Incredible Spider

Chapter 50: Shattered Illusions

Elastigirl POV

Peter's waiting in the green room. We have our earpieces in to keep tabs on anything that happens with Mysterio. I'm sitting on the interview couch and going through this new interview set up.

"So Elastigirl, you and Spiderman both saved the Ambassador just last week. The world seems to actively be on the side of supers being legal again. What do you think about this momentum your movement has gained?" Chad asked me.

"Well Chad, I'm glad that we're able to finally get our side of the story in. Everyone always heard the bad, saw the mistakes and never looked at what lead to the bad or the mistakes. So it's good that thanks to Winston Deavor, we're able to show our thought process," I said.

"And how does it feel as a professional working with an out of nowhere rookie hero like Spider-Man?" Chad asked.

"Well I know that despite him being a rookie, he acts like a professional. From what I've seen of him, he's resourceful, he's quick on his feet and most of all he works on keeping people safe first. No matter what, he's a hero through and through," I said. It was true too, I was initially skeptical of Peter and his ability to do what he does. He's only about Violet's age after all. Although, he has definitely surprised me about how intuitive he is and how mature he is. That was when I heard Peter in my earpiece.

"You don't have to say all those nice things because I can hear you. I'm just a kid doing his best. By the way, Spider-Bot 15 caught Back on camera. I'm heading over to investigate," I heard Peter say.

Peter POV

I caught sight of Mysterio by the janitor closet. The cameras were already out but I still knew where he was. I was running through the building and caught sight of fishbowl head himself making his way to the broadcast room.

"Got you this time Mysterio!" I said, rushing up to him and landing a good kick to the side of his head. He fell fast, his fishbowl rolling down the hallway and he was on the ground holding his head.

"Ugh....what....what happened?" Quentin asked me. I webbed him to the ground, holding him in place.

"You're under arrest Mysterio," I said.

"For what?!" He asked in shock and confusion. I thought he was simply playing dumb so I decided to explain.

"For nearly wrecking a train and killing everyone!" I said. He seemed...genuinely confused by this.

"What?! I didn't do that-" He stopped when he looked down and saw what he was wearing.

"Huh?! How did I get in this thing?!" He said in shock.

"Wait wait. You....you're kidding right? You don't....remember doing any of this?" I asked unsurely. It was then....that a thought occured to me. A theory that I wanted to test...yet not want to be right. If it was right, then everything I knew up until now has been thrown out of the window. I went to Mysterio's helmet...and flipped it upside down. Being able to see inside the helmet...and sure enough...the inside of the helmet had a screen. A screen right where Mysterio would be able to see out of his helmet. The helmet's screen had Screenslaver's swirling hypnotic pattern on it. Which means that I was wrong about everything up until now. I activated my earpiece again and alerted Elastigirl about my discovery.

"Elastigirl! It's Spiderman! Screenslaver's in charge! I repeat, Screenslaver is in charge!" I said frantically, running around the building.

"DON'T LOOK AT ANY SCREENS! DON'T LOOK AT ANY SCREENS!!" I yelled as I ran around, flailing my arms like a crazy person to draw their attention from their screens.

Elastigirl POV

I got Peter's alert and immediately told Chad to keep his eyes off the teleprompter. I also yelled to the crew to keep their eyes off of any screens. The show cut to a broadcast of our rescue of the train. Evelyn ran in and gave me a tracker to trace Screenslaver's location by using his signal jacking. I took to the roof and moved the tracker around, waiting for the signal to lock in a singular direction. Once it locked in the direction of an apartment building. I launched myself in that building's general direction. Kicking in through the top floor window and went to the door where the signal became the strongest. I tried opening the door, it was locked. So I stretched my arm under the door and undid the locks on the door. Once I did, I retreated my arm and opened the door to let myself into the....room. I'm using the term "room" loosely because this one apartment seemed like it was a torture dungeon mixed with a crackhead tech lab. I was looking around the room and saw that there was a mannequin head with Screenslaver's mask on it. There was also another mannequin head that was on the other side of the desk.

"Yeesh, this place looks terrible," I muttered to myself as I saw 2 set of blueprints on the desk. The one on top was of a spherical glass helmet that had a two way screen. To the outside in, it looked like it was full of green fog. Inside the helmet though, would be a screen that would flash Screenslaver's hypnotic pattern.

Mysterio's helmet. I realized, as I was about to look under the blueprint of Mysterio's helmet, I heard the sound of a gate closing behind me.

"Hello Elastigirl," I heard Screenslaver's voice say behind me. The room suddenly lit up, everywhere was just a large screen flashing the swirling display. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, everything could hypnotize me if I gad my eyes open. So I had to be fighting Screenslaver with my eyes closed in order to not fall under his control. While we were fighting, I got a few good hits in. Then Screenslaver began tasing me which caused my powers to short out, my arm and leg becoming limp as a pins and needles feeling enveloped them. After a third shock, I knocked the device away and punched him into the wall of this screen chamber. I heard the gate open, and I immediately chased him out of the chamber and following him. I heard the beeping of a timer, which meant the room was rigged to blow. I had to get out of here fast because this room was about to explode.

I was chasing Screenslaver down the halls, him doing a variety of things to slow me down. Punching out light bulbs, setting off the fire alarm, trying to out maneuver me. He eventually jumped out the window, but Peter was already there with a web net to catch him on ground level. By the time I got to the ground, the top floor of the apartment building exploded.

"What took you so long?" I asked jokingly. Peter shook his hands to show a bit of pain.

"I had to break every single screen in the studio. Everyone was already hypnotized," He explained.

"Well I'm glad you made it. We finally caught Screenslaver and put this nightmare to an end," I said as I yanked the mask off of Screenslaver. He was a man with blond hair and blue eyes. Peter seemed to recognize this person and was shocked as Screenslaver was hulled away by the poloce, shouting about being confused about what he did.

"Wait....Flash?! Flash Thompson was Screenslaver?!" Peter asked in shock.

"You knew him?" I asked Peter in slight surprise.

"He was my childhood nightmare! He would bully me everyday by shoving me into my locker! He was Screenslaver?!" Peter raved.

"Really? Was he like....a jock or something?" I asked in confusion.

"Yes! He was the most meatheaded person I knew! I didn't know he could do this!" Peter ranted further. Now....something didn't seem right. A jock learning how to hack signal broadcasts? Building something as complicated as a hypnotic screen pattern? Was he....feigning ignorance...? Or was there something else going on?