[room is largely empty save for you and a bunch of other audience members (be they other readers or the "audience" in the studio) until a pair of PSICOM soldiers and their commander march into the room]

PSICOM Commander: All right squad, this is a big day for the Spider Fantasy series, and we were hired to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Now, open the doors and let's get these people seated in an orderly, Sanctum fashion.

PSICOM Soldier1: Uh Commander...There's already people here in their seats.

PSICOM Soldier2: What? How'd you people get in here?

Commander: I'll ask the questions here...How did you people get in here? Seating you for the big show of this story's latest update was supposed to be our job.

Soldier1: Well if they couldn't wait outside for a few extra minutes, I say we just leave!

Commander: Hold it!

Soldier2: It's obvious we're not needed here anymore, Commander.

Commander: Don't get your armor in a bunch. For one thing, we were hired for the purpose of keeping a certain unmentionable out as well.

Soldier1: What unmentionable?

Commander: Here's a hint: his initials are DP.

Soldier1: Oh, right. And what's the other thing.

Commander: Well take a look. There's still people coming in.

Soldier1&2: Really?! [look to see the commander's right]

Commander: That's right. Back on the clock, both of you. [leads the patrol as more people come in, until his words register in his head] Wait a minute...aren't there supposed to be three of you?

Soldier2: Oh yeah. Where's Marty?

Soldier1: I thought you were gonna get him.

Soldier2: Me? No, you were gonna get him.

Soldier1: No, I distinctly remember us agreeing that you were gonna get him.

Commander: I don't care who was gonna get him. I just want to know where he is!

Soldier1: Well, he's...

Soldier2: Uh...

Soldier3 AKA Marty:[finally walks in] Hey guys! Sorry I'm late, Commander. Won't happen again.

Commander: And where were you?

Marty: Uh, you mean aside from washing webs out of my armor? You do remember when I first showed up right? Several chapters back? In the Vile Peaks? When Spider-Man webbed me and another guy up.

Commander: Wait...that was you?!

Marty: [sounding really embarrassed] Yes, of course that was me. I was even mentioned by name!

Soldier1: Yeah, I remember watching some of that security footage. It was hilarious!

Marty: NO! No it wasn't!

Soldier2: I beg to differ. Hey, you in the back, hiding in that control booth! Roll that security footage!

Commander: I'll give the orders here! Hey, you in the back, hiding in that control booth! Roll that security footage!

Marty: Uh, no don't!

Commander: [aims gun at control booth] Roll it!

[Images from Chapter 8 start being played on the Nearby Screen while Soldier 1 narrates]

Soldier1: Okay, here you are. You're studying a Pulse Mech, apparently not thinking to watch your back until...Thwip, and BAM! Down goes Marty into a nice comfy web-blanket!

Soldier2: Haha! See? What'd I tell you?!

Commander: Yeah, that is funny. Let's see that again!

Marty: Aw, come on!

[images are rewound to the beginning of the clip]

Soldier1: All seems fine, for a night in the massive, natural dump, and then...THWIP and BWAMO!

Marty: You know, I don't have to take this! I'm outta here! [turns to leave only to walk right into a railing]

Soldier2: Ooh! Right in the chocobos!

Commander: Good one! Okay, enough playing around. Back to work!

[all soldiers resume patrols while the screen changes to advertise the story, until it comes to stop on an image of one of the main characters]

Marty: [studying picture for a minute] Psst! That woman up on the screen...Her name's Shang, right?

Soldier1: No, it's Fang.

Marty: Oh that's right! And who is she again?

Soldier1: You don't know who she is?! Hey Commander! He doesn't know who Fang is!

Marty: Oh thanks for throwing me under the Behemoth, buddy!

Commander: You don't know who Fang is?! She's one of the top six, or in this story's case, top seven on the Sanctum's Most Wanted list.

Marty:...There's a Sanctum's Most Wanted list?

Soldier2: Um, duh? It's posted in all of the PSICOM break rooms, including the ones on the Palamecia.

Marty:...There are PSICOM break rooms?

Commander: Oh my Etro! First that thing at the Vile Peaks, then showing up late, and now this?! I'm beginning to wonder if you're even qualified for this job.

Marty: I'm overqualified!

Soldier1: I say we test him, just to make sure.

Commander: Good idea. Hey! You in the back! Run those test slides!

Marty: Bring it on!

[test slides start running on the screen, starting with an image of Snow Villiers]

Commander: Okay, nobody help him out. Who is that?

Marty: Really? Talk about easy. You didn't even try to test me with this one.

Soldier1: Then what's his name big mouth?

Marty: It's...Cloud.

Soldiers1, 2, & Commander: NO!

Marty: Uh...Squall...Highwind...Tidus?

Commander: It starts with an "S".

Marty:...Sora?

Commander: NO! It's Snow Villiers!

Marty: Oh, that's right!

Commander: Next slide!

[slide changes to show Hope]

Marty: Harry Estabon.

Soldier2: You mean Hope Estheim?

Marty: Yeah her.

Soldier2: Him.

Marty: With that haircut?

Commander: Next slide!

[image changes to Sazh]

Marty: Sazh Klutzyboy

Soldier1: Katzroy.

Marty: Sazh Katzroy Klutzyboy

Commander: Next!

[image changes to Serah, pre-crystalilization]

Marty: Lady Yuna!

Commander: No. Next!

[image changes to Lightning]

Marty: Well hello~! Thunder Fairly!

Commander: [exchanges a look with the other two soldiers before shrugging] Close enough. Next slide!

[image shows Rosch]

Marty: Yawn Bosh.

Soldier1: Are you kidding me?!

Soldier2: That's our boss! Yaag Rosch!

Marty: Yeah...I hate that guy!

Soldier1: We work for him!

Marty: And?...

Commander: Next slide! [image changes to a very familiar superhero] Okay, you'd better get this one right.

Marty: Oh hey! Yeah, it's that guy that we're crossing over our franchise with! Uh, what's his name?...Arachnid-Boy!

Soldier2: NO! That's Spider-Man!

Soldier1: I can't believe you just seriously called one of the greatest heroes in the Marvel universe Arachnid-Boy.

Marty: Oh please! "Greatest hero in the Marvel Universe" my false ass. He's lame.

Soldier1,2,&Commander: WHAT?!

Marty: You guys tell me one thing he did that would make him one such hero.

Soldier1: He defeated Thanos, the Mad Titan.

Marty: No he didn't. Those other...big superhero guys did.

Soldier2: You mean the Avengers?

Marty: Whatever!

Commander: He stopped Doc Ock from destroying his world in this story.

Marty: No he didn't! That weird vortex thingy did.

Soldier2: I've got it! He defeated the Sinister Six, single-handedly, and then, after getting blasted into our reality, he helped the Guardian Corp stop a major disaster on the roads! [high-fives the other two]

Marty: You're absolutely right. He defeated the Sinister Six, on his own, and then stopped a disaster on the road. That makes him a glorified beat-cop that got lucky! In fact, that's what almost all of his big wins are built off of! Observe! [points to the screen while narrating the video] When he fought this green guy, the Emerald Elf...

Soldier2: I think I've heard him called Green Goblin.

Marty: Shush! As I was saying, when Spider-Man fought the guy, he basically had to swing around at random, from what few perches he could find, just so he could keep from going swimming the river, and the only reason that Goblin was killed in the end, was because he jumped out of the way at the last second. Moving on to when he saved Snow from crashing after he was blasted away from the Bodhum Vestige. His gadget was untested, and yet, he still used it. More importantly though, if he was so great, then why did he just play dodge-bullets, instead of disabling all of the soldiers and then swining Snow and his little girlfriend to safety? Huh? Huh? So much trouble coulda been avoided if he did, but he DIDN'T! And let's not forget, in Palumpolum, instead of keeping an eye on his crazy partner, he decided to mess around and make fun of Snow after webbing his mouth shut, and didn't realize he got left behind until she was long gone. And finally, the fight against Rosch. If he was so great, this should've been a mildly easy fight, especially since he's supposedly seen the new tech we've got from Doc Ock before, but instead, he got kicked around easily, until he was soon sent flying over the side of the airship, and forced to run away like a little, scared baby! Wah-wah! Bye, bye Arachnid-Boy. Let's face it, Spider-Man's got more failures and screw-ups under his belt than anyone else out there, and I am not ashamed to call him out on them. And that is why Spider-Man is the lamest hero in the Marvel Universe! Theeeee...END!

[starts bowing until he notices how his buddies are all cowering back a little in fear] What? What're you guys looking at?

Spider-Man: [having entered during the rant] Ahem.

Marty: [jumps a little upon hearing the cough] He's right behind me, isn't he?

Commander&Soldiers1&2: Yep.

Marty: [slowly, nervously turns around] Uh...Hiya, Spider-Man! Have you been there the whole time?...Did you like my video?...Are you mad?

Spider-Man: Five minutes.

Marty: What?

Spider-Man: Five minutes. That's all the head-start I'm giving you. Actually, it's now about Four minutes, Forty seconds.

Marty: [sighs and looks back to his squad] Well...Nice knowing ya, boys. [turns and starts to leave]

Commander: Don't forget to clock out.

Marty: [suddenly spins back around and points to somewhere behind Spidey] Hey look! It's Lightning Farron dressed up in a Slave Leia costume!

Spider-Man: What?! Where?! [spins around to where Marty's pointing only to see nothing]

Marty: [makes a run for it like a bat out of hell]

Spider-Man: [realizing he's been tricked] Oh, why you little-! Mary, Taser and Flame Webs! [aims web-shooters and fires designated webs at Marty]

[loud explosion occurs off-stage before Marty's arm suddenly comes back out in view, clearly having been blown off of him by the attack]

Commander: Now let this be a lesson to all of you. Don't make a Spider-Hero mad. [Turns to Spider-Man] Hey, so, I just want you to know, there was really nothing personal when me and the boys fought you in the story, in case that wasn't already clear, and I was wondering if...

Spider-Man: Out. Now. You're done here.

Commander: Yessir! Squad! Move out! [leads other soldiers out of the room, all trying their best to not look like they're running away]

Spider-Man: [sighs tiredly before turning to the recently arrived cast and author] You mind telling me why those guys were hired for your security detail today?

AN: Well honestly, it was either them or a squad of Storm Troopers. Both were the cheapest thing I could afford, since I don't like blowing money left and right...

Snow: Said the guy with an arcade, battle arena, and a library in this building.

AN: Hey! This building is a fantasy studio! You don't need to spend money to build a fantasy studio! Anyways, both were the cheapest things I was willing to pay for and well...I just flipped a coin to see whether or not I go with the group that's actually from the story series.

Lightning: That makes sense. What I'd like to know is if we're ever going to start today's chapter? It's been almost half a year now since you last updated this.

Hope: To be fair, it's been a while since he's updated a lot of stories that weren't involved with Kingdom Hearts in some way.

AN: Thanks Hope.

Hope: That wasn't really a compliment.

AN: Still taking it as a sign of you sticking up for me out of the goodness of your heart! Besides, with Spider-Man: Far From Home just around the corner now, I felt that I should try to get a few things with our favorite web-head some attention.

Fang: So then you're not going to update any Kingdom Hearts stuff for a while?

AN: Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to be working on the next chapter of Hearts of Avengers after this. Well, that or Code Avengers Cosmic and then said crossover, or did you not notice how the next chapters of all my other KH stories have Spidey involved in one way or another? Moving on...

Lightning: Just start the story! You don't really have time for anything else today because of your "security team."

AN: Fine. I'll save all my comments for either the ending note or something. Let's swing into action!

I do not own anything from any Spider-Man or Final Fantasy franchises or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

Chapter 14: So…Now What?

Upon waking up after the sudden nap that their roller coaster flight had induced on the group, they all quickly realized that there was good news and bad news. The good news was that they were all still alive, and the airship was intact, so they could just walk out the door without having to blast anything open, but the bad news was…pretty much everything else, starting with the fact that their surroundings were entirely unfamiliar to all of them, though Vanille and Fang did seem to be looking about with more curious looks than confused. Still, that did not detract from the information that they had just learned from Dysley, or Barthandelus and it really seemed to have hit the l'Cie of their group pretty hard from what Spidey could see. At the moment though, the majority of the group were more concerned with determining where the crazy ship had taken them.

