" is the unanimous cry from the students.

"Guys, I think it's going to be really fun!" Ned exclaims. "Seriously!"

"Whatever," Cindy huffs with a sigh. She grabs Flash's phone from beneath her and slaps it into the boy's hand without looking. "I'm just glad I get to wear the dress that I barely fit in my suitcase."

Ten minutes later, Lena stands in her hotel room, smoothing down the front of her dress for the eighth time in front of the floor-length mirror. It's a red semi-formal one that drops to her knees and slightly flares out in a skater-skirt fashion. It has pockets — pockets! — that are lined with tiny, false gemstones that wink and glitter as they catch the light. She'd wanted to wear the pants she'd brought, but it would be much easier to step out of a dress and activate her suit than trying to do the same with multiple articles of clothing.

She isn't sure if it's her short hair in combination with the dress, but her legs look a million times longer than they had when she'd worn skirts pre-hair-chopping. She'd attempted to tame her wild waves to no avail. Instead of looking like a high-society young woman, she kind of looks like a character in the middle of a makeover during one of those teenage movies. Except there's no queen bee to tell her how to look.

Not that she minds— she'd rather stick out like a sore thumb in the Opera House than be unable to recognize herself in the mirror. She hadn't even bothered with makeup beyond the undereye concealer she'd applied to make her seem less jetlagged.

A knock on her door has her startled. She quickly curls her shaking hands into fists before marching across the room and taking a quick look through the peephole. Once she recognizes the person outside, she opens it.

Graham wanders in with his hands shoved into the pockets of his black dress pants. His blue, striped button-down is perfectly ironed — likely done by his mother — and there's not a button out of place. He makes a beeline straight for the giant bed in the middle of the room, leaning against it with a pensive expression on his face.

"Ready for opera round two?" Lena asks as a way to test the waters.

To her relief, he cracks a smile and scoffs a laugh. "Thank God we don't have to sit through it, but Max and Owen do. Those little shits are gonna hate it. I wouldn't be surprised if they fell asleep."

Lena mimics his smile. She remembers the time when Mr. and Mrs. Seager had indeed taken Graham to see a show all those years ago. The twins had been children, so they'd spent the evening at Lena's apartment with her parents. Graham really had hated it— so much so that he'd ranted about it for two weeks afterward.

"I thought you'd appreciate it since you're a music nerd," Lena teases as she shuts the door.

"I appreciated the singing, which was beautiful, but imagine sitting through three and a half hours of something you can't understand because Wagner's Die Walküre is all in Italian, and you're eleven so all you want to do is go home and play video games."

"Boo-hoo. The twins and I watched SpongeBob all night."

Graham makes a face at her. He slides his hands out of his pockets, casting a cursory glance around the room and crossing his lengthy legs at the ankles instead. "I'm so glad I decided to go back and talk to them. I think we really needed it— all three of us were in the wrong in some way."

Lena joins him in leaning against the mattress, careful not to wrinkle her dress. "I'm glad things are better between you guys."

"I guess I never considered what it was like for them to live five years without me," he says. "What you said earlier opened my eyes. There are certain things that you need when you're growing up as a boy. I had my dad to help me through all that puberty stuff. And, well, since both my dad and I were snapped away, they just had my mom..." He takes a deep breath to steady himself. Lena places a supportive hand on his shoulder, giving him enough strength to finish, "I think we're gonna see a family therapist when we get back. We need the help. The boys need healing."

Lena pauses. "Do you?"

Graham stops as well, going completely still as if the question had startled him. He blinks. Clearly, he'd never thought about it before.

Then, he decides, the word seeming to take a weight off of his shoulders, "Yeah."

Lena stands and grabs Graham's wrist, heaving him upright so she can give him a hug. Since he's a gentle giant full of muscle, he nearly knocks her from her feet before he balances both of them, returning her hug with unsuppressed enthusiasm.

She thinks that's one of Graham's fatal faults. He doesn't care about himself enough. He'd spent the first few months of Junior year without telling anyone about his nightmares and powers because he'd thought they'd had bigger problems with Vulture. Now, having been tasked with taking care of his brothers and constantly worrying about them, he hasn't taken the time to think about the issues he's dealing with. Maybe he hadn't physically battled Thanos, but it doesn't mean that the purple-faced bastard hadn't ruined part of his life, anyway.

