Chapter 3: Chapter 2
***Chris pov***
Chris and peter had hit it off quite well, as it turns out, both of them had gravitated towards biotechnology as a major, while peter had leaned more towards psychology as his miner, while Chris minored in mythology, even if he wasn't sure if he was going to be a superhero, he wanted to play on the safe side of things and be ready for anything that might come his way, and after reading several superman comic books, that included mythology.
Now, he was raised Christian but right now was more of an agnostic so you could say he was more open-minded to the whole concept of powerful beings that are existing and are called gods.
Right now they were studying Greek mythology, and since some of the people there were only in the class since they had nothing else to study, not all of the class had taken it seriously. Some of them even went as far as to ask why isn't the mythology like it was presented on Disney's Hercules, and of course, there were those idiots who claimed that Disney was right and that the source material was wrong… dumbasses.
So now they had gotten to the subject of Amazons, and immediately everyone had thought about wonder woman since she was the most famous fictional amazon ever. But again the teacher was there to burst their bubble, however, he did refer to some accuracies and inaccuracies that were taken from the myth when creating the character.
All in all, he was a cool professor.
Now Chris was in his room with Peter, he was going through the material in his Greek mythology studies, and there was something that kept bugging him, a name that was briefly mentioned that veteran Greek mythology enthusiasts were stomp about, but for some strange reason, it sounded familiar in the back of his mind like he should have known it.
Maeve.
There was no real information about her, except for Irish mythology, some believed she was the amazon queen before Hippolyta, some believed she was her successor, others believed that she was only added in mythology after the roman empire had taken over the Greek gods and mixed her up from Irish mythology after they had taken a quick look through the Irish lands, but fled after suffering a horrible defeat by them, so in order to appease their gods, had added he to their mythology, and others… somehow believed that Maeve was the Roman name for Hippolyta.
Chris, even though he had a genius-level intellect had received a major headache from trying to make any sense out of it all, so with a groan, he had let his book full on his face and he let out a frustrated groan.
Pete, ever the great friend, had noticed it and asked his roommate, "dude… you ok?"
"No…"
"what's wrong?"
Chris had lifted his book off of his face and said, "I have to write a 900-word essay about the amazons' history and myth, but there is this name that keeps popping back up in my head like it suppose to mean anything to me, but what is worse is whenever I look it up it's so complex and there are so many opinions about who she was and what it's supposed to mean that I am left with even more questions."
Chris sighed again and had just let the book rest on his chest, while both of his hands were rubbing his eyes.
Then Peter stood up from his bed and went closer to Chris and said, "come on bro, I could use a break, and frankly so could you, it seems."
Chris had straightened up on his bed and asked, "where are we going?"
Peter was putting on his shoes, looked at him with a smile, and said, "somewhere where we could have fun, and maybe that'll help you refresh your memory."
They both dress up, peter wearing a pair of black skinny jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black leather jacket.
While Chris was wearing his usual farm boy getup, a Beige and black colored flannel shirt, with blue jeans, a brown coat with white synthetic fur on the inside of the coat, even though he didn't really need it, appearances mattered. And lastly, to finish his farm boy look, he wore a pair of Australian work boots.
Peter just looked at him and said, "oh my god, can you look more out of place in new-York?"
Chris just looked at himself in confusion and asked, "what? I think it looks nice, not to mention very comfy."
Peter just rolled his eyes behind his glasses and said, "whatever Smallville, just let's get a move on."
"Whatever you say web head." It has become sort of an inside joke between the two, they had sort of made an unspoken deal that only the two of them could make fun of each other.
They made their way outside of their college dorms, and they entered a taxi, then Peter had turned to the driver and said, "37 W 32nd St please."
"no problem." And they started driving.
They had gotten to their destination, Chris had exited the taxi while Peter had paid the taxi driver.
Then they started to walk a little before Chris had seen their destination, a Korean restaurant by the name of 'Samwon Garden Korean BBQ'.
they had entered the place, and they were fortunate enough to have a spare table that evening.
They were seated at their table and a waitress came along and gave them both menus and walked off.
Peter was an expert on that sort of cuisine, but Chris was new, so of course, he struggled to make up his mind.
Then Peter spoke up, "well, I'm ready to order, how 'bout you Chris?"
Chris, doing his best (and failing) to hide his embarrassment had looked at Peter with a sheepish expression and said, "I have no idea, what would you recommend?" he nervously chuckled at his friend.