"Where are we," Lightning finally asked when she failed to recognize any part of the location that they had landed in.

"Looks like a piece…of Pulse," Vanille finally noted, with Fang nodding in agreement soon after.

"Pulse? What, you mean like the Bodhum Vestige," Sazh inquired. "Something like that, this close to Eden…"

"Yeah, well, what I don't understand is, after the Purge, and all that l'Cie paranoia, why keep a chunk of Pulse under the floorboards," Fang wondered aloud.

"Hard to say. Maybe the politicians figured that they could use it to keep a secure hold on their power, or it could be something that the fal'Cie wanted to have in their corner for some other reason," Spider-Man suggested.

"Do you think this is what the Primarch wanted us to see," Hope asked.

"A place for l'Cie to accept their fate," Lightning offered her suggestion.

"Could be, or maybe there's some other reason that we haven't considered just yet," Spidey pointed out.

Everyone seemed to ponder the web-head's words for a little while, but for the life of them, they could not come up with any other explanations, and the more they thought about this, the more they found themselves wondering about the other bit of information that they had recently come to learn, while Spider-Man began to think over what had happened before they had left the Palamecia. "Do you really think our Focus is what Dysley said it is," Hope finally asked.

"You mean, become Ragnarok," Vanille clarified.

"Destroy the fal'Cie Eden, and shatter Cocoon. That's what the vision is telling us, more or less," Sazh recounted. He then let out a long sigh and said, "So, we're back to square one. Out of luck."

At that point, everyone realized that at least one person of their group was being unusually quiet, and they all turned to see that Snow was leaning against a nearby pillar, looking very down in the dumps. "Mr. Hero! Cocoon calling Snow," Vanille sang with a smile, only for Snow to just continue staring down at the floor in what could most simply be described as sadness.

Lightning was sure that their web-swinging friend would have told Vanille to leave the big guy alone, since it was pretty obvious that Snow did not want to be bothered all that much right now, but to her surprise, Peter did not do any such thing. He just kept staring down at one of his hands, quietly muttering every few seconds or so as if he were trying to solve some big mystery on his own. Whatever the case may have been, there was still something else that was bothering her, and it seemed that Hope was thinking along the same lines, because he ended up being the one to bring it up. "It's almost like Dysley wants it to come true," the boy recalled.

"Seems that way," Sazh agreed, letting his suspicions come to light when he spoke. Clearly he had no problem with admitting that there was something wrong with the Sanctum and the fal'Cie running it anymore. "He sure didn't mind explaining it. 'Here's your Focus on a silver platter.'"

"But that doesn't make sense. I don't get it. Why would a Cocoon fal'Cie want to destroy Cocoon," Vanille argued.

"Maybe it's a fal'Cie thing," Hope offered up. "You know what I mean? Some grand design we just don't understand."

Fang hummed in thought at that, and was about to ask Snow if he had any suggestions, when she realized that there was one other person who had gone silent as well. Thinking that they might be able to get more of a reaction out of him as opposed to the big hero, she turned to that person and asked, "Hey, Spidey! Nothing from you?"

"Huh," Spider-Man asked with a start, until he realized that everyone was looking at him rather expectantly. "Sorry, I was a little caught up in my own thoughts. Did you guys ask me something?"

"Yeah. What're your thoughts on what Dysley told us," Fang repeated.

At that question, Spider-Man just scoffed and replied, "You guys already know my thoughts on the whole thing. Dysley's full of crap, and we shouldn't be buying into anything he tells us. Just because he's a fal'Cie, doesn't mean he knows for certain what your Focus is. For one thing, he's a Cocoon fal'Cie, and you guys were made l'Cie by a fal'Cie from Pulse, so how could he know what your Focus is? More importantly, why would your Focus be to destroy Cocoon when the fal'Cie that branded you guys told me to guide you in whatever trials we faced? If the fal'Cie really are aware of what the Spider Totems of the Great Web stand for, it doesn't make sense that one would ask me to guide you in a quest to destroy hundreds of lives."

"He has a point," Sazh nodded in agreement. "But still…"

"But nothing," Spider-Man interrupted. "Maybe one of you becoming Ragnarok does have something to do with your Focus, maybe it doesn't. None of that means we can trust anything that come out of Dysley's mouth; not at face-value at least. There has to be something we're missing here, or something that Dysley left out, be it on purpose or otherwise. If I were a betting man though, I'd say that it was more likely that he didn't give us the full details on purpose. If anything, I still say that Snow's first guess about you guys saving Cocoon is still a more likely scenario."

"Well that makes one of us," Lightning pointed out, indicating the self-proclaimed hero with a nod of her head as she did.

Spidey could not argue with that, and no one else could either, as Fang quickly pointed out in a quieter voice than normal, "He does seem to be taking all of this pretty hard. Seeing him go from so damn upbeat to such a mopey wreck is making me feel depressed. I'm a little worried about his brand."

"I don't think he's that far gone just yet," Spider-Man countered.

"Yeah, and I think Spider-Man might be onto something," Vanille agreed. "We shouldn't believe everything a fal'Cie says. Barthandelus may be telling us our Focus is to destroy Cocoon, but who really knows for sure? He could be lying to trick us into helping him to do something else. We should listen to Serah, not some fal'Cie."

"Well whatever the case, it doesn't matter. We're still the ones who decide on what we do going forward, not anyone else, so why should we start letting someone claiming to be a being of higher power tell us what we should do now," Spider-Man pointed out. He then glanced down at his hand again, and admitted, "If anything, I'm more curious about what the hell happened when Dysley tried to blast me back there."

"You mean, you really don't know what that was," Lightning asked, redirecting everyone's attention onto Spidey, including Snow's, as he finally glanced up from the floor, just as curious as everyone else.

"Not a clue," Spider-Man shrugged. "I've gone over all of my suit's functions with Mary at least half a dozen times now."

"You've only gone over them four times with me," Mary corrected, but Peter opted to ignore her in favor of continuing the conversation with the rest of the group.

"And I haven't found anything that would indicate that my suit was able to create force fields like that, or whatever that shield thing was," Spider-Man finished.

"Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that you're a spider totem," Hope offered in suggestion. "I mean, that's what kept you from becoming a l'Cie like the rest of us, so who's to say that it doesn't come with a few other benefits as well, like keeping you protected from any attacks that a fal'Cie would try to use against you?"

"That's one theory, but if that is the case, then why didn't anything like that before when we fought that fal'Cie in the Bodhum Vestige, or when we were fighting Barthandelus," Spidey pointed out.

Hope did not have an answer for that, and from the look of things, no one else did either. They were all curious about just what Spider-Man had done, or how that shield had come into being, assuming it was not Spidey who had created it, unintentionally or otherwise, but at the moment, none of them were too comfortable with staying in one spot for very long, and Sazh proved it when he waved for everyone to start heading down the nearest, open corridor. They were still likely in enemy territory after all, so it was likely better for them to keep moving. At this point, that seemed to be the only thing they could really do, even if it did mean they would probably be walking into a trap. Then again, Raines and the Cavalry had probably launched their attack on the Sanctum by now, so the likelihood of their walking into a trap did seem to decrease a little bit, but Spider-Man was still unsure about that. If the Cavalry was going to attack the Palamecia, then why did they not see any of their ships as they were escaping from the ship? The only way that they were going to know anything for sure at this point was to keep moving and uncover whatever mysteries were hidden away in this strange place.

Just as she was starting to follow after the others, Lightning was brought to a halt when she heard Snow say something to her that she never thought she would hear him say. "Hey, uh, I've got to apologize," the giant man informed her. "It looks like I was wrong."

"About Serah's Focus," Lightning inquired, just to make sure she was clear on what exactly Snow thought he was wrong about. When the big guy just kept silent, Lightning knew she had her answer, and she did not hesitate to point out, "Not like you to second-guess yourself."

"Well, even heroes make mistakes," was all Snow could think of to say as he sat down on one of the nearby rails that lined the tunnel they were currently in. "I mean, I'm sure Spidey's admitted to making his fair share of them in the time you guys were hanging out, right?"

"More or less," Lightning shrugged in return, not entirely willing to divulge any of the personal information that Peter had shared with her and Hope just yet. Those were his stories to tell, after all. Right now, she was more focused on the blonde idiot that was getting down on himself for wanting to believe in her sister. "What about your plan to protect Cocoon?" She asked, but only received silence in reply. That did not deter her from trying to make a point though. "Either way, your faith in Serah was strong. That strength got you this far."

"In case you forgot, it looks like it all turned out to be pointless hopes. I only made it this far because I thought we were the world's last hope, because I believed Serah turned to crystal after asking us to save Cocoon. Now, it's destroy Cocoon or become a Cie'th," Snow pointed out, summarizing the information that they had learned in a few simple sentences. "It was all wrong."

"Yeah. You tried so hard to convince us that you even fooled yourself. You've been a total idiot," Lightning agreed, almost sounding like she was scolding Snow like she had so many times before now. That quickly changed when her tone turned a little more soothing, and she said, "But still…It saved me."

"I thought that Spidey was the one who did that," Snow teased, letting some of his usual self slip in for a few seconds there.

"I'm trying to make a point here, you idiot," Lightning snapped, though she did her best to keep it from being as harsh as she usually did. Snow did not need her jumping down his throat right now, at least not in the way that she had back at Lake Bresha. After making sure she was completely calm again, she continued on with what she was saying. "You trusted Serah, so let that faith drive you. It even made me want to believe, and from what I can tell, Spider-Man still believes in it."

Lightning left it at that, and then turned to march off after the others, leaving Snow alone with his thoughts. He knew that the ex-soldier had a point in what she was saying, and he was a little surprised that his supposedly misplaced faith in Serah had made Lightning of all people want to believe that he was right, but he still could not shake the feeling that there was a chance that Dysley had been telling them at least a little bit of the truth. He knew that Serah had no control over what her Focus may or may not have been, but at the same time, he did not want to believe that it was to help gather the necessary tools for destroying Cocoon. All the same, what if it was true, and Serah turned to crystal because she had, unintentionally gathered them all together so that they could become a new batch of fresh l'Cie? Snow just did not know.

Eventually, he reached into his pocket and pulled out Serah's crystal tear, which he had held onto ever since the girl had first turned to crystal, keeping it as safe as possible with every step of the way, and held it out in front of him. Thinking that he may receive some answer from his girl if he spoke to it, even it may have seemed a little silly to some, Snow could not help but mutter, "Serah…Talk to me, baby."

He did not receive any kind of reply, of course, and that only served to make Snow a little more depressed, so in the end, he merely pocketed the crystal tear once more, and turned to join the rest of the group in their forward march, wishing that he had gotten some kind of reply from Serah's tear.

The group did not get too far in by the time Snow had caught up with them again. In fact, they had actually waited for the big guy to catch up before they went anywhere, since they did not want to get separated again. Sure from the look of things, Dysley would probably want them all together while they were here, but they were not willing to take any chances, Spider-Man more so than anyone else. That still left a few questions unanswered that they were only now starting to really think about, but the only reason for that was because they were more focused on the information that Dysley had revealed to them about their Focus back on the Palamecia.

The thing that they were most worried about was their current location. There was no denying that the place looked like a piece of Pulse, based on the observations of the two Pulse natives in their group, and what they had all seen in the Bodhum Vestige along with a few of the things they ran across down in the Vile Peaks, but beyond that, it was hard to really know for sure just where they were. All they really knew was that one minute they were flying through the skies of Eden, and then the next, they had flown into a large structure and ended up in here without any way back out. Some of them had considered trying to take the airship back the way they came, but after the wild flight they had experienced, and considering the fact that PSICOM was probably right outside waiting for them to reemerge, the idea was quickly shot down, so the only option left for the team was to explore their odd surroundings and figure out just where they were based off of what they saw as they moved further inside.