Once they pull away, Graham playfully ruffles Lena's hair, sending wavy strands scattering over her bangs. She glares at him while she attempts to fix it. He merely grins, then abruptly stops when he notices her hands still trembling. "Does it ever get better?"

"I thought it was supposed to," Lena says with a sigh, dropping her arms back to her sides. "I can't figure out what's wrong with me. Mr. Stark was helping me make this better, but I seem to be getting worse. That's why I'm having Shuri help."

Graham is quiet for a moment as the gears turn in his head. Then, he suggests so gently that it seems like he's teetering on the edge of a tightrope, "What if it's not your powers?"

She wrinkles her brow. "What?"

"What if it's a symptom of anxiety?"

Oh. Lena doesn't know how she hadn't thought of that before. Then again, she's been hyperactive for her entire life — minus the first few years of her adoption, thanks to Nick Fury and SHIELD's injection that had managed to hide her powers — so she's almost gotten used to it, in a way. The work she and Tony had done in the lab had helped her a fraction. That lab is hers now. She could pick up where they'd left off when she returns to New York, could work harder than ever to find a stabilization—

But, of course, if this recession isn't a product of her unstable powers, that wouldn't do any good in the long run.

"Maybe I need therapy, too," she sheepishly admits.

Graham nods. "Couldn't hurt to try. We can do some research once we get back."

There's another knock that has both of them turning toward the door. Graham responds to it this time, bending down to look through the small circle before opening the door and revealing Peter. He's dressed in a suit that looks a tad bit too big on him. The white shirt beneath his sport coat is hastily buttoned, the collar poking up from beneath the jacket and his curls haphazardly gelled.

"Mr. Dell wants everyone— oh." He cuts himself off once he notices Lena standing further inside the room, his eyes going slightly wide and cheeks beginning to flush. He clears his throat. "Wow, you look really nice."

Before she can respond, Graham jokingly answers, "Thank you. What does Mr. Dell want?"

Peter switches his gaze to the taller boy, his cheeks going redder. "Meet in the lobby."

"Cool," he says. "By the way, you look handsome, yourself, man."

He nonchalantly pats Peter on the head and brushes past him to head toward the grand staircase that leads to the lobby. Lena rolls her eyes, slipping on the heels she'd borrowed from Cindy's sister. When she walks toward the door to leave as well, she stifles a laugh upon noticing that she's now taller than Peter with the added height.

Mistaking her laugh as being about his appearance, Peter self-consciously looks down and examines his attire. "What? Did I miss a button?"

"No," she says, reaching forward to tuck the collar of his wrinkled shirt down into the jacket. The heels give her an added two inches above him. "As Graham said, you look handsome."

"Oh, thanks," Peter says, glancing up at her with his cheeks still rosy. "You look... really nice."

"Since Graham stole my gratitude the first time, thank you."

He manages a small grin as she continues fixing his collar. "I can't say it twice?"

Lena finishes tucking his collar in, keeping her hands looped around his neck. She leans forward and gently presses her lips to his in a quick kiss that sends a million butterflies swarming around her stomach. When she pulls back and opens her eyes again, his cheeks have turned an even darker scarlet. "You can say it as many times as you want."

If Lena could use one word to describe the walk from their hotel to the Opera House, it would be depressing. The entire city is alive with excitement for the Carnival of Lights. Their group has to push against the crowd — everyone else is heading toward the heart of the city for the festival — and seeing everyone in their most exciting carnival attire fills Lena with guilt. If she had to sit through a four-hour-long opera instead of attending the carnival, she knows she'd be as upset as her schoolmates look. Their glum expressions foil the livelihood of the city that seems to pulse with excitement.

Lena batters away a floating lantern that almost hits her in the face. The street they're walking down is adorned with multicolored string lights that are draped over the buildings, Mr. Harrington's voice drowned out by the frequent blasts of dazzling fireworks that light up the dark sky. Someone passes with an adorable, whale-shaped lantern that's attached to the end of a long stick. Her mouth twists to the side. She has to remind herself that they had to do this to keep their friends safe– she'd much rather have them be disappointed and moody than dead.

The audience is nearly empty except for a handful of people. Mr. Harrington, in an attempt to keep everyone's spirits up, says, "Well, we beat the rush."

"You mean the rush out," Mr. Dell corrects.

Mr. Harrington gives him a warning glare but keeps his voice light. "Lucky for us, we've got the best seats in the house!"