Peter, just now seemed to realize that his roommate was not really familiar with Korean barbeque, had smiled apologetically, and said, "oh I'm sorry, I'm being a bad friend, here how about the Grilled Beef Short Ribs? You might like them as your first time."
Chris just shrugged his shoulders, and said to his roommate, "whatever you say, you're the expert."
They had a great time, and Peter opened up a little about his past and after hearing several of his stories, Chris was laughing up a storm, "wait, hold up! You want to tell me that your parents never knew that they were sentencing you to a life of misery when they named you Peter Park?"
"Nah bro, they were so excited about me being the first one in our family to be born in America, and my parents were never really into the whole superhero thing that they never knew that Peter Park sounded a whole lot like Peter Parker."
Chris had let out a hearty laugh, which he noticed disturbed the other patrons of the restaurant, so he quieted down quickly and whispered, "oh buddy! I don't know if that makes it better or worse, I mean on the one hand, it wasn't done as a joke, on the other, they unknowingly had made you the butt of a lot of jokes."
"Well… it wasn't all that bad at first, in fact, my first years of life were great, but then the Sam Raimi spiderman movie come out, and all of a sudden almost everyone knew that spiderman was Peter Parker in real life."
"Wait, what about the animated tv shows the proceeded the movies? Not to mention the Japanese adaptation?"
"A. the Japanese version of spiderman was never named Peter Parker, but a Japanese name. and B. adults didn't really care about that stuff back in the day, back then superman was more popular, and even then, most adults didn't bother to know his real name."
"Fair enough, but dude, still, they must have regrated it."
"They did when I was bullied about it, at some point they have offered to let me change my name, but at that point, I had enough and decided to make it my own and not let it hold me in life."
"Good for you man, you shouldn't let it dictate your life."
It was at that point that the waitress had come back with the bill, each of them had paid for his own dish, and they went outside.
Chris had turned towards Peter and said, "Thank you, Peter."
"For what?"
"For this night, I was so stressed about school that I forgot to chill a little, you're a good friend."
Peter just waved him off saying, "nahhh... it was nothing, don't mention it."
"I mean it man, oh, and those Short ribs? Delicious! The next one is one me, ok dude?"
"Sure thing! And I'm glad you liked it, dude."
Then they had taken a taxi back to their dorms, and after that, they went to sleep.
But then Chris' dreams weren't what he normally has. In it, he saw a woman with dark orange hair, dressed in a similar fashion but also a very different way to wonder-woman, yet her costume had several differences.
She was facing off against a blond man in a blue suit, wearing a pair of red gloves, he had two golden eagles on both his shoulders and on his back, fluttering like a cape was the American flag.
The man had blood all over him, but Chris could tell that none of it was his, the woman had charged at him, letting out a battle cry, while her sword was drawn.
She aimed it and hit the man's chest, only for the sword to shatter on impact. The man looked at the woman and said, "now now Maeve, you should have known…" he then cocked his fist while having a sadistic smile, "It's a metal prop, you stupid whore." Then his fist impacted her head, severing it and sending it away.
Chris had woken up suddenly, his muscles tensing, he was breathing heavily, then he noticed something, he was hovering a few ft above his bed, while his blanket is still clung to his body.
He looked around frantically and saw that, to his relief, Peter was still sleeping soundly in his bed.
He slowly lowered himself back down, but he couldn't sleep, not after what he had seen in his dream. So he slowly got out of his bed, went to his window, and opened it up. He floated out and closed the window behind him, then he had made his way up, way up.
Soon enough he had found himself in the outer atmosphere still in his jammies, he was holding his breath and he closed his eyes, and just listened.
He listened until he heard what he was looking for and smiled when he did. Then he had made his way back down to planet earth, but instead of going back to his college dorms, he was making his way to Pikesville Kansas. Soon, he had landed in front of the house and knocked on the door, he heard footsteps nearing him and the familiar creak of the door opening.
A woman had stood in the door, now nearing her 50's, she was still looking beautiful as ever, but he never had thought of her as anything like that.
As soon as she saw his face she exclaimed, "Chris!" he smiled and said, "Hi Ma, I heard you were still up and thought to hop in."
The woman had taken her son for an embrace, she looked at him and said, "and what exactly had brought you back to these parts? Come in, come in." she said while leading him inside his house.
She had made both herself and Chris cups of coffee, she had sat next to him and told him, "Now, what was so important that you had to fly all the way from New York to talk to me about, and in your jammies no less?"
He hesitated before saying, "I need your advice, I had this dream…" and he started to regale her about what he had dreamt, and what, to his opinion, had triggered that dream.