As they continued their cautious approach, Vanille and Fang slowly started to look like they were beginning to recognize a few things in the place, but from what Peter could tell, it was not due to having been in the place or a similar location before. If anything, the two Pulsians just looked like they were only able to recognize their surroundings based on things they had heard from others or seen in picture, and while that could help a little, it was not a perfect answer. With little other options, Peter finally decided that he should just ask the more well-traveled members of their group to see if they had any thoughts on where they were.

"So, any ideas on what or where we've landed," the web-head asked once he was standing between Sazh and Lightning.

"Not sure," Sazh shrugged. "All I know is that I definitely was not flying us here. The ship did all the flying and shooting, and I'm not talking about some jacked-up autopilot, either. Something wanted us to make it out of there, into this place, and made sure we did."

"Well what do you expect? I mean, I doubt any of us missed the fact that the ship we were flying had been some weird owl before it transformed, right," Peter reminded the older man. When Sazh shrugged in consent of that point, the web-head prepared to turn to the other person he was going to question when he noticed how Sazh's gaze had turned to Fang and Vanille and lingered for a few minutes. He probably would have made a joke or a teasing remark about this had he not noticed that Sazh was looking at them with a little hesitancy and a bit of contempt, though it was more so in the case of Fang than Vanille, and that was enough to get the web-head worried. "Are you sure you're okay, Sazh? You look like something's bothering you."

Sazh turned to the web-head and was about to insist that everything was fine again, but somehow, he just knew that Spidey would not buy it. So, he just sighed and decided to come clean. "Vanille told me everything. Told me who was responsible for Euride Gorge."

"You mean the fact that she and Fang had caused some kind of incident," Spider-Man asked, just to clarify. Sazh nodded in reply, and that prompted the obvious question to come out of the wall-crawler's mouth. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well…I had taken my son, Dajh there that very same day. He said he wanted to see a fal'Cie, so, I took him to go on a tour of the Euride Gorge plant. Thought I'd surprise him with a chocobo chick to take home, but the second I turned my back, into the energy plant he went. Dajh ended up coming across Vanille and Fang when they were about to attack the Sanctum fal'Cie, and as a result, it did the only thing it could, and made Dajh a l'Cie to protect it."

"What?! You're telling me that…That your kid is a l'Cie," Spidey gasped, and from the look on her face, Lightning was just as surprised.

"Yeah," Sazh sighed sadly. "PSICOM showed up right after that to take custody of him, and then, it was one test after another to try and figure out his Focus. They never figured out what it was until Dajh found me and Vanille at Nautilus." At that point, it looked like Sazh was going to start tearing up, and the two soon discovered why when he next spoke. "My boy turned to crystal right there before my eyes, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. Nabaat said they were going to put a memorial in Eden where they would put his crystal on display when they captured me and Vanille, but he's just a little boy. She acted like she was doing him a favor by keeping people from knowing that his old man is a Pulse l'Cie, and making it so he would be treated as a 'monument to sacrifice,' as she put it. I never wanted any of this for Dajh, and now…"

"The kid who surprised them…That was Dajh," Lightning noted, remembering that detail from the story Fang told her and Peter back in Palumpolum.

"Yeah," Sazh confirmed. "After that, he somehow picked up the ability to sense things from Pulse, and he ended up being the one to find the Pulse fal'Cie in Bodhum. I figured his Focus had something to do with it, but since he's still just a little boy who didn't know how to fight…"

"You decided that you would take his place and carry out the fight for him," Spider-Man finished. "That's why you were on the train with us. You thought that Dajh's Focus was to destroy the Pulse fal'Cie and anything related to it."

"Yep, and you know the rest from there," Sazh confirmed. He then gave Lightning a sad look as he added, "I guess I never really understood how it must've felt, seeing what happened to your sister. Not until I saw my own son turn into a crystal right in front of me. I'm really sorry about that, Lightning."

Lightning did not say anything for a few moments, but eventually she stepped closer and placed a hand on Sazh's shoulder in an attempt to reassure him as she gave a small ghost of a smile and said, "It's alright. If anyone gets how hard that is, it's me, and to some extent, Snow understands too. If you ever need to talk about it though…"

"Yeah, I won't hesitate to ask either of you," Sazh confirmed with a thankful smile. "Thanks Soldier-Girl."

"Call me Light," the ex-soldier requested. Sazh had certainly earned the right to use her nickname at this point.

"Nah, I think I'll just stick with Soldier-Girl for now," Sazh joked, earning amused looks from both Lightning and Spidey.

As his chuckles died down though, Spider-Man's gaze wandered over to the Pulse girls, and he then said, "So…are you okay with…"

"Don't worry, I'm fine. Vanille and I have pretty much buried the hatchet long before now after a fair bit of drama in Nautilus, and you know, being locked up in a cell together on the Palamecia, but…" Sazh insisted, only to trail off at the end as he looked towards Fang. The other two looked like they were about to question him about that drama he mentioned, and if he would be okay working with Fang, but he waved them off before they could even breathe a word to him on either matter. "Ah, never mind. Now's not the time."

He wanted to argue with the old man on this, but Spider-Man found he could not. Sazh was right. This was not the time to be getting into topics like that, and they could not afford any distractions or matters that could divide them in the heat of the moment. So, he silently nodded in agreement of setting it aside, and returned to the previous matter. "So, Light, you have any ideas on just where we are," Spider-Man asked.

"Not sure," Lightning admitted. "I want to say we're close to Eden, but…it's hard to really be sure right now."

"Well, then I guess the only way we'll know for sure really is to take a look around," Spider-Man sighed in defeat. He had really been hoping one of these two had some idea on where they were, or at least where an exit to this place could be, but that hope had now been completely dashed away.

Without another word being said between them, the three continued to follow after the rest of their friends, only stopping to make sure that Snow was still following behind them. They were all understandably worried for the big guy, so it only made sense that they kept checking on him every so often. Eventually, the whole group came to a stop just as they entered a massive room that seemed to be lined with large capsules that seemed to be lined up along rails that hung several feet up above the floor. In short, the whole place held a foreboding sense to it that would probably make any other resident of Cocoon think that they had actually stepped onto Pulse itself, and if he were to be perfectly honest, Peter was feeling something similar to that as well. Vanille and Fang had mentioned that this place seemed a lot like a piece of Pulse, but in Peter's opinion, this seemed like a lot more than just a small piece.

"I can't believe we're still in Cocoon," Hope finally admitted, voicing the observations everyone had made of their surroundings in that one sentence.

"It's kind of creepy," Sazh agreed.

"No foolin', but it still doesn't explain why Dysley had that airship fly us here, or anything else for that matter" Spider-Man added. He did not want to be the wet blanket, but if he did not, then someone else would have.

Before anyone else could provide further comments, the floor suddenly seemed to light up in a large image of the Pulse l'Cie brand beneath their feet. It was hard to say if it was doing so because they had unknowingly tripped something, or because of the fact that most of the group were l'Cie, but none of that mattered. All Peter knew was that the moment that the image had cut on, the others had all started groaning in pain while holding onto wherever their brands were on their person as they seemed to glow a little too. Even Fang's brand was reacting to whatever weird thing was going on, despite how messed-up it may have appeared, and only Lightning seemed able to fight through the pain in order to stand up straight. Peter would have moved a little closer to check on the others had a sudden spark of pain not suddenly flashed through him as well, and when it did, the spider emblem on his chest seemed to glow a little too, much like it had back on the Palamecia and when the others were first made l'Cie. They all continued to gasp and groan in pain with their marks glowing until the light on the floor finally disappeared, while the lights on the various capsules seemed to come alive. Not that any of them really noticed, as they were all more concerned with whatever had just happened to them.

"Is…Is everyone okay," Peter panted. His own sudden flash of pain may have started later than the others, but for some reason, he was looking just as heavily worn down by it as they were, if not more so.

"Yeah. I think so," Lightning answered for the group after seeing everyone give small nods in response.

"What the…" Sazh started to mutter until a loud clanking sound cut him off.

The source of the clanking turned out to be the large capsules that were closest to them opening up, and from those same capsules came several Pulse robots like some of the ones that the group had encountered back in the Vile Peaks. The only difference between those machines and the ones before them was that these robots were in much better shape, looking as if they were fresh off the assembly line, and they could only assume that meant they were probably going to be tougher customers to deal with.

"Oh great. More robots. Why is it always more robots," Spider-Man groaned as he crouched down in preparation to attack.

"Hey, those aren't just robots. They're Pulsework Knights," Fang snapped in correction.

"Does that even matter?! They're still about to attack us," the web-head retaliated, and as if to prove his point, one of those very Knights suddenly swung its large hand down at the web-head barely more than a few seconds later.

Luckily, Spider-Man was able to jump clear before the robot could hit him, and he easily returned fire by shooting off a few rounds of Taser Webs. The electricity-infused webbing easily stunned the machine, and left it open for when Lightning, Hope, and Snow rushed in to hit it as hard as they could with their respective weapons and attacks. Seeing as those four were focusing on the first Pulsework Knight, Fang, Sazh, and Vanille turned their attention to the second one, with Sazh firing out a few bursts of magic-infused bullets from his guns, while Vanille just shot regular spells at it from her Binding Rod. Fang used that distraction to drive her spear into the robot several times over, either by bashing it with the blunt ends of the staff, or stabbing it with the bladed tips, but it was not until Spidey had fired off a few webs to restrain the robot that they were able to really attack the machine without worry.

It was not all that easy, as both machine were able to recover quickly and retaliated, and they were definitely as tough as they appeared to be, because their punches and slaps really hurt, as Snow soon learned when he took a few blows from one that were meant for Hope. Luckily, Hope was able to get even for the big guy, as he infused his boomerang with lightning magic to stun the Knight again, and after casting a few powerful fire spells, the boy ended up destroying the first Pulsework Knight, with a little extra help from Vanille, that is. As down on himself as he was, Snow was not about to let a couple little kid that were barely more than half his size show him up, and he soon charged back in again, freezing the second Knight with a few rounds of ice magic, both in terms of actual spells, and a Froststrike or two. Sazh then used his own version of Flamestrike to finish off the robot, with Fang, Lightning, and Spidey lending a few extra hands in further damaging it.

Having dealt with the mechanical menaces, the team holstered their weapons and moved to an area where they could get a better view of their surroundings. It was not that hard to find such a place, because the next flight of stairs that they climbed actually provided them with that very view that they were looking for. What they saw those was not something that they were expecting. While the Bodhum Vestige appeared to be like a massive labyrinth that was liable to change at any moment, this place most definitely looked like a massive factory for something, with more of those strange capsules lining the walkways, or hanging down from the rails above their heads. The guardrails along those walkways only further reinforced that idea, but as she looked around the area, Vanille had another thought on what this place could be.

"This place…It must be an Ark," the redheaded girl eventually hummed.

"An Ark," Lightning repeated in question.

"That's what they called 'em," Fang replied.

"Okay, so assuming that you mean ancient Pulsians when you say 'they,' what exactly is this Ark thing, because I get the feeling it's not what I'm thinking it is," Peter questioned, his mind having already gone to the story of Noah's Ark the minute he heard Vanille's observation.

"Long ago, the fal'Cie who made their home on Gran Pulse were afraid of invasion from the outside," Vanille explained, sounding far more serious than Peter, Lightning, Snow, or Hope had ever heard her sound. "As part of their battle preparations, they created an army of living weapons."

"You mean like l'Cie," Spidey guessed, having already figured that was the idea that had formed in everyone's minds, given how Fang and Vanille had ended up on Cocoon.

"Not exactly," Fang refuted. "The l'Cie were really more like super soldiers that they called upon in this case, but they never made any l'Cie that were to be kept in the Arks. When she says living weapon, we're talking like machines that were either made to think for themselves, or that had once been a living creature. Kinda like those monsters that the Sanctum army deploys from time to time, only these were a lot more advanced and powerful."

"And they stored those weapons in Arks, and they hid the Arks all over the world," Vanille concluded her statement from earlier.

"You really seem to know a lot about these things," Hope could not help but realize.

"Everyone on Gran Pulse knew the legend," Fang revealed. "Most of us never believed in 'em. A few people tried searching, but they never found a thing. Who'd have thought to look on Cocoon?"