He begins to lead their group toward the front of the auditorium. Peter, Graham, and Lena hang back, easily slipping into the background since nobody is paying attention to them.

That is, nobody except MJ, Cindy, Abe, Max, and Owen.

"You guys coming?" MJ questions. Abe nods along in agreement with her question.

"Hey, Graham?" Owen says. When he blinks, Lena notices that his eyelids are painted white with brown irises in the middle. Max's are the same. "If either of our chaperones notice that we haven't 'blinked' in a while and we get in trouble, do you promise not to tell Mom and Dad?"

Graham sighs, but Lena notices an amused smirk tugging up the side of his mouth. "I won't tell Mom and Dad. I don't blame you for falling asleep. And yeah, MJ, we'll be coming eventually. Lena hasn't been feeling well since the bus— we were out all evening trying to find a place with some medicine for her, but we didn't have any luck."

The lie comes out smoothly. If Peter had said it, he'd have tripped over his words or stuttered. But Graham, as the oldest sibling, has mastered the art of lying over the years. And Lena is usually very adamant about how friends don't lie, but this is a matter of life or death for them.

"Aw," Cindy pouts, her face pinched in concern. "You poor thing."

MJ nods with a slightly awkward closed-lipped smile. "Hope you feel better."

Lena gives her a grin in return, keeping her voice slightly brittle as she replies, "Thanks."

MJ, Cindy, and Abe walk toward the rest of the kids who are finding their seats in the front row. As they do, both Max and Owen shut their eyes so the fake eyeballs they'd painted on their eyelids are staring at them.

"Who said anything about falling asleep?" Max asks, taking a backward step toward the stage.

"We're totally looking at you right now," Owen says as he copies his twin's movements. However, the heel of his shoe steps on the toe of Max's, sending them both tumbling to the floor in a flurry of limbs and barely-suppressed screams. Lena snickers when several people stare at them from the commotion.

"Nice clothes won't even make them seem more grown-up." Graham shakes his head fondly as his brothers recover from their tumble and make their way toward the group as casually as possible.

"Oh, cool, opera glasses!" Betty exclaims from behind them.

"So cute!" Ned gushes in agreement.

The trio turns around to see them inspecting the box that one of the sharply-dressed employees holds near the door. They're a pair that still confuses Lena's brain. Before the trip, they hadn't seemed compatible at all, but now it's like they're inseparable.

All three of them jump at a message from Maria that comes in through their earpieces. "Parker, Seager, Santos, you there?"

Lena places a hand on her chest to calm her racing heartbeat as Graham puts a finger to the device and mutters, "Yeah, we're here."

Maria begins spouting information that all of them miss due to Ned and Betty's arrival. Betty, dressed in a flowy lavender dress, gives Lena a bright smile and a wave as she passes. Lena mirrors her action with a hand covering her earpiece, muffling Maria's voice to anyone else but her.

Peter steps in front of Ned to gain his attention. "Hey, we gotta go. Could you just tell anyone who asks that Lena is sick and we left to help her?"

"Okay," Ned says. "Uh, be careful, and, guys, whatever you do, please steer the monster away from the Opera House."

Peter wrinkles his brow. "Yeah, Ned, we know."

"Okay."

"Okay, bye. Gotta go!"

Lena presses one hand onto her stomach and another over her mouth like she's going to vomit. Peter, following along with her act, puts an arm around her waist and guides her out of the room with Graham acting as a bodyguard to push everyone out of the way. Though there aren't many people in the lobby anyway, he does convince a few concerned employees to leave them alone when they approach, likely to make sure Lena won't throw up on their fancy marble floor.

They reach the restrooms in mere seconds. Lena heads inside the women's one while the boys barrel into the mens' room. She presses a hand to her earpiece once she makes sure the room is empty. "Suiting up now."

"Hurry," Maria says. "You have to be in your places in four minutes."

"I can make that happen," Graham's voice replies.

Lena closes the doors to one of the floor-to-ceiling stalls and wrestles herself out of the dress, bending her arms awkwardly to unzip it by herself. She kicks the heels off as well. After she's left in just her tan-colored leotard thing Ma had bought to wear under dresses, she presses the button on her beloved suit contraption. Instead of the normal, silver color, the fabric is a midnight black— the chip the woman had given her works. It's almost laughable how she'd gone from black to silver and black again; it almost feels like her old costume.

"Good, Lee?" Graham asks from the earpiece.

"Good," she replies.

