24|| Spider-Man saves the day!

"Go! They have priority over I do. Go woo your girl."

Washington Monument, Washington DC, October 2016-

"Peter?" Ned whispered over the phone. "You haven't answered my question yet." He pulled the phone up further on his shoulder. Ned's confidence hat was pushed up as he adjusted the phone.

"I-uh-" Peter searched for the right words on what to say. "It's a really long story, one that I really don't have the time for. Ned, you need to listen to me," The sounds heard through Peter's phone was one of rushing highways and cars whizzing past, signifying that the superhero was hitch-hiking on a car.

"No! Answer me first? Where were you during the competition!? You were so lucky that we still won!" Ned sighed, walking towards the metal detector.

Liz looked over at Alison. "Should I go take the phone from Ned and scold Peter? Right now seems like the perfect time." She quirked an eyebrow, turning to Ali.

"I say we scold him together. Later. I have a few words to tell the kid himself." Alison crossed her arms, looking a slight bit firm. "More like a lot of words." She mumbled under her breath, looking up at the monument.

Seeing her friend look up at the historical monument, Liz couldn't help but do the same. "It's pretty big, huh?"

"Yeah." Alison nodded, still in awe at the shining creme white monument. "Let's go inside and take a peek, shall we?"

Over at the metal scanner, the guards were trying to get Ned to put his phone down on the belt. "Ned, listen to me!" Peter exclaimed through the phone, "You can't put the purple stone in there, it's gonna turn into-"

"Listen," Ned started pulling the phone away, "I've gotta go through security and the X-Ray, so I'll pick up the phone in a second." He placed the phone tenderly on the belt, and walked through the security metal scanner.

"No, Ned no! Listen to me!" Peter sighed, exasperated through the phone. But it was too late, as the backpack with the Chitauri core was already being exposed to radiation.

The backpack, one pocket already glowing purple, slowly drifted through the X Ray machine, glitching the whole device out. The screens that showed the contents of the bags glitches in and out for a second, before going back to normal.

Grabbing the bag, Ned walked out of the metal scanner and walked towards the rest of the group. "Come on!" He exclaimed, looking at the two girls and the teacher. "Our tour starts in ten!"

The teacher was behind Liz and Alison, talking to Michelle and trying to convince the girl who won the championship to go on the tour. But the girl was protesting, saying the monument was made by slaves, and she wouldn't go.

Shrugging it off, the teacher escorted Liz and Ali off through the metal scanner. The girls giggled as they made it through the metal scanners, the teacher getting wanded after the scanner beeped him.

It wasn't long before the tour started for the Midtown High School Pentathlon Champions, and chaos ensued.

"The Washington Monument is 555 feet and 5 and 1/8 inches tall," The tour guide listed off blankly as the elevator rose higher and higher.

"I dunno if this was a good idea Liz." Alison whispered to the other girl, eyeing Ned's backpack. So Peter had been right. The core was a bomb.

"It'll all be fine." Liz muttered back, looking at the monotonous rising bricks of limestone and marble. "I'm about 85 percent sure of it."

"Look at how the marble and granite are cut around the stone." The bland tour guide lady featured to the rising bricks, a bored look on her face.

"You know-" Alison noticed the tour guide for the first time, and how boring the guide was. "This is a really boring tour."

As if Alison's words jinxed the elevator, a blinding purple light burst through the elevator. Unbeknownst to the passengers, the laser shot up onto the viewing deck and burst the glass opening doors.

The tourists gasped in shock as all the glass shattered, and cracks started to crawl into the granite and limestone. The building rumbled, small pieces of debris falling down from the highest part of the monument.

Down below, Spider-Man had finally arrived on the scene. A panicked mess, the hero looked up at the monument, watching it slowly crack and crumble. "Karen!?" He asked, frantic, "What's going on up there?"

"The Chitauri core has detonated and has caused severe structural damage to the elevator." Karen sighed, her voice giving a small hint of urgency and danger.

"Oh no." Spider-Man muttered, looking down around on the ground. Alison- or Breakout- wasn't on the ground, was she? So she was stuck in the elevator.

"My friends are up there!" Michelle exclaimed, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. With the other, she was pointing up at the Washington Monument, and the elevator stuck at the top.