"So, this is basically a Pulse armory," Lightning summarized, earning a confirming hum from Fang soon after.

"Right under our noses. That's some secret they kept," Sazh added on.

"No kidding," Spider-Man agreed, his mind already starting reel with possibilities of what they could find and do in this place. Out of all those things though, one thought did stick out, and it seemed like Sazh had been wondering the same thing.

"Just what are those Sanctum guys really up to, hiding something like this here, and then tossin' us into it," the old pilot questioned.

"Hard to say at this point," Spider-Man shrugged, figuring he might as well voice some of his thoughts aloud for everyone. "Maybe they wanted to have an edge in case Pulse did prove hostile and attacked, or maybe they reverse-engineered some of the stuff in here for their own purposes. The only other thing I can think of would be to say that Dysley would have wanted to use the weapons in this place to launch an attack on Cocoon and blame it on Pulse so that he would have an excuse to go to war with the world below."

"You really think he would do something like that," Hope asked.

"Hey, the guy just exposed himself to us as a fal'Cie, and he's shown that he's clearly not all there in the head. Add in some of the folks that we've seen and met who honestly believe the anti-Pulse conspiracy crap, and it wouldn't surprise me," Spider-Man shrugged, having seen similar actions being taken by a certain master of magnetism back when mutants were still feared and hunted.

"The story's not done. There's more," Vanille interrupted before anyone could come up with any other theories or further question the web-head.

"They used to say the Arks had a more practical purpose," Fang revealed in her friend's place.

"Huh. Really," Lightning hummed in question, suddenly very curious about just what else these Arks could be used for.

"Yeah," Fang nodded in confirmation, but from the tone of her voice, it did not sound like something she was currently too fond of thinking about. They all found out why when she told them what the more practical purpose was. "To force l'Cie to master their shiny new powers."

"Okay, so, I get it," Lightning mused. "Dysley's goal is to forge us into stronger weapons. Right."

"Not Cie'th, but monsters all the same," Sazh finished for the ex-soldier with a shake of his head.

"Think of it as training for the fight ahead," Hope offered in confidence.

"Hope's right," Spider-Man agreed. "If Dysley wants you guys to get stronger and master all of your new powers, then I say we play along for now. Once we're done, you'll all be the perfect l'Cie warriors, and we'll show him just how bad an idea it was to give us a training ground for improving your abilities. Besides, we could use the extra training."

While Lightning could be heard muttering under her breath about how she had told Peter not to call them l'Cie warriors again, the entire group did have to agree with his assessment of the situation. They could use this place to help them get stronger and put a stop to Dysley's plans, assuming that they were still going to follow through on that option and mastering all of their powers did seem like something that would benefit them in the long run no matter what may happen later on down the line. Still, hearing Spider-Man's last statement did not really sit too well for some of the group, and those members did not hesitate to make it known.

"What do you mean 'we could use the extra training,'" Fang demanded rather crossly.

"I agree with her. You know what we're all capable of," Lightning stated with her arms crossed.

"Correction, I know what you and Hope are capable of, I've started to get an idea about a few things regarding what Fang and Snow can do, and I can only guess as to the full extent of what Sazh and Vanille can do," Spidey corrected. "This is the first time this whole group has been together since the Vile Peaks at least, and we've all been through a quite a few changes since that time. It's important that we all know the full extent of what each of us can do, and figure out how we can build on that, both as a team, and through our own personal training."

"What? You saying that the fight with Barthandelus wasn't enough of an indicator on what we can all do," Snow inquired, finally speaking up for the first time since they entered the room.

"Of course it wasn't. We were all more focused on just winning the fight, and we couldn't really stop to appreciate whatever new changes each of us have gone through," Spidey waved off. He then went on to further explain the reasoning for his statement, by saying, "What we really need to do at this point, is get a better idea on what we're all capable of, and then we can worry about strengthening your powers and coordination as a team." In order to prove his point, he looked to the two who had been unwilling guests on the Palamecia just a few short hours ago, and made sure that they knew he was addressing them as he spoke. "Sazh, while you may now have the ability to summon an Eidolon like Snow and Light, I'm guessing that it's a power that you've only just acquired very recently, and that you and Vanille have not really done too much fighting or work in strengthening your powers."

Sazh sheepishly rubbed the back of his head at that remark, proving the web-head was right in his guess before Spidey moved on to the girl he had been traveling with up until then. "Vanille, from what I heard from Fang, you're really good with magic, but somehow, I don't think you've been getting in that much practice since you came out of your crystal nap, even with all the fighting that we did back in Lake Bresha and later on the Vile Peaks. We need to change that as quickly as possible." He then turned to the youngest member of their group before continuing. "Hope, you've definitely proven to be good with magic, and that you've got a reasonable amount of skill in the basics of my personal martial art style, but there's still a great deal to improve on when it comes to your hand-to-hand combat abilities, both with and without your boomerang. Lightning on the other hand, is the opposite of Hope in that she needs to work on her magic a little more, and I've still yet to truly see just how much Fang is capable of since most of the time, she's only ever fought with her spear and basic combat abilities."

"And that just leaves me. So what's my problem," Snow finally asked, feeling that he should at least try and lighten the mood a little, given how Lightning looked like she was going to punch the web-head for his analysis of her abilities. At least, that was the impression that he got, but while she did seem to withdraw into herself a little, Fang noticed that Lightning was only putting up that front to hide the fact that the rosette had flinched a little at hearing of her shortcomings in terms of l'Cie powers.

"I'm glad you asked," Spider-Man replied. "The most obvious fact is that your go-to strategy is to just tackle things head-on without any consideration for anything else. That may have worked for your time leading NORA, and to some extent, back during the Purge, but it's not gonna fly anymore. From what I can tell, you're capable of taking on some serious hits and getting right back up again, a trait that's actually something that every Spider-Hero I've ever met can boast of, including myself, so maybe try thinking of ways that you can improve on that, and try to increase your tolerance for how much damage you can take before it makes you collapse. To make a long story short, I could go on all day about the things we could all improve on and try to change up, but right now, I think it would be better if we just focus on the more obvious stuff that I just mentioned and worry about everything else when we get to someplace where we don't have to worry about running into trouble around every corner."

As if to prove his point, everyone suddenly heard another set of large capsules begin to open up, and they all turned around to see more Pulsework Knights climbing out of the containers and begin marching towards them. "Aw, these guys again," Sazh groaned upon seeing the mechanical menaces.

"Fun times," Lightning sarcastically remarked in agreement.

"Speak for yourself. I hate robots," Spider-Man grumbled.

Hope on the other hand, did something a little more useful, and quickly pointed out a way to avoid another fight once his eyes caught sight of it. "Over there! We can get away down that way," the boy shouted.

After turning to make sure Hope's analysis was true, Spider-Man switched over to web grenades and fired off a couple to keep the Pulsework Knights from being able to chase them. He then waved for everyone to start moving, while shouting, "Snow, ice up the floor and these tin cans' feet! If they really are as smart as Vanille and Fang say they are, then maybe they'll think twice before trying to cross a floor covered in ice just to chase us. Light, Sazh, give us some covering fire!"

The big guy nodded in response and immediately let loose a few blasts of ice magic, freezing the robots where they stood and then turning the floor between them and the machines into a makeshift ice rink, just in case they broke free. With his work done, he quickly followed after the others with Spider-Man following right behind him as Lightning and Sazh fired their respective guns at the machines to further discourage them from following the group. Having effectively shaken off the machines, the group proceeded onward into the Ark, hoping that they were ready for whatever challenges awaited them inside, and that they could improve one what Spidey had mentioned to them as they went.

Fang and Vanille were not kidding when they said that the place was a massive Pulse armory that could be used to force l'Cie to master their new powers, as the gang all found out after barely more than a few hours of going around the Ark. If they were not fighting more robots, then they were more than likely running across some type of monster that was sure to be found on Pulse, and many of those creatures were the type to spew some kind of disgusting slime at whatever poor sap came into their sights. Many of the strange creatures and machine were easy enough for the l'Cie and their wall-crawling friend to deal with, but there were the occasional opponent that gave them a bit more trouble. For the most part though, a lot of the monsters they fought had left some of the team feeling pretty disgusted afterwards, given that the fight usually ended with them having some variety of monster muck on them.

"Eww," Spider-Man groaned as he flicked off some green slime that had splattered on him after Sazh had blasted another blob monster apart. The monster in question being what Vanille called a Phosphoric Ooze, and apparently it was made of some very toxic slime, but all Peter knew was that it was still very disgusting to fight the creature. "I think these things are even more disgusting than some of the supervillains I've fought or anything I've seen in New York sewers, and that's saying something."

"Oh come on, it can't be that bad," Fang scoffed in disbelief.

"Trust me, Fang. You do not want to get me started on the kinds of things that could be found in what could be considered a 'clean' part of the New York sewers," the web-head immediately countered.

"Well what about your villains? How disgusting could they be," Hope asked, honestly curious.

"I've fought a guy by the name of Hydro-Man, who is basically living water, and can draw water from any nearby source, including the sewers, a giant man-rat by the name of Vermin, not to mention various reptilian enemies that all seem to gravitate towards the sewers more often than not, plus Kraven can be pretty disgusting even without the fact that he hunts me like an animal and intends to kill and stuff me like some kind of trophy to hang on his wall, and that's just all the stuff I can think of off the top of my head," Spider-Man easily recounted, making everyone cringe a little before he had even gotten half way through the list.

"Sorry you asked, huh, kid," Sazh inquired.

"A little bit, yeah," Hope admitted.

"I'm fairly certain that Kraven the Hunter has never expressed any such desire to treat you as most hunters would other trophies they've acquired in their pursuits, Peter," Mary suddenly interjected.

"Trust me, Mary, there are some days I can't help but wonder, and that's without what happened a few years ago," Peter replied to the AI, drawing curious glances from everyone.

"What happened a few years ago," Lightning ended up asking.

Peter quickly turned quiet at that before he softly replied in a near growl, "I'd rather not talk about it. Let's just say that there's a reason why Julia is the second Madame Web, and Kraven is a big part of that reason, as well as a small part of the reason why the original Scarlet Spider is no longer around."

It was obvious to everyone from his tone that Peter did not want to talk about that particular subject, so they all immediately dropped it in favor of continuing to explore the Ark. This meant that they ran across more of the rather disgusting monsters, along with a few more Pulsework Knights here and there, but eventually, they did start running into some bigger and tougher enemies more and more. Thankfully, the more disgusting enemies were left behind in favor of some stranger one, at least in Peter's opinion, like the Skata'ne and the Stikini, but the fights were not made any less difficult. If anything, they were all forced to fight even harder, with some of them finding that their usual spells were growing stronger as well.

The only thing that was more impressive about their trek through the Ark was just how massive the place seemed to be. From what they had seen of the structure outside before coming into this place, it had not seemed like it was more than a few stories tall, but the deeper in that they went, the larger it seemed to become. More often than not, they came into rooms that could not have possibly fit into a building like the one that they had flown through in order to enter the Ark, and Peter was convinced that they were going very far underground. Sazh and Lightning both insisted that idea was impossible since Eden was a city that rested in the skies of Cocoon, but Peter had easily countered that the two had admitted to not being sure on whether or not they were even close to Eden, and Snow had soon agreed with him. Even if the Ark was located somewhere in the Sanctum's seat of power, this place was just too big and went down a great distance more than what Snow had long thought was possible for what counted as underground for the city in the sky.

Eventually, all these thoughts about the Ark made everyone stop to think for a minute when they came to a large room with massive, mechanical creatures that appeared to be locked in some kind of stasis fields. No one was too worried about the weird creatures, seeing as it looked like they were of no threat to them at the moment, so they had no problems with trying to figure out the puzzles that were now before them once again. "What's the Sanctum up to? Could they actually be planning to start a war," Lightning questioned.

"It is starting to look that way the more we see of this place," Spider-Man reasoned. He then paused to think before eventually suggesting, "Or maybe…the stuff we're seeing in here is part of some elaborate backup plan Dysley has in case you guys don't follow through on what he says your Focus is, or in case it turns out that he's wrong about that same thing."