She opens the door to the stall just in time to see two figures materialize from a group of shadows in the corner of the restroom. Instead of the usual Spider-Man suit, Peter wears one that's completely black and appears to have a zipper on the front. He has what looks like a fitted sock covering his head with Spider-Man goggles fitted over his eyes. Graham... well, he's covered in too many shadows for her to see what his new suit looks like, but the fabric seems to blend in with the darkness even more.

Peter shrugs his backpack from his shoulders and holds it open for Lena, allowing her to grab her hairnet, mask, and new wig from it as well as shove the dress inside (she'll deal with Ma's complaints about the wrinkles at home).

"Ha," Graham teases when he sees the silver color of her wig. "Grandma."

"Shut up," Lena shoots back, her hair already trapped within her hairnet. She sets the mid-chest-length wig on her head and feels it secure into place. After she puts the mask over the bridge of her nose, she's ready to go.

"Hold on tight," Graham says as Lena links arms with Peter. "Three, two, one..."

They're sucked into the shadows. Lena feels the tugging sensation in her navel before her body disappears, darkness consuming her until she can't see anything. It's so absolute that she knows light doesn't exist here. She doesn't even have a body. Her arm around Peter's is more of a pressure of thought than physical contact, but she can still tell she's moving, her consciousness swirling around until—

They emerge onto the roof of the National Theater with a gasp from Peter. He presses a hand to his stomach, groaning in agony as he stumbles forward a bit. Graham's free arm shoots out to grab him by the shoulder and keep him from falling.

"Good luck," Graham says to her.

"You too," Lena responds. She turns to Peter, wondering if she should hug him or something, but notices how he's still swaying and decides she probably shouldn't. "You should just get him somewhere he can drop his backpack off and then to the cathedral tower."

"Yeah," Graham agrees with a glance down at the disoriented shorter boy. "Easy, bro. I got ya."

Peter groans again before they disappear into the shadows.

Lena turns toward the edge of the building and presses a hand to her earpiece. "I'm in position."

"Copy that," Fury answers. "Parker? Seager?"

"Just dropped Peter off," Graham says. "Might take him a moment to respond. The shadow-travel got to him."

"I'm fine," Peter insists. "I'm in position, too."

"How's the suit?" Fury asks.

"Uh, it's great. It's awesome. It's a little tight around the ol' webshooter—"

Lena bits her fist to keep from bursting into laughter as Fury exclaims, "Parker!"

"Okay, I'll shut up."

A noise from behind has Lena swirling energy into her palms within nanoseconds. She whirls around and nearly shoots one at the figure on the roof on instinct, only to back down at the last second once her brain recognizes Beck and his weird glass-bowl helmet. He puts his hands up in surrender when he sees the energy in her hands.

"Just wanted to tell you good luck, kid," he says, his voice slightly muffled by the glass surrounding his face. Lena feels a punch to the gut at the nickname kid. "You feeling better?"

"Yeah," Lena confirms, finding that the words are actually true once they come out. "I was nervous, but my friends are with me. As long as they're there... I kinda feel like we can do anything."

Beck nods. "Your brother would be proud."

She beams at him, giving him a quick wave as he jets off in a trail of green smoke toward his lookout location. She turns back toward the crowds filling the streets below. It would almost swell her with joy if she didn't know about the oncoming threat. Fireworks pierce the air in an array of neon colors, lights hanging from every surface until she's nearly blinded. Even though the sky is dark, the city is bright.

"Energy spike," Fury announces.

Maria notes, "We have seismic activity."

Lena's heart climbs into her throat. They'd known about this threat. They'd been able to almost pinpoint its exact location, and what had they done to prepare? Get a few select people off of the streets? They should have had EDITH execute a blockade. They should have found a way to cancel the festival.

She really does feel sick, now, as her eyes skitter around the crowds. There are so many civilians. So many people who could be injured or even killed by this thing– the most dangerous Elemental. The one who'd killed Earth-833's version of her brother.

This is why they're too young to be handling these things on their own. None of them had thought of this until it was too late.

Lena feels her chest constricting at the sight of the innocent people surrounding her. To quell her rising panic, she closes her eyes and forces herself to breathe more slowly. What was it that Beck had taught her? Grounding? Five things she can see—

But she's snapped out of it by Peter's panicked voice through her comm. "Okay, he's here! You guys ready?"

"On your lead, Spider-Man," Beck answers.