"What?!" Peter exclaimed in his normal voice, before realizing that this was someone he knew. He couldn't exactly blow his cover now, could he? "Uh- don't worry ma'am everything's gonna be okay." Spider-Man's voice dropped an octave, as he raced up to the monument.

Running up to the monument, the hero paused for a moment. "That's tall," He quickly remarked, before hopping up at least 5 feet onto the monument. He kept scrambling up the monument, trying to hustle his way up to his friends.

Up in the sky, Ned dropped the backpack, realizing what he had done. Liz looked frantic, meanwhile Alison was just shaking her head in worry. The other kids were looking around with nervous glances at each other.

"Oh my god, look at the ceiling." Flash remarked, staring up at the blazing ceiling line above them. The line went in an almost jagged circle around the whole elevator.

"Stay calm everyone." Liz chimed in, looking around at her surroundings. The room was growing dustier, the glass slowly cracking around the doors.

"Oh we're all going to die here." Abraham sighed, looking shellshocked. His face dropped drastically, his hopes drowning in the fact that they were as good as dead.

Alison looked over at the Pentathlon member. "Let's just try to stay positive, okay? If I die this young, I at least want it to be a semi happy one." She fidgeted with the black flower overcoat.

"Ten minutes into catastrophic failure." Karen reminded Spider-Man, who was still hopping and climbing up the side of the monument.

"We're freaking screwed." Another Pentathlon kid chimed in, the nerves settling into everyone like a thick cloud of smog.

"Okay everyone," The tour guide was trying- and failing- to soothe the kids, "The safety systems inside of the elevator should be working. We are completely safe in here."

"The safety systems are completely failing." Karen warned Peter, aka Spider-Man, who was nearing the top of the building. "The occupants are in imminent danger." Karen seemed to be, unknowingly, of course, contradicting everything the tour woman was saying.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Peter protested to Karen, although he couldn't really fight and bicker with her. At least not like he and Breakout did.

Above on the viewing deck, people were sliding open the crushed glass elevator doors. The kids in the elevator were opening the hatch at the top of the machine.

The wires were slowly snapping as the tour guide climbed out, helping one of the girls up onto the top of the elevator. She was escorted up to safety up on the deck.

"You now have 125 seconds until catastrophic failure." Karen warned Spider-Man, making him stop in his tracks. "What!?! Why?" He exclaimed.

"Unexpected motion has caused the deterioration to escalate." Karen added, giving the Spider-Man a bigger sense of worry.

"How do I get in there?" Peter asked, looking down at the limestone brick for a second.

As if a gift from the heavens, Karen responded with an, "Activating reconnaissance drone." A small Spidey-drone flew out of the suit's emblem, and floated around the hero.

Spider-Man let out a small gasp of shock and amazement, before turning back to the task. "Has that been there the whole time? That's awesome!" He rushed out.

"Locating optimal entry points." Karen scanned the building, the cracks slowing down, but growing bigger in size. "Proceed to southwest window."

In the elevator, more kids were getting escorted and rescued out of the elevator. As Abraham was rescued, he made the bad mistake of looking down. Small pieces of glass fell down the extreme length to the ground below.

"I'm on my way, Karen!" The hero scrambled over to the southwest window, clutching on for dear life. 555 feet and 5 1/8 inches sure was high. Looking down, Spider-Man froze.

"What's wrong?" Karen asked. "You have reached the southwest window. Why are you hesitating?"

"I've just never been this high before." Spider-Man sighed, shooing off some seagulls from the window.

"You have not reinstalled your parachute, so a fall from this height would most likely kill you." Karen advised, her voice sounding nothing like it should be at a time like that.

Peter was trying to break the door open with his foot, the attempt failing. "Why is it not breaking?" He asked Karen. The hero was really starting to rely on his AI friend.

"It's four-edged ballistic glass. You'll have to use more force than that." Karen chimed in, instructing the young hero on what to do.

Spider-Man webbed himself onto the wall, starting to lean back and try and budge the glass. Still grasping the web strand, he pushed back off the wall and slammed into the window. No mark. He tried again, going out further, and made a small impact mark on the glass.

Outside, a helicopter was whirring, filled with police officers. The Spider-Man was in defiance of the Sokovia Accords, they were saying. Even though the kid was only 15, and not of legal age to sign them.

The police inside were trying to coax the Spider-Man to the ground, but the hero wasn't budging. After all, his friends were in there. He wouldn't leave his friends and crush inside of there for anything.