"Elaborate is right. I mean, how would he even get all of this stuff out of this place and into Cocoon, and would he really be able to spin that this stuff came from Pulse that easily without anyone questioning it," Sazh pointed out.

"People will believe just about anything someone in power tells them, especially if they see enough proof, or if they're just scared enough," Fang informed the old pilot. "I mean, just look at what happened to me and Vanille. We became l'Cie partly because we believed the horror stories that everyone back on Gran Pulse used to tell about Cocoon, and we wanted to fight the vipers. Now look where we are; stuck in the so-called floating nest of vipers and fighting for our lives with some of the people we're supposed to hate."

"To be fair, you are still fighting against some of the people of Cocoon, so it's not like you've been completely caught in our coils," Spidey countered. When he got a lot of reproachful looks from everyone who was actually from Cocoon, he could not help but sheepishly shrug and say, "Sorry. I can't help it sometimes. I just…It's just become a habit of mine to make bad jokes in tense situations."

"I wouldn't say it was that bad," Fang chuckled. Someone probably would have argued against that point had they not all heard something metallic and very big start stomping against the floor.

When they all turned to face the source of the loud noise, a good number of the group paled a bit at seeing one of the massive machines had woken up and started stomping towards them, with its massive, blade-shield arm out and primed for whatever action it was going to take. As it drew closer, Snow could only sigh and say, "Just when you think it's safe to take a breather, another problem comes along. Seems to be just our luck, doesn't it?"

"I don't know about your luck, but it definitely seems a lot like mine," Spider-Man disputed.

"It doesn't matter whose luck it is. This over grown scrap pile stills needs to be taken apart, piece by piece if necessary," Lightning retorted to the two boys, having already pulled out her gunblade and begun to aim it at the massive beast with its rifle mode.

As the rosette started firing on the massive monster, Spider-Man could not help but stare at her for a little bit until he finally asked, "Did Light just make a quip? I mean, you guys all heard it too, right? It wasn't just me?"

"Spidey!"

"Okay, okay! Sheesh," was all Spider-Man said before he joined in on attacking the massive machine that Lightning was already firing at. He did not want to get her agitated while she was armed and fighting something, more so when she was armed. He still made a note to come back to the matter he was just talking about later though.

With all in-team banter out of the way for the moment, Spidey quickly aimed his one of his web-shooters at the monster before him, and fired off a blast of Flame Webbing. He was left with quite the shock when the burning mixture of his regular webs ended up doing nothing to the thing, and from the looks of things, it did not seem like any type of fire magic was going to affect the mechanical monster either, at least if he were to judge by the fact that Hope and Sazh's fire magic was doing nothing to it. He quickly switched to a more up-close approach that was made easier thanks to those same two continuing their barrage, and landed a few hard hits on the thing's giant shield, but from what he could tell, he only managed to make a few small cracks in it before parts of the shield seemed to break off and begin moving around his friends like some type of drone weapon. Fang was about to follow his lead and strike the shield as well, but Spidey quickly pulled her away when he noticed that one of those oversized, flying daggers was about to run straight through her.

"Thanks," the spear-woman nodded to her web-slinging ally.

"You can thank me by trying a little harder to avoid getting stabbed by any more of this thing's flying swords," Spidey easily replied. He then looked to see that Sazh and Hope were still trying to use fire magic on the giant machine, and shouted, "Guys, enough with the fire stuff! It's not working at all, so try something else!"

"Like what? Fire's my best element, and pretty much the only thing I got at the moment," Sazh shouted.

"Have you tried any other types of magic before," Spidey asked as he spun out of the way of another flying blade before webbing it down to the floor with some Impact Webbing.

"Well…I have used a little bit of lightning here and there," Sazh shrugged.

"Then try using that," Spider-Man shouted.

"Way ahead of ya," Hope called back in reply as he waved his boomerang around to unleash a blast of Thunder on the machine.

Surprisingly, Hope's spell seemed to do more damage than anything else that the group had tried thus far, and Lightning had not failed to notice that. When the machine faltered a little bit under the bolt of electricity that Sazh shot out soon after, she decided to take a chance on her hunch and immediately rushed in to hit it with a few rounds of Sparkstrike. Her attacks all struck true and did just more damage than she had expected, confirming her suspicions, and she immediately shouted, "It's vulnerable to electric-based attacks!"

Spider-Man looked back and forth between the rosette and the mechanical monster for a few moments before them before he finally just slapped his forehead and groaned, "Duh! It's a machine, so of course it's gonna have a hard time handling a few volts of electricity."

The web-head then immediately switched over to his Taser Webs and fired off as many electric web-bullets as he could, further damaging the thing, and making it jolt and shake under the constant electric assault that came from him, Lightning, Hope, and Sazh. The other three probably would have joined in on the main assault, but they were kept busy trying to keep the flying daggers off their other friends, and since Snow and Fang were not really all that skilled in many varieties of magic, they felt that they were better off continuing with that job for the moment. In no time at all, the machine was left on its last leg, with its support team completely destroyed, and Lightning, Sazh, and Hope all quickly saw to its end by using each of their more simpler long-ranged attacks; those being Light and Sazh firing off a few rounds of bullets from their respective guns, and Hope tossing his boomerang into what counted as a head on the machine as hard as he could.

Everyone ended up waiting for a few seconds with baited breathes until the machine finally toppled over and shut down. This drew sighs of relief from everyone once it had, but they were all soon on edge again when they remembered that there were still three more of that same machine in the room with them. None of them were too eager to fight another one of those things after all the trouble they had with that first one, and so, no one was surprised when Spider-Man suddenly started throwing multiple webs at the feet of the other three in an attempt to keep them from moving off their platforms. In fact, Spidey threw out so many webs at each of the machines that he ended up using all of the web-fluid that was currently in his web-shooters, but he did not complain too much. He still had plenty of web-fluid left thanks to their pit stop on the Lindblum, and the fact that he had it a point to make a large abundance of the stuff.

While Spidey was reloading his web-shooters, Sazh panted out, "I don't know about all of you, but I don't really feel like walking into anymore fights without knowing what we're gonna be going into."

"Well, it's not like we have any way of knowing about that ahead of time," Vanille pointed out.

"Or do we," Spider-Man asked in a knowing tone, confusing both of the other two. He could understand their confusion since they had not been present for the demonstration of all his new toys, so he figured he might as well show off a little more. "Mary, deploy Spider-Bot."

"I don't think you have any gadgets by that name," Mary responded.

"Uh, yes I do. Remember? You told me about it back on the Lindblum, when we were testing out my suit's capabilities," Peter reminded her.

"I don't remember that. The closest thing to a Spider-Bot I can recall you activating would be the reconnaissance drone."

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, and I told you on the flight over to the Palamecia we were going to call it the Spider-Bot," Spider-Man insisted. He then slumped his shoulders in a tired manner when he finally realized, "And you're just messing with me again, aren't you?"

"Pretty much, yeah. But it's nice to see that you're catching on," Mary teased.

"Just activate the little flying drone already," Spidey practically snapped at the AI, and with that, everyone was watching as the aforementioned Spider-Bot flew up out of his belt and began flying around the web-head for a few seconds, awaiting further commands from its master. "Alright Spider-Bot, fly ahead and send back any and all visuals on what we can expect to my HUD, but make sure you stay out of sight."

The only response that Peter got from the drone was a series of beeps that made him think of a certain type of droids from Star Wars, and then it flew away to carry out its mission, with Spider-Man following after it a little while after the device had disappeared. The others all followed in silence as well, but for the most part, that was mainly because they were trying to suppress their laughter at the sight of Peter arguing with his suit's AI. Snow was not doing the same because he was still feeling really down, but he did at least smile a little. In fact, the only ones who were not laughing were Sazh and Vanille, as they were only keeping quite due to the fact that they had been surprised by what they just saw.

"Did he just…" Sazh started to ask when he finally rediscovered his voice.

"Yep," Hope confirmed, knowing that the pilot was referring to how Spider-Man had launched a drone from his belt.

"And has that…" Vanille continued on with the next obvious question.

"Apparently," Fang replied, knowing that her childhood friend was wondering if the drone had been on the wall-crawler's person the whole time without him knowing it.

"Huh," was the only response either Sazh or Vanille could give to that, and after a few more moments of silence, they figured that they should just follow the same course of action that they had taken when they learned about the weather control system of the Sunleth Waterscape: just shrug it off and keep on moving.

Using the Spider-Bot, as Peter insisted on calling it, the group's exploration of the Ark had become a lot easier. Now they knew when to expect monsters, what paths they should or should not take, and when they could avoid particularly tough fights. Adding in Peter's trusted Spider-Sense to alert them of anything that the drone missed with all of that, and they found nothing but smooth sailing for quite a while. In fact, the only time that they really questioned Peter was when they came to a fork in the road where he was quick to insist on going in one particular direction over the other.

"Nope, nope, nope! Definitely not that way. We gotta go this way," Spidey argued when Fang attempted to lead everyone down the path he wanted to avoid.

"Oh come on, how bad could it possibly be," the spear-woman had asked.

"Well, not really all that bad, but we should still go the other way if we want to avoid an old friend of ours," the web-head replied.

"PSICOM," Sazh asked.

"No."

"Doc Ock or one of his creations," Hope then guessed.

"Nope, not that either," Spider-Man answered, a little surprised that Hope had not figured out what he was referring too.

"Rosch," Lightning wondered next.

"No! It's another damn Behemoth, and I don't wanna fight another one of those things," Spider-Man finally revealed, his voice taking on a whining tone at the end, making everyone shoot him deadpan looks after he had spoken.

Still, the people who knew how often he had to deal with said monsters could understand where he was coming from, and they had to admit that they were all getting a little tired of fighting Behemoths every other place that they went to, so they did not question him any further on his decision to avoid the path with the Behemoth on it. That did not mean that they were able to avoid the monster in question for long, because eventually, they did come face-to-face with a Greater Behemoth, much to the wall-crawler's dismay. Not that it mattered anyway, because with the whole group together, it was not long before the monster was taken down, even when it did transform into its upright form and used its tail as a large, buzz-saw-like weapon. It was still a hard fight, sure, but it was easier now that they had more than three people fighting together.

Aside from that one fight against another the latest member of the Behemoth family, the group's exploration of this strange location proved to be smooth sailing thanks to both Peter and his Spider-Bot, but like all good things, it could not last. Peter was the first to discover what would bring their peaceful travels to an end thanks to the feed he was getting from his Spider-Bot, and even though a part of him had a suspicion about the matter, it did still come as a small surprise to him when he saw what was waiting for them in the next open area. "Oh you've gotta be kidding me," Spidey groaned when the images came through his HUD.

"What's wrong," Snow asked.

"You'll find out in a minute," was all that Spider-Man could say in reply, mainly because they were going to be in visual range of the thing his Spider-Bot had discovered for them at any second now.

Snow and the others were left a little confused by what he meant, and that confusion only grew when they finally saw just who was waiting for them in the large, open area that could be most closely compared to an arena. "Raines," Snow gasped in question, seeing the leader of the Cavalry walking towards them. Before he could really ask what the man was doing here, he took notice of Peter tensing up for a fight, while Sazh and Vanille were both going for their weapons, and immediately acted to try and calm them down. "Easy, guys, it's all right. Raines is a Sanctum officer. He's been helping us out. Spidey, you know that."

"Has he," Spider-Man questioned, never taking his eyes off of Raines, confusing Snow a little more.

"Why are you here," Fang demanded, having already caught on to what Peter had realized.

Raines said nothing in reply, but instead just continued his causal stroll, only now, everyone could feel the intensity of his approach, along with the lack of any friendliness of any kind. It put most of the group on guard, while Spider-Man was more than ready to fire off whichever variety of his webs first came to mind, but out of everyone, only Lightning found the need to act right then and there, despite any warnings that the web-head had shouted when he noticed her preparing to charge. "Raines," Lightning growled once her gunblade was drawn, and the second that it was in sword mode, she had rushed in to take a swing at the man who had once been her superior. "You traitor!"