Lena opens her eyes and barely gives herself time to register her fear before she launches herself into the air. Blue energy streams from her palms and forms a force field around her head as she flies closer to the cathedral tower. When she does, the sounds of chaos grow louder. Her gut twists painfully as she hears screams, the buildings rumbling as a roaring monster made of fire seeks to destroy everything in its path.

Lena finds herself in a half-destroyed plaza. A Ferris wheel is set up for the carnival, the colors of its spokes glowing neon in the darkness, while an abandoned carousel continues spinning and playing its cheerful song as chaos ensues around it. A few vendors' carts are tipped over on the pavement, spilling souvenirs onto the ground. A handful of them are on fire.

The last Elemental is definitely larger than the one made of water back in Venice. It towers over even the tallest of buildings, its bulky frame glowing red-hot and gaping maw dripping lava. Its limbs are more indistinct shapes than actual arms and legs. The size of it makes Lena think she'd take the water Elemental over him any day. Water is terrifying, but it's mostly cool, mostly dangerous in large amounts. Fire is relentless. It can spread in seconds, turning everything in its way to ash.

One of the creature's fists smashes into an abandoned car, sending flames soaring into the air as it spins out. Lena screeches to a halt in mid-air before she flies directly into the fire, forming a bubble around her entire body. The flames don't penetrate her force field, but the heat does, threatening to form sweat on her brow at the overwhelming change in temperature.

Peter swings into the scene on a web and drops a crate on the Elemental. It roars back at him, taking a swing, but Peter is too quick for it to catch. He lands on a nearby building and attaches a web to a fire hydrant, yanking it hard enough for it to snap. Water shoots into the air in a geyser-type fashion. The creature screams in agony as the water droplets touch it, sending plumes of smoke into the air so thick the Elemental is completely obscured from view.

Lena, still hovering in the air as she waits to survey the damage done by Peter, notices Graham shadow-traveling civilians further away from the plaza. She recalls how he'd said his fear powers hadn't worked in Venice and wonders if he's having similar struggles now.

Unfortunately, when the smoke clears, the Elemental is not dead. In fact, it only seems angrier now, exposing white-hot insides as its mouth opens to screech again. Lena finds this pretty annoying. At least Water Man hadn't made this much noise.

She soars up into the air and streams energy from her wrist gauntlets. However, where it should have caused the thing pain, it doesn't seem to have any effect. Even so, she focuses her power, pushing harder, gushing more and more energy until the creature ripples. Lena blinks. She's so sure she'd imagined it, but no, it had stuttered for a moment as if unsure of itself. But then, just as quickly, it recovers and arcs a powerful fist toward her.

Lena drops just far enough for the fist to swing over her head, singeing the top of her wig from how close it is. She quickly focuses her energy into quick bursts, landing the blows wherever she can reach on its body. So much rapid movement has sweat lining her hairline within moments.

The fist meant for her nearly squashes Peter, slamming into the building he's perched on. He jumps away in the nick of time and lands on the carousel in the middle of the plaza. For a moment, he seems safe, but then the monster smashes into the ride and causes it to explode. Before Peter can slam into the base of the Ferris wheel, Lena shoots an arm out and covers him with a force field. He merely bounces off the bottom of the wheel before it breaks, setting him on the concrete.

His dismayed voice comes through her earpiece. "No! He's got the carousel! He's getting bigger!"

Lena turns back toward the Elemental to see that he's right. It was already huge, but its beefy limbs grow thicker and more pronounced, its gut becoming wider, and it increases in height with a satisfied roar that echoes into the night. Shit. This battle really isn't going as well as planned.

A familiar voice greets her ears. "Night Monkey! Witch Woman! Help! Help us!"

If she didn't know better, she'd almost think that was Betty Brant.

But upon a second longer of inspection, she realizes with a punch to the gut that it is Betty. She and Ned are trapped on the unmoving Ferris wheel, only a few meters from the top. The girl frantically waves her arms at them. Ned joins in half-heartedly, an apologetic expression on his face. Lena realizes that he must have come up with the names Night Monkey and Witch Woman to protect their identities as Spider-Man and Havoc.

"Hang on!" she yells to them, grateful for the voice changer that keeps it from being recognizable. "We'll be right there!"

Lena drops to the ground and presses a hand to her earpiece, keeping her voice low so Betty can't hear. "Graham? Where are you?"

There's nothing on the other end.

"Where is Seager?" Fury demands.