"And the scariest part is that I feel like I know him ma, something about that man seems so familiar to me, a man who is supposed to be a symbol of hope but is in actuality the complete opposite… mom… I'm scared, what if I become like that man? What if I decide to be a hero but instead, I turn out to be way worse than the villains?"
The woman had cupped her son's face with both her hands and said, "now listen here, Christopher Reeve Johnson, you will never become like that – that -that monster, ok? You are nothing like him, you may share an origin story with a great superhero figure, but that does not mean you have to take his role, ok? You can be whatever you want to be, and no one can force you otherwise."
Chris had smiled at his mother, she had helped him calm down a bit, then he had heard a pair of footsteps coming down the stairs towards them, and then a man, still clad in his robe had appeared in the shadows and he asked in a hushed tone, "Angela? What are you still doing u-" but then he stopped and saw who it was that came to visit, "Chris?"
Chris had smiled at the man and said, "hi pa, sorry to disturb you, I just needed some advice, sorry if I woke you."
His father had just smiled at him and said, "nonsense, you are always welcome here son."
Chris had gotten up and hugged his father, he had also given his mother a tight embrace before letting her go, he looked her in the eyes and said, "thanks ma, you have no idea how much I needed that talk."
"you're welcome, Chris, now I don't want to keep you, I don't want anybody noticing you are missing."
"He then noticed the time and said, "oh shit, bye ma! Bye pa!" and with a whooshing of air, he was out of the door and in the sky, making his way back to his dorms in New York.
The sun was still two hours from rising when he had reached his dorm room, it was thanks to the milled time differences that he had gotten back on time.
Pete was thankfully still asleep, but now Chris had an idea of what to write on his assay. It took him half an hour to write it all using his super-speed, and then he had gotten back to his bed, even though he didn't need it, he still needed a probable alibi in case someone had noticed him sneaking out that night.
In the morning, he had presented his professor with his assay, the professor was stunned at his work and even graded him A+.
Now he and peter were lab partners on the biotechnology they were studying, but for their last assignment, they had needed a third partner. So, they had partnered with someone named Steve O'Connor. A redhead with blue eyes that has a creepy mad scientist vibe to him.
Chris and Peter stand outside his room and are about to knock when they hear a voice saying, "it's open!" Chris and peter just look at each other with wide eyes, then in the corner of his eye, Chris notices something flashing red. He turns his gaze and finds a security camera above the door, stealthily hidden. But not stealthily enough.
Then Peter opens the door, and they both walk inside the room. To their shock, they see several terrariums inside of the room, almost all of them are filled with spiders.
Chris notices that peter's face turns pale, so he turns to him and asks, "Dude? You alright?" Peter just shakes his head and says, "I'm deathly allergic to spiders, when I was little a spider bit me and I was rushed to the hospitals, they had barely saved my life, so I'm not exactly thrilled to be here."
"I'm sorry to hear that dude."
"Don't be, it was a while ago, but being here doesn't help."
Then they heard Steve raises his voice from where he had worked, "don't be afraid of them, they will not harm you as long as they will not perceive you as a threat to them. Or me." He added the last part in a hushed tone, but Chris had peaked it up with his super hearing.
Then he had turned towards them and said, "welcome, you may sit here." He said gesturing to two vacant chairs behind him, Chris had noticed they were extremely dusty, so he wiped them off a little, seeing this action, Steve quickly pulled out a rag and said, "I do apologize for that, I do not have many visitors."
Seeing his attempted apology, Chris had waved his hand and said, "it's fine." And they had sat down.
Chris had noticed that Peter was nervous the whole while and looked around at the spiders like they were about to jump him at any moment, In an attempt to cut the tension in the room, Chris had turned towards Steve and said, "well Steve, I have got to ask… why all the spiders?"
The teen just looked at him and then replied, "well… I was always fascinated by them from a very young age, very resilient creatures, some of them are the world's most deadly, and some of them have abilities that would make humans look… obsolete. So as you can see, I have started the process of breeding them in order to create a new species of spiders, one not yet seen on earth."
Peter, in an attempt not to think about what he just said about spiders, said, "that is great and all, but what does this has to do with Biotechnology?"
"well, you haven't let me finish, with that species of spiders, I'm going to see if we can use their advanced genome to advance humanity in ways not seen before. No more incurable diseases, aids? A thing of the past. Pancreatic cancer and inoperable brain tumours? A forgotten thing of history, I intend on making this the new reality."