Raines easily spun out of the way of Lightning's attack, but that did not deter the rosette for long. She immediately twisted back around and began swinging her gunblade at Raines with everything she could, only to find her strikes easily blocked. On her third attempt to attack him, Lightning found her arm being caught in Raines's grasp, and before she knew what was happening, Raines had spun her over his shoulder, sending her tumbling across the floor back towards the others, while her weapon slipped out of her hand, spinning into the air until it was caught by the leader of the Cavalry.

"Light," Spidey cried out in worry, and he took that last attack as his cue to try his hand at attacking Raines, throwing out whatever webs that he could. It all proved for naught, as Raines easily spun Lightning's gunblade around to deflect or slice up the various types of web-bullets before they could even touch him, whether it was the traditional webbing, or one of Spidey's new elemental types. Not that Spider-Man had really been aiming to hit Raines; he was just trying to give the others a chance to get over to Lightning. "You okay," the web-head muttered to the elder Farron sister.

"I've been better," Lightning admitted, showing that she was alright physically, but emotionally…well, that was a different story. No one would be okay learning that someone that was supposed to be on their side had actually just been playing them like a piano after all.

Spider-Man nodded to Lightning to show that he understood, before he grumbled under his breath, "Sometimes I hate it when I'm right." He then looked to Raines, and angrily demanded, "So was this what you were aiming for the whole time? To set us up for Dysley? Or were you hoping to make us your tools as well as part of some new revision to your goal of changing Cocoon."

"I assure you, Spider-Man, none of this was personal," Raines began.

"Oh yeah, like I've never heard that one before," Spider-Man scoffed.

"I merely put you on the path, because that was my Focus," Raines continued as he turned the hand holding Lightning's gunblade around so that everyone could see the emblem on it, which was currently glowing so brightly that it could be seen even through his glove.

The symbol that Raines's brand formed may have been very different from the one that was branded onto the members of their group, but it was still clear as day to everyone what signified Raines being; although, Spidey could not help but notice that Sazh had a bit more recognition with a hint of sorrow in his eyes upon seeing the symbol. "You're a l'Cie," Fang snarled.

"Since long before we met," Raines admitted. "I did my best to assist you, as bid by the Sanctum fal'Cie."

"Meaning what," Spider-Man demanded. He had a hunch as to what Raines was implying, and he figured that the others were drawing the same conclusion, but he still wanted to hear it from the man who had masqueraded as their ally.

"The fal'Cie have watched over you, guiding your every step. The 'luck' that saved you time and again was a deliberate machination. Why, you may ask? The Primarch—or should I say, Barthandelus—is crafting you into the instruments of Cocoon's demise," Raines revealed.

The more Raines spoke, the angrier Spider-Man became, and not just because of what the leader of the Cavalry was saying either. Oh, that played a huge part in drawing the web-head's ire, but the thing that really steamed him up was how he could see Lightning lowering her head in sorrow more and more, looking like she had been kicked in the stomach. Not that he could blame her, considering that Raines had obviously one of her idols in soldier before all of this, and he had a very good idea what it was like to have someone you looked up to suddenly turn against you like this. Still, he kept his cool for now, as he wanted to wait for just the right moment to step in and argue with the things that Raines was saying to them. There were still a few things that needed to be cleared up, and they would only be revealed if the man was allowed to speak with as little interruption as possible.

"A Cocoon fal'Cie? Why," Sazh asked, voicing the question that they were all wondering. It did not make any sense to him or the others as to why one of the fal'Cie that looked after and cared for Cocoon would want to destroy that very world.

"Why? To restore the Maker," Raines answered simply.

"The Maker," Hope repeated in question.

"The entity responsible for creating both humans and fal'Cie," Raines explained, and before anyone knew it, he was going on to tell a rather interesting story. "Long ago, the Maker departed this world, leaving the two races behind. In a sense, human and fal'Cie are brothers—orphaned by the same parent. As for the humans, they forgot the order imposed by the Maker. They began to war amongst themselves for the first time in history. The fal'Cie focused on recalling their lost deity, and returning the world to its former glory. This purpose lies at the heart of all their actions. Calling back the Maker requires a fitting sacrifice."

"Yeah, we've heard. The destruction of Cocoon," Lightning cut in, finally standing up from where she had landed after Raines had thrown her back, and glaring defiantly at the man she had once respected as a superior officer in the Guardian Corp.

"The lives of this world's entire populace in bloody tribute," Raines confirmed before tossing Lightning's gunblade back to her.

The ex-soldier easily caught her weapon, her glare never faltering, and while some of her friends may have fallen into despair, thinking that the whole thing was impossible, Spidey was of an entirely different mind. "If that's the case, then why was it that the fal'Cie who turned these guys into l'Cie had asked me to guide and protect them," the web-head demanded. When Raines did not seem to react, Spider-Man decided to press on with his point. "We've learned that the fal'Cie and their creators have a history with people like me and those who watch over us while safe-guarding the powers that allow more spider-powered beings to come into existence, so why would a fal'Cie wish for me to guide people who are meant to destroy a world when it knows that I wouldn't do that?"

"Not all the fal'Cie believe that this sacrifice is necessary. Some believed that there could be another way. Perhaps even a way that called upon the power of the legendary Spider-Totems of the Great Web," Raines informed them, revealing that he did in fact know about what Spider-Man was and why he was not actually a l'Cie. "Those fal'Cie were in the minority though, and many of them were swiftly dealt with by their brothers."

"What do you mean by 'dealt with,'" Fang inquired, curious as to what that could mean. It could mean that the fal'Cie had actually destroyed one another at some point in the past, but it could also have meant something else entirely.

"Some were destroyed, while others were forced into a lesser role than what they were meant for until they eventually cast those ideas aside. However, there were still a few that secretly held onto the hope that a Spider-Totem would appear one day to set things right, but it was never entirely certain what they believed that said totem could do to stop the grand scheme that the rest of the fal'Cie were concocting," Raines explained. He looked to Spider-Man and said, "To be honest, I was skeptical at first that such beings existed until you suddenly appeared in Bodhum that day, and then learned from Snow that you could not be made into a l'Cie. It was the first time I actually felt like something could stop the machinations of the fal'Cie who intended to destroy Cocoon."

The man may have answered a few questions, but everything he said only seemed to open up at least a dozen more for some of them; particularly Peter, who had no idea why or how he was supposed to be able to stop the fal'Cie from calling back what was basically this world's version of God, or at least what the fal'Cie believed to be their god. Before he could pry into that mystery though, Hope brought up another point that everyone was wondering about since Raines had revealed what Barthandelus and the other fal'Cie wanted them to do. "I don't get it. Why do they need us," the boy questioned. "Couldn't the fal'Cie end Cocoon with just a thought?"

Raines could not help but nod in approval of Hope's analysis. The boy certainly was bright, and had managed to think of a matter that others probably would have forgotten about due to panicking over learning what his group just had. That did not stop Raines from answering the question, but part of him almost wished that he did not have an answer for the kid. The other part of him knew that such a question would have driven them all crazy with wanting to know the answer, so he gave in and replied. "Their existence is bound to the creation and maintenance of this floating shell. It is their very nature that holds them in check."

"So basically…it's the same reason as to why you wouldn't hit yourself," Spider-Man simplified as best he could. "They wouldn't do it because it would hurt them somehow."

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it," Raines conceded, mentally applauding Spidey for his comparison.

"And since Cocoon fal'Cie can't destroy Cocoon…they needed tools to do it for them," Hope concluded for everyone.

"If we can stop this by doing nothing…We'll do nothing," Vanille decided, and for the most part, it seemed like the others agreed with her.

"Noble. I expected as much," Raines praised.

"It's also really naïve," Spider-Man argued. "Even if we do decide to not do anything, Barthandelus will still try and find some way to make this go through, only this time, there may very well be no way of stopping him. When it comes to schemes like this, the bad guys always have some kind of backup plan to ensure they get whatever they want, and ol' Barty definitely doesn't strike me as the type to put all of his eggs in one basket."

"Yes, you may very well be right about that," Raines sighed in agreement.

Before either of the two could continue their latest round of dialogue, Snow spoke up with a glare that was far more heated than any of them had ever seen on his face. Even Lightning could remember ever seeing Snow this angry before, and she could not remember him sounding as furious as he did when he spoke to Raines now. "You lied to us," Snow growled, before it steadily grew into vicious shouting. "What happened to your dream of rebuilding Cocoon for the people? Was it all a lie?!"

Raines sighed in sorrow as he said, "A shadow of a dream from when I was human. It was change I craved, and once I'd built the influence to make things happen, there was change. I gained all the power I could hope for, but was a puppet with no will to wield it. It wasn't the fal'Cie who changed. It was me."

"In essence, you got made into a l'Cie and then just gave up. Is that it," Spider-Man accused, sounding a little more angry now than he was before hearing all of this.

"Yes, I did. I had lost hope the moment I was tied to an inescapable Focus—a slave of destiny. I'd all but given up on dreams of freedom…Until now."

"What are you saying," Sazh asked, now feeling a little confused as to what the man was getting at. Everyone else was in the exact same boat as him, having noticed Raines's use of past tense when he referred to what had happened to him after he became a l'Cie, and they all had a funny feeling that they were not going to like where the man was going with this; Spidey especially so given how it was coupled with the fact his Spider-Sense had started to steadily tingle more and more by the minute.

"I'm here of my own accord, not by fal'Cie order," Raines revealed with what could almost been seen as pride. "Seeing you fight and hearing of Spider-Man's actions despite what was being said about him brought it all back. Brought back that future I once strove for. I, too, will challenge my fate."

For a minute, everyone thought Raines meant he was going to try and help them get out from whatever plan the fal'Cie had for them, and maybe lead them to the exit of the Ark, but Spidey did not relax his guard for even a minute. His Spider-Sense was still buzzing like crazy, and he had learned quite a few times that while it could be tricked under certain conditions, more often than not, it was never wrong about impending danger. This turned out to be another such time when it was not wrong, because a second later, a pulse of energy seemed to erupt out from Raines as he thrust his branded hand up into the air above him, and after the man had snapped his fingers, an energy barrier formed folded out around them all in the shape of several copies of the Sanctum l'Cie emblem, trapping them in this arena with Raines.

"Easy guys," Lightning cautioned everyone, trying her best to keep calm while helping the others to do the same.

"I don't think that's something we're going to be able to do very well, Light," Spidey pointed out as he kept his gaze on Raines.

"I thought you were supposed to be the optimistic one in the relationship," Fang teased. It may have been a bit of a cover-up for her own worries, but she was not going to deny that the opportunity was too good to pass up, no matter the circumstances.

"Shut it," Lightning snarled at the spear-woman, while Spider-Man just kept really quiet out of fear of saying something that could get the ex-soldier upset with him.

"If I can defeat you here, the fal'Cie plan will fail," Raines informed the group.

"Raines," Fang snapped, no longer in a teasing mood.

"What happened to that whole thing about believing a Spider-Totem would be able to stop this madness? Don't you think there might be a chance that could work," Peter questioned. He may not have been entirely sure about it himself, but he was hoping that Raines did believe in it enough to at least stop this before someone got hurt. Somehow though, he was pretty sure it was a vain hope.

"Some of the fal'Cie may believe that you will stop this, but as you said earlier, Spider-Man, I do not intend to 'put all my eggs in one basket.' If there is a chance that you can't stop this, then I would rather not risk it," Raines confessed. His whole body began to glow a little before it took on a surprising transformation, making him look almost like he had begun turning into a Cie'th, with the arm his brand was on taking on a massive, monstrous form, while his hair was spiked out and seemed to turn into crystal, and his eyes appeared to become as clear as glass. The only part of Raines that remained human was the lower half of his body, and even then, they could see that was on the verge of beginning to change as well, much like his other arm. "I will use all of my remaining power, and set you free!"

"This isn't going to set anyone free, Raines. All it's going to do is help Barthandelus in getting what he wants," Spider-Man argued, hoping that he could still reach him, despite what was happening. "You really want to prove that you've remembered how to decide for yourself? Then don't try and fight against us. Help us find a way to stop all of this insanity."