Lena's heart hammers in her chest, her limbs growing heavy with worry. "I — I don't know!"

She cranes her neck upward to look at her friends on the wheel. The fire Elemental notices it, too, craving the metal it's made of that will make it even stronger. It takes gigantic, booming steps closer to it. Though it moves relatively slowly thanks to its size, its legs are long and able to carry it pretty far with every step. Peter tries to shoot webs at it from his position in front of the wheel, only for them to burn away in streams of fire.

Lena sprints in front of him and jets out her energy. Her brow creases in concentration as she pushes her powers as far as they can go, her energy burning into the creature even as it storms closer, her brain plagued with the memory of a brother she'll never get to meet. Peter places a hand on her shoulder as her feet dig into the ground and make cracks in the concrete. Sweat dots her forehead and the nape of her neck as the Elemental comes closer, closer, the silver hair of her wig blowing over her shoulders at the blast of heat that rushes over them—

"Force field!" Peter shouts. "Force field, now!"

Beck lands in front of them and projects a force field of his own, cutting off Lena's powers and causing her to drop at the sudden loss of leverage. Peter catches her around the waist. His body instinctively tenses against the impact he thinks is coming, hugging onto her tightly to keep her on her feet.

"You okay?" Peter asks her. Beck still holds up the force field, surrounding them with green as the Elemental's fists batter against their bubble. It ripples dangerously as the punches bounce off.

Lena nods, straightening herself with the help of Peter. Maybe this battle is a little too personal.

"Going to Plan B," Beck informs them, then does a double-take. "Where's Specter?"

"We don't know," Peter replies, flinching as the force field ripples again. "We gotta hit him with something he can't absorb!"

Beck nods. "I'll go left, you two go right! Now!"

The force field breaks. The fire Elemental chooses them as its next target, jetting flames straight toward them. Lena forms another bubble and stretches out an arm to craft one around Peter, who's running several meters in front of her. She jets energy from her feet and takes to the skies. Using one arm, she uses another gust to bring Peter up into the air along with her. The fire follows them wherever they go, setting another vendor's stand ablaze and chasing them with smoke.

"Look!" Peter shouts. "There are rocks over there!"

Lena understands his plan. She rockets them over the Elemental's head, causing it to crane its neck upward to look at them and nearly fall over from a lack of balance.

"Beck, shoot him!" she cries, focusing on getting Peter down safely. The heat in the air turns her voice raspy from a lack of water, the voice changer further distorting it so she sounds unfamiliar even to herself.

Beck obeys, blasting the Elemental with jets of green. As the two teenagers land side-by-side near the huge pile of boulders, Lena breaks their force fields. She and Peter lob the pieces of rubble toward the monster — her with shoves of energy, him with webs.

It's then when Graham appears. He materializes from the shadows with a casual, "Hi guys," that nearly makes Lena elbow him in the face in fright.

"Where have you been?" she demands, launching another rock at the creature.

"The shadow realm doesn't receive comm signals!" he shouts back over the deafening sounds of battle. "I was working on getting everyone out of here. I think I got them all–"

"Well, Ned and Betty are stuck on the Ferris wheel, so if you could get them... " Lena trails off upon noticing how Graham has gone completely still, freezing in place with her arms still outstretched. "Graham?"

She follows his line of sight to see two familiar figures peering out from behind the corner of a nearby building. Two identical faces. Two boys who are too close to danger, one of them trying to take a video of the battle on his phone. Lena will bet a kidney that it's Max recording.

In the next instant, Graham is gone, popping out of the shadows near his brothers a second later and whisking them away.

"Spider-Man, Havoc, keep your distance," Beck reminds them, bringing Lena back to the action. "We can't let him get near the Ferris wheel!"

"Okay, we're on it!" Peter yells in reply.

Peter uses his webs to swing himself to the top of a building, utilizing the height to swing the rocks harder. But soon, their pile diminishes until they only have a few pebbles left. Lena aches all over, her head thrumming, throat sore, and skin damp with sweat. Her nostrils sting with the acrid scent of smoke. It also irritates her eyes, making them glassy and slightly restricting her vision.

The Elemental slams both fists on the ground. To Lena's horror, it sends a long crack snaking through the plaza until it hits the Ferris wheel. Something explodes near the bottom, making it tilt dangerously until it stops at a thirty-degree angle. The screams of her friends pierce the air.