Hearing the teen's vision of the future, even if a bit far-fetched, Chris was moved, he had looked at his roommate who, despite being deeply terrified to work with spiders, had nodded his head in agreement.
Chris then turns towards the redhead and say, "so, what do you need us to do?"
***Third-person pov***
In a galaxy far away from earth, a war was raging on. The Quarth, after defeating the Viltronians, had waged a war against the galaxy, intending on subjugating them all under their rule, but now they're facing a different enemy.
One of the many sentient species created by the high being of this universe also was inspired by a species of aliens he watched on the ben 10 tv show, although he had taken the liberty to change them to better suit his vision of how the species should look.
They were tall, bipedal feathery hawk-like aliens, they had six limbs in total, two legs that had three clawed fingers, two in the front and one in the back of the foot.
Two muscular arms that had three-fingered clawed hands, and two curved blades that extended from their elbows, and to finish off the look, a pair of massive wings extending from their backs.
They were modeled after the unnamed species of kickin-hawk but with an added Arian capability called 'volatilia-sapiens', but the galaxy just had nicknamed them, the hawks.
They had taken upon themselves to be the peacekeepers after the Quarth seemingly had destroyed the Viltronians, but they were not as intelligent as they were, so they had faced several difficulties. That was until, they had come across a species of humanoid reptiles that was called turta-sapiens, who looked a lot like turtles, they were a peaceful species, but when the Quarthians had attacked their homeworld, they too soon had learned the art of war.
The hawks had come to their aid on the first wave of attack, and they had soon learned that they were valuable allies to have, for they were extremely intelligent, even if they didn't live as long as av average Virltronian, they were suspected to be far more intelligent.
They had devised weapons unseen before in this universe, energy weapons that the hawks had used to their fullest. And slowly they managed to push the Quarthians back, but unfortunately, that had left them in a perpetual stalemate.
That was 10 years ago.
Now on the planet Turtugas, a young volatilia makes his way down the hallway, he has brown feathers, strong features, on his chest and on his stomach his feathers are white, his beak is yellow, and on his head, there is a golden white crest of feathers.
On his side, is his father, he is mostly golden, he stands taller than his son, he had features that would be considered very fair for his species, but the only visible blemish he had was a scar on his right side that went from his brow all the way to under his eye, leaving his right eye blind. under one armpit, he has his helmet, and on the other, he holds his energy mace, but now, only the handle is showing since the weapon is not deployed.
They reach the labs and were greeted by the prime minister of the planet.
"Ahhh, Kanjelius, we are honored to have you here my friend!" he extended his hand to which the hawk gladly took and he grabbed him by the forearm.
Kanjelius then looked at the turtle and smiled while saying, "and it so good to see you as well, Keomardo, I trust you don't mind I've brought my son with me?"
"Not at all! We are honoured that you had brought him with you to bear witness."
He then turned towards the young hawk and said, "Hello there young hawk, I am Keomardo, the prime minister of Turtugas, and you are...?"
Seeing how his son was so awe-struck that he had forgotten his manners, he had gently pushed him with his wing, his son quickly recovered and answered.
"I-I'm Mandulian, son of Kanjelius, it's my honour to meet you…" he finished by bowing his head in a show of respect, that had caused the turtle to smile and look at the golden hawk and he said, "your offspring is quite polite, a fine young hawk indeed. You should be very proud of him."
The hawk smiled and said, "I am." Then his features darkened and he said, "but I'm afraid that the time for pleasantries is over, you know why we had come here, and I wish to waste no more time that sadly we do not have."
The turtle sighed and said, "I know my friend, now if you'll come with me…"
They had walked deeper inside the labs, finally, they had reached an area that was focused on weapon development, they had several scientists in protective wear, they had tested all kinds of weapons, but that was not why the hawks were there.
They had gotten to an area where several scientists were working delicately to finish the assembly of their latest creation, it took the hawks to understand what it was, and Mandulian had asked his father, "Father? Why is that shaped like a ring?"
Kanjelius had no answer to his son, but before he could answer, Keomardo had answered, "this is our greatest weapon yet, as requested, the device is capable of just about anything the user can think of, it is capable of manifesting just about anything the user could think about, it is capable of granting it's user the ability to fly if he does not already possess it, and the ability of interstellar travel without needing a specialized vessel."
Then they turned and saw one of the scientists hand the ring to one of their test's pilots, he was wearing an orange uniform and had an almost manic grin on his face, he had put it on and slowly started to levitate off the ground, then several targets have appeared behind him and he proceeded to eliminate them one by one, but each one by a different weapon that had just appeared made out of pure energy.