"I'm sorry, Spider-Man, but this is the only way that I can see, right now," Raines stated, and from what he could hear of the man's tone of voice, Peter could see that Raines really did seem to regret what he was about to do. That did not make it any more likable in Peter's eyes.

"Aw websnappers," Spider-Man groaned when he saw Raines rush towards him at near blinding speeds. Just when Raines was within striking range, Spider-Man leapt upwards and vaulted over the transformed man, landing a few feet behind Raines soon after. When his feet touched the ground, he immediately shouted, "Mary, Taser Webs!"

Soon after his command was given, strands of electrified webbing had shot out and struck Raines in the back, making him cry out in pain for a few minutes. The attacks that Raines would suffer did not end there though, as Lightning had almost instantly followed up Spidey's attack by firing a few rounds from her gunblade's rifle mode. Eventually, Sazh had joined in on the attack, peppering the transformed man with even more bullets, and allowing Lightning a chance to take a break from her own barrage so she could look over to her younger partner and shout, "Hope, Savage Burn!"

Hope nodded in response, recognizing that as one of the code-phrases that he had come up with along with Spidey and Lighting a while back for some of their team attacks. This one in particular focused a great deal on Hope's impressive use of fire magic, and like every other time that they used this tactic, he did not disappoint, because he was soon shooting off powerful fire spells with a few simple waves of his hand or his boomerang. Of course, the tactic had been changed up a bit since that time, as evidenced when Spider-Man switched over to Flame Webbing so he could add a little more heat to the fiery barrage, while Lightning made it even hotter by rushing in to hit Raines with a few rounds of Flamestrike. Once again, Sazh was quick to follow Lightning's lead by adding his own variety of Flamestrike into the mix, but Raines proved he was able to take the heat pretty well, as he eventually managed to brush off their attacks, and begin his counterassault.

The first thing that Raines did was unleash several powerful blasts of energy, and while none of them actually hit the team, it seemed that he was not aiming to hit anyone; he just wanted to split them up a little bit. Considering how the group scattered to avoid getting hit by his blasts, it looked like Raines was successful in his goal, and that left Hope wide open for whatever attack Raines intended to land when he rushed the kid at full speed. Thankfully, Hope was spared any serious injury thanks to a timely intervention by Snow. The big guy also came out unscathed thanks to some powerful defensive spells that he had been honing during their time in this place, and as a result, Snow was able to not only withstand Raines's attack, but he also had enough strength to hit back with several hard punches. Spider-Man swung in soon after to join Snow in the assault, but it did not last for very long, as Raines was soon able to find a break in the two's attacks to force them off of him. This resulted in Snow tumbling across the floor, and Spider-Man being thrown through the air right into Fang just as the spear-woman was preparing her own charge.

"Ow. That hurt," Spider-Man groaned once he and Fang had landed in a heap.

"Get off," Fang rudely snapped as she shoved the web-head aside, drawing another grunt of pain from Spidey that she ignored in favor of moving in on Raines so that she could help Lightning try and stop the monster-man before he could hurt Sazh or Hope.

"Okay. Now this is starting to feel like a lot of the times when I team up with the Defenders…and Wolverine…and Wade," Spider-Man moaned as he started to stand again, shivering a little when he mentioned that last name. Just as he was on his feet though, he felt something wrap around his arm, and he only had enough time to see that it was some of the wires from Vanille's Binding Rod before the redhead had yanked him out of the way of another energy blast. Unfortunately, Vanille ended up pulling a little harder than she should have, and Spidey was sent smack into the barrier that Raines had thrown up, which ended up being even more painful than when he was hit earlier. "Thanks Vanille," Spider-Man called out, half-sarcastically and half-sincerely.

"Sorry," Vanille sheepishly waved in response as she spun out of the way of another one of Raines's charges.

"And now I'm gonna have to add the feeling of what my early days working with Anya were like to the list," Spidey sighed as he stood up again.

"Peter, do you want to activate the Enhanced Combat Mode," Mary suddenly asked.

When he heard that question, Spider-Man could not help but pause in his rush to get back into the fight, and looked off to the side as he asked the obvious question. "The suit has an Enhanced Combat Mode?"

"Yes, Peter. It's designed to enhance the suit's durability, the features that keep you protected from harm, and the functions of your web-shooters for when you use the combat-based features," Mary explained.

"Why didn't you tell me about this before," Peter demanded of the AI. He was not too worried about how loudly he was speaking, since Raines was obviously too busy with fighting his friends.

"You never asked," was Mary's simple reply.

Peter was going to argue with that logic, considering that he technically had asked about all the suit features he did not already know about back on the Lindblum, but he knew that there were more important problems to deal with right now, so he just let out a long, tired sigh, and said, "Mary, I think Tony left out a few things in whatever programs you have that involve messing with me, because clearly, he forgot to include the parts that specify the right time and place for that stuff."

"Was this not either of those," Mary innocently asked.

"No, no it was not," Peter replied. "Just…activate the Enhanced Combat Mode."

"Okay," Mary responded, and a second later, the suit seemed to flash a little as the feature came online. Unfortunately, Peter had to halt his charge again when he heard that another system had activated with it. "Activating Instant Kill."

"Wait, what," Peter started, only to find his constant pausing had finally come back to bite him when Sazh was nearly thrown into him. Luckily Peter was able to jump out of the way, but he had to restrain himself from firing any webs to try and catch Sazh, not trusting what his web-shooters might do after hearing that last comment from Mary. "No, Mary! No Instant Kill! I don't want to kill him, or anybody for that matter!"

"Understood. Deactivating Instant Kill," Mary easily responded.

Spidey breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that, and then lunged forward with the intent of firing some more Taser Webs at Raines as he went. He did hit Raines with several webs, but none of them were the electrified variety. It was all just the standard web-bullets coming out at a rapid speed. "Mary, what the hell?!"

"Rapid Fire mode is the default setting for Enhanced Combat Mode," the AI informed him.

"I swear, you are letting these things happen on purpose," Peter accused as he spun away from another energy blast, and then ducked under Raines's monster arm when it came swinging towards him.

Thankfully, Peter did not let the troubles his suit was giving him hold him back for long, because if there was one thing that Spider-Man was really good at, it was improvising on the spot with whatever he had at the moment. He proved this when he jumped up from his recent duck and slammed a hard uppercut into Raines's jaw, followed by a hard kick to put some distance between them. Once he had enough space, Spidey unleashed a large amount of web-bullets, courtesy of the Rapid-Fire mode, and easily pinned Raines's feet down to the floor. Fang, Lightning, and Snow took that as their cue to move in and hit the transformed man with everything they had in them, with Spidey joined soon after, but they only managed to get a few hits in before Raines finally shoved them off with what seemed to be a wind spell, subsequently freeing himself from the webs.

Spider-Man was about to fire another round of his elemental webs at Raines, having already given the mental command before he landed on his feet again, when they all saw the man start to twitch and jolt as if something was wrong with him. That did not turn out to be the case, because what actually happened was that Raines sprouted six crystalline wings from his back that appeared similar to a bird's wings. Vanille and Hope did not seem to think too much of this change, as they were both quickly shooting off a number of spells in an attempt to either slow Raines down or inflict some type of harm. They did not reach either objective, as Raines merely folded his wings over his body, and blocked out all the magic that was directed at him.

When Raines spread his wings again, he lifted himself up into the air and unleashed a powerful burst of energy from his body that seemed to encompass the entire room. Everyone let out cries of pain as they were hit by the blast, and when it settled down again, it looked like Raines was the only one who was none the worse for wear. He proved this point when he flew towards Lightning, intending to finish her off since he saw that she was one of the group members that were having the most trouble getting up again. Thankfully, Spidey came to the rescue and caught the man's monster fist in both of his hands before any harm could come to the rose-haired warrior. The two struggled against each other for several more moments, Raines trying to push through, and Spidey trying to keep him back, until finally, something seemed to zap Raines from behind, giving the web-head the chance he needed to finally force Raines away.

Looking to where the last minute assist had come from, Peter had to smile a little behind his mask at the sight of the Spider-Bot floating close by, and said, "Nice save, Droney."

"I thought we were calling it the Spider-Bot," Mary questioned.

"Not now, Mary," Spider-Man tersely responded just when he felt the restorative effects of Vanille and Hope's healing spells wash over him.

"We can't afford to get hit by that again," Lightning cut in before Peter could continue his conversation with the AI.

"No kidding. Any bright ideas on how we're supposed to knock him down before he uses it again though," Fang asked, pointing out that Raines had started to get airborne with the assistance of his wings with a finger as she did.

"Yeah, I've got a few ideas," Spider-Man replied with a nod. "Rapid assault plus Spellblinder!"

Recognizing the names of the attacks patterns, Sazh quickly joined Spidey in a rapid fire assault on Raines, with Lightning joining in after she switched her gunblade to rifle mode, and Vanille and Hope both set to work shooting off any and all attack spells that they knew. Vanille even took it a step further and attempted to use a variety of spells that were meant to hinder an enemy, such as Poison and Slow, the latter of which seemed to really affect Raines quite a bit. Under all of these attacks, Raines could not continue his slow, upwards ascent and that placed him right in position for the next attack call that the group made. "Now! Grand Slam," Spidey shouted.

Snow immediately rushed in and delivered several, serious haymakers onto Raines before he finally just punched him a short distance off the ground. Raines only got higher when Fang came in and slammed her spear into him as hard as she could, effectively turning it into a baseball bat and Raines the baseball as he was sent flying higher under their combined assault. Lightning, Sazh, and Hope immediately resumed their long range attacks in an attempt to keep Raines where he was without any chance to recover, while Spider-Man shouted, "Vanille, Tangled Webs!"

"Got it," the redhead nodded in response, and she instantly shot out the wires of her Binding Rod alongside of the web-lines that Spidey shot out with a little extra assistance from the Splitter Web mode of his web-shooters. Seconds after the long-range attackers had let up, Raines was wrapped up in both the wires and webs, and the two gave a hard tug on their respective lines that slammed Raines into the ground. A few bursts of Impact Webbing later, and Raines was pinned to the floor again, but it did not seem like that was going to hold true for long. Luckily, it did not need too, as Spider-Man still had one last tactic in mind.

"Ice Storm," Spidey cried out, and Snow and Lightning both charged into action. The former had started off by firing as many powerful ice spells as he could while Lightning hit Raines several times over with Sparkstrike. A second later, Lightning flipped back and switched to casting lightning spells to keep Raines in place, allowing Snow to rush in and hit Raines with a few Froststrikes. The two kept this pattern up for a few more minutes or so, until they finally backed off and allowed Spider-Man to rush in and deliver a powerful kick to Raines's face, while Fang pole-vaulted over them both so that she was in position to slam her spear into Raines from behind.

The spear-woman immediately rushed back around to rejoin the others, with Hope already helping them get ready for another round with some enhancement spells. It ended up unnecessary, as Raines found he was unable to stand anymore after their combined attacks. "Not gonna lie, circumstances aside, that felt kinda good, actually," Peter smirked while he stood triumphantly over Raines, mainly referring to all the times that he had hit the leader of the Cavalry.

"And why would you say that," Fang teased, despite feeling the gravity of how serious the moment was.

Spidey jumped a little upon realizing that Fang and the others had probably heard him just now, despite his attempts to keep the remark as quiet as he could, and immediately stuttered, "Uh…No reason." Most of the others just stowed their weapons with knowing smiles being thrown at the web-head, while Lightning's face seemed to turn a little pink before she returned her attention to the defeated l'Cie before them, along with Peter and the others. The minute they did, everything had turned serious again. "It's over, Raines," Spider-Man eventually declared in finality. "You don't have it in you to keep going."

"Yes…I'm aware of that," Raines replied. He then chuckled a little as he said, "Ironic, isn't it? The only thing I wanted…was a moment of triumph. How it ends…isn't important. Just do what you know is right."

"That's where you're wrong," Spider-Man argued. "The ending is just as important as what you do to get there, and I promise you, it will end well for everyone. That goes for me, for the people of Cocoon, for my friends, and even for you. We can still find a way to save you."