The monster reaches toward the ride with an outstretched hand. Beck cries, "Havoc! Little help?" as he flies in front of the thing, streaming green power at it and causing it to step back. Lena takes to the sky once again, jetting energy from her feet until she's side-by-side with Beck, both of them shooting power at it. Whatever the thing actually is, it seems to respond the most to Beck's abilities rather than Lena's energy.

Unlike before, she can't seem to make a dent in it. There's no other ripple that makes it stutter. Even so, she pushes herself as hard as she can go, the energy streaming from her wrist gauntlets glowing white-hot along with her eyes. She's releasing so much that she's trembling all over from strain, making Beck do a sideways glance at her.

Peter shoots a web at the wheel. Lena can't see what happens, but she can hear him yell, "Woah, what's that?"

Ned shouts, "Wow, uh, Night Terror! You've come to save us!"

"Hold on," Graham's distorted, changed voice replies. Lena doesn't have to guess that he'd shadow-traveled them somewhere safe.

Lena's arms, locked at the elbows so she can pinpoint her energy more accurately, begin to ache from keeping them raised for so long. She and Beck continue their assault on the Elemental, both of their powers working in overdrive. Pain shoots from Lena's jaw from how tightly she's clenching it. Tears stream down her face, her eyes irritated from the smoke tainting the air, but she still pushes herself further. Something she does tonight has to work.

The Elemental straightens, its ugly, molten face glaring at them as it releases an ear-piercing shriek of rage. Beck falters from beside her, murmuring, "No, no, no no!"

It's now completely covered in flames, burning embers leaping from its muscular body and its head appearing more like the shape of a dragon's. It's faster now, stronger, and infinitely more deadly. Even so, Lena can't allow herself to stop fighting. This isn't over. It can't be.

She doesn't notice that Beck has stopped using his powers. He places a hand on Lena's shoulder as a gesture for her to stop. She pauses, slightly lowering her arms to look at the man.

Graham appears on the ground beside Peter just in time to hear Beck say, "Whatever happens, I'm glad we met."

His glass helmet retracts to reveal his scratched, slightly-beaten face. Lena can see the expression of a man who had lost everything because of this monster, and now he's ready to risk everything in order to save them.

"Wait," she says, her voice brittle from both emotion and the heat.

"Stand back, kid," he orders. "I don't want you getting hurt."

"Beck, what are you doing?" Peter demands from behind them.

The man covers his face with his helmet again. "What I should have done last time."

He surges forward. Lena tries to follow, but a web attaches to the small of her back and yanks her toward the ground. She slams into Peter's arms, his hands steadying her as her knees wobble from strain. The three of them watch as Beck channels as much power as he can, his body writhing with the force of them, his abilities conflating into a glowing ball that nearly blinds her. Lena's eyes widen at the sound of his screams. She can't tell if they're out of fury or pain, but then he shoots himself forward—

Straight into the heart of the beast.

__________

a/n:

everyone fighting the fire elemental is just like

normally, i don't end chapters in the middle of the action, but this seemed like a good place to end the chapter considering how long the beginning was. i'd also have to include the end of the battle plus fury's speech and i didn't want to overwhelm you guys. plus, in order to space these chapters out the way i want to, i'm going to have to add a bunch of my own scenes and end chapters a certain way. so if some chapters are long and others feel short, that's why!

i hope you enjoyed this chapter and i'm sorry for the wait. i'm taking a summer calculus class and it makes me want to DIE. i'm not doing too well in it, so i've been trying to spend less time on wattpad and more time studying, since, you know, it literally affects my future.

my class ends on july 30th, so updates may come more quickly after that. i'm also staying home for the fall semester of college this year, which will likely allow me to spend more time writing, especially since most of my classes are online. it's been hard managing my life while trying to get updates out for my 4 ongoing fanfics, so sorry if i haven't been consistent.

another note: lena managed to cause the ripple in the elemental because her powers actually melted one of the projectors and made the illusion falter for a second. just in case anyone was confused!

also, i mean it when i say that comments and votes seriously help with motivation. i got an overwhelmingly positive reaction to chapter 7 and then everything dropped for chapter 8, and even moreso for chapter 9. the vote button takes a second to tap and even a simple comment will make my day! i really do count the votes as how many people are reading each chapter, so if they keep dropping, with every chapter it's very discouraging and makes me feel like people don't care/my writing is getting worse. support your local fanfic authors all over wattpad and vote/comment!

—kristyn