The hawks were shocked at seeing this until Mandulian had heard a hearty laugh coming from his father, he was looking at the ring that was now coming into closer view.
It was golden tainted with some blue electrical lines, and in its center laid a round green gem, that had seemed to help focus the energy out of the ring.
He held it by his index and thumb and he said, "with this weapon, we have a real chance at finishing this accursed war.
And behind him, several scientists worked hard, mass-producing those rings to arm an army, in order to save the galaxy.
***Back on earth, New York university***
***Steve pov***
"So that is how you came to that conclusion to help divide the nucleus in order to achieve that outcome." Peter had said and Steve had nodded his head, both Peter and Chris were going through some of Steve's study notes, they wanted to understand what he had done so far, and where they will contribute to their project.
Chris had put his head up from the papers he was reading and said, "I have got to say, Steve, this is brilliant, but we are going to have to continue this tomorrow, right Pete?"
Just then, Steve saw that Peter was tired, he yawned and said, "yeah man, sorry but I have my psychology class tomorrow morning, but tomorrow afternoon for sure."
He awkwardly smiled at them and said, "ok then, tomorrow it is."
He then escorted the two of them out of the door and wished them goodnight.
Then he returned to his work area and opened up a drawer that was closed the whole time, he took out a vile filled with a blue liquid, he looked at it and said, "soon, after I will be done with my animal trial on these spiders, after making ones strong enough to handle you, I will test you on myself and become… the supreme human!"
Then he had put the vile back in the drawer, right on top of a comic book titled 'captain America #1', and he closed the drawer.
***Chris pov***
Chris and Peter were heading back to his room when his super-hearing had peaked something up, the sound came from Steve's room, he was laughing, almost manically.
-yup, definitely a mad scientist- he had thought to himself, it was then that some girl on their way had put on the dorms bord a registration form, she was beautiful, with ebony skin, and curly lightly blond hair.
Chris couldn't stop staring at her so she asked him, "can I help you?" thinking quickly, he looked at the board and saw that it was a registration form for the drama club, he quickly answered.
"Y-Yeah, I was interested in maybe joining the drama club?"
The girl's expression had turned from the of annoyance to that of hopeful, and she said, "really? That is great, I'm Ashley by the way." She said extending her hand, Chris took her hand gladly and said, "Chris, Chris Johnsen."
After he shook her hand she said, "well Chris, if you are interested, how about you'll write your name on that board, auditions are on Thursday, see you there?"
Chris had mustered up all of his farm boy charms and said, "yes Ma'am."
And then he wrote down his full name and stepped away from the board, Ashley had taken a closer look at it, and then she looked at him and said, "you have got to be kidding me. No way that is your real name."
Chris had held back a sigh and said, "afraid so ma'am if you want, I can prove it." He was about to pull out his I.D for her to see but she stopped him by raising her hand and said, "no, no. I believe you, it's just that… I wasn't expecting someone with that name is all."
Chris had laughed and said, "can't really blame you, been hearing that for most of my life."
She smiled at him apologetically and then said, "how about this let me make it up to you."
"oh? And how's that?"
She took out a pen and started to write down something on a piece of paper, she handed it to him and said, "how about this, when are you free to take me for dinner?"
Chris blushed and took the note saying, "how about next Wednesday?"
Ashley had smiled at him and said, "it's a date." And she walked off, leaving Chris stunned and looking at the piece of paper with her phone number on it.
As soon as she was out of sight, Chris had felt Pete elbow him and saying, "dude! That was Ashley Freeman! She is like the fourth hottest girl on campus, way to go!"
Chris had smiled and said, "nothing happened yet man, let's get to the first date first, and then we'll see if congratulations are in order."
"Oh, you party pooper."
Chris had laughed at that as they were making their way back to their room.
After getting out of the shower, Chris had send out a text message to Ashley saying, 'just thought you should have my number, ;.'
Then it has been only a few minutes before he had gotten a reply, 'glad to hear from you :) talk to you tomorrow?'
'sure thing :) good night ;)'
'good night, sweet dreams ;)'
And with that, he had shut off his phone and went to sleep.
A/N hey guys, what do you guys think of the chapter so far? As always, let me know your thoughts on this story in the comments below, please review the story, it lets me know that you guys like it and gives me the energy to keep on writing for you guys,and let me know what do you think of it so far, and how can I improve the plot, I will review your suggestions and give credit to the ones I will finally use.
Until next time.
Bookwormjohnny2 out!
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