continued from here part 3

Spider camp near Houston, TX

Madam Web sits at a table with a few other Spider leaders as Kaine Reilly steps in. Kaine looks over to his sister Karen who looks a bit nervous. He decided to find out about that later though. He sat down across from Madam Web with an eager expression.

She gave him a stern look, "I'm told you've excelled in your training, you've gone above and beyond what was expected of you. I've also been told you were upset about my choice for the mantle of Spider-Man."

He gritted his teeth a bit, "I had hoped I would be the one, but I have come to accept that I'm not."

He then noticed a sigh from his sister, "I'm sorry, but why is my sister here?"

Madam Web sat a bit straighter in her chair, "I had a vision of her, in it a red spider sat upon her shoulder."

Kaine was becoming visibly angry as he realized what this meant, "What the hell have I been doing all this training for if I'm not taking a mantle?!"

Web glared at him, "You are taking one, just not the one you saw fit."

She then slid a box over to him as she spoke, "Your sister is the Scarlet Spider, you'll just have to accept that you have a different destiny."

Kaine looked over the box and stopped on the symbol, "You want me to be the Tarantula?"

She nodded as someone entered, "Ma'am, John Parker says he needs to see you immediately."

She then got up and walked toward the door, before she left she placed a hand on Kaine's shoulder, "We need you, don't let pride cloud your mind."

***

A half hour later she had seen the saved images on John's holo-phone of Creed 7. Unlike John this seemed to please her greatly, "All is falling into place."

John looked her over curiously, "You had a vision of this Creed?"

She nodded, "I will send someone to Ben immediately, but you must tell him this Creed must not return to his masters, nor should he be allowed to die."

***

Ben woke up to the sound of clicking on a keyboard, he rose with a bit of a shock as he saw Creed 7 on his computer. Ben rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and jokingly asked," What are you up to?"

"Learning to speak English properly."

Ben was dumbfounded, "Okay...I think its time we had a talk then."

The Creed turned, "Agreed."

Ben then pulled himself out of bed, "First off you're gonna have to explain..well, this."

Creed 7 looked over to the computer where Ben pointed, "I was meant to be more intelligent than other Creeds, to learn faster and understand things more clearly. I suspect I am progressing much more than expected. When my control chip was lost they most likely ordered my immediate termination."

Ben interrupted him, "Wait, so they just instantly kill you guys if you lose your chip?"

"Creeds, like all Stalkers have a tendency to attack our masters when not controlled. Immediate termination is the most logical option."

Ben jumped to his feet as an idea occurred to him, "So you're saying there's a whole army that's a glitch away from turning on Ferrum?"

"It would take a massive glitch, the only reason I was immune to redundancy was the actual removal of the chip."

Ben then took a seat next to him, "How many Stalkers are there?"

"Other then the Creeds there are 15 divisions each with multiple batches, we easily number in the thousands."

Ben looked at the clock, "Crap, gotta get to class."

Before he left he tossed Creed 7 a small data pad, "This has all my access codes to the school's library mainframe and one of my credit lines, do some reading maybe order a pizza if you get hungry. Save me some but no anchovies or veggies please."

The Creed gave him a confused look as he took the data pad, "Thank you. But what is pizza?"

"You have so much to learn."

***

A few hours later

Ben walks across the campus back toward his dorm when suddenly something pokes his back a man states, "You're busted."

"My spider sense says otherwise, Hi Dave."

The man behind him drops his hand, "You're no fun."

Ben turns to look over David Hardy who slaps a hand on his shoulder, "Heard you have a package for me."

***

The two walked into Ben's room and noticed several empty pizza boxes and one half gone, "Well he seems to have discovered how to eat like a college student."

Creed 7 looked over, "I found something called a meat lovers, quite delicious."

David looked shocked, "It can order pizza."

"Much more than that."

He picked up the gauntlets he'd taken from the soldiers and showed Ben, "I've figured out how to make these work without the armor, I even found a way to improve the power supply."

Ben shrugged, "Yea apparently he's a genius Creed."

David shook his head, "Its always something weird with you. Oh well, Mr Creed I'm here to get you out of the city."

"It's not Mr. Creed."

"Okay then what's your name."

"Omega batch Creed 7"

David nodded, "7 it is then. Ben you might want to suit up, you're on escort duty till we make the city limits."

(To be continued)