Inside the elevator, the teacher asked who was next to leave the death coffin. Flash hurriedly raced to the opening, with the trophy still in hand. He wanted something to prove he was a winner, supposedly.

The machinery groaning, Flash made it to the top of the elevator with the trophy, despite protests to leave it behind. As he climbed up, the elevator started to slowly drop, Ned, Liz, Alison, and the teacher still inside the machine.

The kids who had escaped were frantic and worried, hollering and scared for their comrades' safeties. They were looking down frantically at the elevator, being pulled back by the adults.

The police outside in the helicopter were still hollering at Spider-Man to stand down. He scrambled up higher on the monument to the polices' protests. Making it to the top of the monument, the hero started to freak out. Was he really ready for this?

Flash was being pulled up to safety inside, begging the people saving him to take the trophy first. The boy really was self-centered more than anything. As he finally made it to safe ground, the elevator slid downward a little more.

The people remaining in the elevator were scared. Ned was frantic, and didn't want to move. The teacher was frozen in place. Meanwhile, Alison and Liz were clutched onto each other. "Ali-" Liz choked out softly, clutching the girl tighter, "I don't want to die."

"I don't either Liz," Alison whispered, trying to soothe her senior friend. "But it will all be alright in the end, I know it. Spider-Man or some other hero will come to save the day."

As if on cue, the Spider-Man crashed into the window, sliding onto the viewing ground deck. He had broken the glass by force, slingshotting off the police helicopter in the process.

The elevator snapped as the hero slid in, beginning its free fall to death. But suddenly, a small piece of webbing caught the rest of the car, acting like a makeshift kind of ceiling/ cable hold. Spider-Man had caught them! They were safe! For the time being, anyways.

"I did it!" The hero exclaimed, truly believing he had one for a split second. But, he had jinxed his own hero rescuing.

Within split seconds, Spider-Man's hold broke, and the car slid down lower. The hero's balance between the glass doors slipped, and he tumbled into the elevator car below. The car slid down even further, everyone in the car scared for their lives.

The car began free fall again, plummeting deeper and deeper towards death, but the Spider-Man acted quickly again. It wasn't long before he webbed the part of the ceiling that broke off of the elevator car, and held the machinery stable for a little while.

Spider-Man cleared his throat, making sure his voice was lower than normal. "Hey how you doing. It's gonna be okay, I've gotcha." He tried to sound cool and slick, but failed.

Even in a time of peril, Alison still had the chance to roll her eyes at Peter. Always one to try and be cool on the job, of course.

"Yes!" Ned exclaimed, moving his arm up and down excitedly. "Yes!"

"Hey hey hey!" Spider-Man wanted, looking at his best friend. "Big guy, quit moving around!"

While Ned was busy mumbling his apologies, the hero was trying to pull the whole elevator car up to safety. Working inch by inch, he slowly pulled the elevator up to the safety of the viewing deck.

The adult heroes on the other side of the glass doors pulled them open, rushing out the teacher and Ned. In the background, you could hear the Spider-Man saying something along the lines of, "Alright, this is your stop!" As the victims were ushered out.

Liz, who was still at the back of the elevator with Alison, was unmoving in the back. Spider-Man was hollering at them to get out, and escape, the webbing slowly loosing its hold. The teacher grabbed out for her hand, but the ceiling of metal snapped.

Spider-Man gave out a small shooting of webbing, only holding them on for seconds longer. "There's not enough time for me to grab the both of you!" The hero warned; looking down at the girls he was holding onto by just a thread. Ali, looking out for her best friend, pushed Liz forward, and then hauled her up carefully to Spider-Man.

"Alison, no!" Liz rushed out, clutching onto the Spider-Man's waist tightly. She was now on top of the elevator, looking down at her friend. "I can't loose you, not like this."

"Don't worry," Alison assured her friend, "I'll be just fine." Glancing over at the Spider-Man, Peter, or whatever the nerd was, she gave him the death glare. "Take care of her, whatever the cost."

The Spider-Man nodded, the webbing he was holding onto the elevator with straying. "I-I promise."

"Good." The sophomore gave a small smile. "Then you've done your job-" She gave a sharp breath in, looking up at the hero, giving him a goodbye army salute, there was a faint smile on her face. "See you on the other-" Alison was cut off by the webbing finally snapping.

The elevator plummeted to the ground below.

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