Raines could not help it. He had to laugh a little more at Spider-Man's declaration, even as he asked, "How can you be so sure that you can save any of us? Do you have some sort of plan?"

"Not yet, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up until I find something," Spidey insisted. "Like I told Rosch the other day, I know I can't save everyone, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try."

That brought an honest smile to Raines's face, and he could only say, "Then I stand by my advice to do what you think is right…But I'll also add this: it would seem that you might actually be…the Spider-Totem who will…change this world…for the better. Just trust yourselves, and never let Spider-Man waver in his mission or conviction."

Before anyone knew what was happening, a brilliant light enveloped Raines's body, and they were all forced to either look away or shield their eyes. When the light finally died down enough so they could look at the man properly again, they were all stunned to see that while he was still in his monstrous form, Raines had turned to crystal, just like Serah and, apparently Dajh both had. No one was sure what had happened, because from their understanding, Raines was not supposed to fight them in the way that he had, but then again, Spidey was sure that he was playing along with the fal'Cie's plans by fighting them, so maybe he was right. Still, Raines had not immediately changed after he was defeated, so none of them could really say for sure. That did not stop anyone from asking in an attempt to find out.

"What? Did he complete his Focus," Sazh questioned.

"I don't think so. All Raines did was try to save Cocoon in his own way," Snow replied, and everyone was a little surprised at how contemplative the big guy sounded as he spoke. "His own way…"

No one could really ask Snow what he was thinking just now, because after staring down at Raines's crystal for a little bit more, he spun around and marched out of the arena. He did not do so in a huff though, at least, not entirely. If anything, he did it in a manner that indicated he had now been given a lot more to think about than before when he heard what Dysley had said about Serah's Focus. The only difference this time was that it was a bit more positive than before.

While the others were watching Snow leave the room, Spider-Man took the time to break off a sample or two of Raines's crystal form, intending to use it for later testing of the Crystal Cure, and as a result, he was the first one who noticed when the crystallized man began glowing again, and the one who brought everyone's attention to it. The remaining members of the group all then watched as something made the crystal disappear from before their eyes, leaving them all completely stunned. None of them could remember seeing a l'Cie that had turned to crystal disappear like that before, and they were all betting that the Sanctum or Barthandelus had something to do with the matter. They all wanted to try and get Raines back, but they knew that they would not be able to do anymore for him right now than they could for Serah, Dajh, or really anyone until they found a way out of the Ark. So, in the end, they all proceeded to follow after Snow, hoping that they would find the exit eventually.

As they continued on through the Ark, the six l'Cie could feel their magic growing stronger with each battle they got into, and there were many battles along their chosen path. From the various monsters that they had found thus far inside the Ark, to more Pulsework robots, and even a few rolling bombs, as Spider-Man called them. No matter what they faced though, none of it really seemed to challenge the group like their fight with Raines had, and for some reason, they could not help but feel a little disappointed by that. Maybe it was because the fights getting easier made things more boring, or maybe they were feeling that it was a sign that they were getting closer to being the monsters that Dysley wanted them to become from traveling through this place, but whatever the case may have been, Spidey was determined to make sure that no one even started to think of one another as a monster. Even now, Peter was insistent on saying that they were merely growing stronger as heroes in the making, and that their Focus had something to do with saving Cocoon or fighting Ragnarok, and while there were fewer people who believed that than before, his faith was helping them to keep going quite a bit. Heaven knows they needed it right now.

After spending what they could only assume was several hours inside the Ark, everyone was starting to get more than a little annoyed at the fact that they had yet to find any kind of exit or even a window to the outside by now. Sure, going through the Ark had its benefits, but that did not mean that they wanted to stay in it forever, and after their run-in with Raines, they wanted out of the place now more than ever. If anyone needed more proof of that point, they did not have to look further than the fact that Spider-Man had sent out the Spider-Bot to look for an exit as they continued exploring, thinking that the little drone would have a better time of finding something than they would. It did little to help ease anyone's nerves, so it was only a matter of time before somebody finally snapped from going through the endless maze.

That moment finally came after the group had defeated another Berserker and entered the chamber that it had apparently been guarding. The chamber in question held a single platform for the group to walk on, and looked out over what appeared to be the ruins of a sunken city, what with all the towers that seemed to stick out of what Spidey could only compare to murky water, but whatever the aesthetic of the room may have been, it did not detract from the fact that they were all now facing. "Looks like it's a dead end," Hope observed aloud.

"How about down there," Sazh questioned, as he indicated an area far below them, hoping that there was a chance that it could lead somewhere.

"Sure, assuming any of you have suddenly gained the ability to fly, or want to risk me carrying everyone over there, which would take several trips," Spider-Man pointed out. He did not want to mention that there did not seem to be many places he could web-swing from either, because that would just unnecessarily bring down everyone's moods. He then glanced about and asked, "Anyone have any other ideas?"

"Well…if the old stories are right, it's a maze," Vanille finally admitted.

"This place is a boot camp for l'Cie. All kinds of challenges from Gran Pulse are waiting," Fang added.

"Challenges, huh? To get us all ready to go wipe out Cocoon," Sazh huffed, clearly annoyed with the endless twists and turns in this place.

Spider-Man was about to object to that idea, point out that it was probably true a long time ago, and that they did not know for sure if that was still true now, but Fang beat him to the punch with a much more depressing argument of her own. "We can wait here if turning Cie'th sounds better," the spear-woman reminded everyone with her hands on her hips.

"Not helping, Fang," Spidey lightly scolded. He then returned his full attention to the others and reminded them, "Don't worry, guys. Spider-Bot's still looking for an exit, and I'm sure it'll be back any minute now with some kind of news."

Not even a second after he had said that, the little drone came flying over to him, and then returned to its resting place on his belt so that it could better relay all of the data it found to its owner's HUD. Everyone silently waited to hear what the little robot had found, but when Spidey slumped his shoulders a bit, they suddenly became nervous at whatever news that the drone had brought back. "Okay, so do you guys want the good news or the bad news," the web-head asked.

"Let's just get it over with and start with the bad news," Lightning requested.

"Well, the bad news, Spider-Bot didn't find any sign of an exit, or at least none that we can easily reach at the moment, or that I could recognize as such," Spidey informed them.

"So then what's the good news," Fang questioned, not sure how there could be anything to lighten the mood after hearing that.

"There's no sign of anymore fal'Cie, Barthandelus, or Behemoths, so we don't have to worry about any of that," Spider-Man playfully cheered. When no one else seemed to share in his enthusiasm, he slumped his shoulders again and said, "Well I thought that counted as something worth a little excitement."

The only thing the wall-crawler's comments seemed to really do was push Sazh over the edge, because the old pilot finally snapped. "I have had enough of this! Where's the way out?!"

"Way out? Who said there was one," Snow asked, but to everyone's surprise, he was sounding a lot more like his usual self when he spoke, which was all the more reason to turn and face him to see why he sounded so happy right now. He did not really look happy, per say, but Snow definitely looked a lot better than he had since they had arrived in this place, and from what Lightning could tell, the fire in his eyes that was typical of the usual Snow had been reignited. For the first time in her life, or at least as long as she could remember, seeing that cockiness in the big blonde idiot actually brought a ghost of a smile to Lightning's face, and her smile only became more apparently when Snow continued to speak.

"Bring it on," the leader of NORA challenged after slapping a fist into his open palm, and then stepped forward to stand before the group as a whole. "My mind is made up. Maybe I will end up a Cie'th, or maybe Spidey's right to say that we're supposed to save Cocoon, but until either of those things happen, I'm gonna make Serah proud." He then reached into his pocket to pull out the crystal tear, and said, "I couldn't bring myself to admit that this tear meant goodbye, and that's why I kept searching for her. But I didn't need to. Serah was here the whole time." As he continued, he gently clenched his hand around the tear and held it over his heart. "Right here, watching over me."

"She's been watching over all of us," Spider-Man corrected. "I don't if she's really gone for good or not, but if that is the case, then I'd like to think that Serah's been watching all of our backs in some way or another. Even if we only met her once or twice, there's no denying that Serah's a big part of the reason why we were all brought together on this crazy adventure."

"Yeah, and that's part of the reason why I finally get it," Snow agreed. "What this tear's been telling me is to not let our Focus win. It's not the fal'Cie we should listen to. It's Serah, and Raines, and of course, Spider-Man. Do you know why?"

"Because we've been telling you something that should've been obvious to all of you from the start," Spider-Man guessed in a half-playful voice, only to get an elbow from Lightning. "Ow! What was that…?"

"Hush. Let him have his moment," Lightning whispered. Her smile then grew more visible and teasing as she said, "I'd thought you of all people would understand the importance of letting the idiot of the group have his moment of brilliance."

Peter just rolled his eyes behind his mask, knowing that Lightning's jab at him was not really serious, but still did as she asked and let Snow continue. "Because our Focus doesn't matter," the big guy admitted. "What matters to me is that we protect Cocoon, whatever it takes!"

"Same here," Vanille nodded without a second thought. "I'll help you do it."

With that said, Snow held out the hand holding Serah's crystal tear, and soon found Vanille's hand resting on top of it, and Hope's hand came soon after. "All right," Hope declared. "I'm in."

"That goes for me as well," Spider-Man agreed as he added his hand to the others. "Whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes," Lightning agreed as she joined the huddle as well, much to everyone's surprise, except Spider-Man's. What did surprise Peter though was that he could have sworn she had flashed him a confident smile as she spoke, but he shook it off as his imagination playing tricks on him.

Sazh grunted in agreement while flexing his arms, while his chocobo chick joined in on the gathered hands and chirped excitedly in equal agreement, bringing a much needed round of laughs to everyone. "I mean, come on! When a chocobo agrees, you know you're on the right path, never mind when it's Spidey, Lightning, and a chocobo," Snow joked.

"There you go! That's right," Sazh nodded in response, while Lightning just playfully rolled her eyes on Snow's jab at her.

Unfortunately, not quite everyone was in agreement, as they all soon found out. "Well, count me out," Fang declared, surprising everyone, but not as much as she did when suddenly turned her spear on them. "If you all want to go it on your own, then so will I!"

"Hey, hey, now," Sazh attempted to placate while backing up, while Vanille just looked at her friend in shock.

"Fang," Lightning warned, one hand already clenching into a fist, while the other slowly began to reach for her gunblade.

"Come on; let's not do anything stupid here. Heaven knows you've already done plenty of things like that as it is," Spider-Man tried to advise, but like everyone else's, his words seemed to fall on deaf ears.

"Is it really stupid to say we should let Cocoon get what's coming," Fang questioned. "They hate us for being l'Cie, and they hate Spider-Man just because the Sanctum says he's a threat. What's it to me if they die? Better that than watch a friend go Cie'th," Fang argued, but after taking a second look, Spider-Man and Lightning could both see that there was a great deal of uncertainty in her eyes. Then again, that may have had something to do with the fact that one of the people she was turning a weapon on was Vanille, but that mattered little given what else Fang had to say. "If you don't have the nerve for it, I'll do it myself. Go on alone, get stronger, and smash Cocoon out of the sky!"

"Oh my god! Can you really be that dumb," Spider-Man questioned. "There's no way you can do something like that by yourself, even if that is your Focus, l'Cie or not."

"And another thing, why do you even still care after all that's happened," Fang demanded, even as a hot flash of pain suddenly shot through her shoulder. She shrugged it off though, as she was determined to get an answer from the web-head. "People out there…They think you're a l'Cie like the rest of us. Most of 'em hate you, attacked you, and would probably sooner see you dead than take any help from you, and yet you still want to help save them? It's not your problem, so why are you so determined to help even after all of that?!"

Everyone had turned deathly quiet when Fang had finished getting her questions out, partly because they were afraid of what she may or may not do if they were not careful right now, and partly because they wanted to hear what Peter's answer may have been. That silence dragged on for what felt like an eternity, Spider-Man reached up and pulled his mask off, surprising Sazh and Vanille a little when he did even though his back was still facing them, looked Fang straight in the eye, and said, "With great power comes great responsibility."

Fang quirked an eyebrow at hearing that, caught a little off-guard by how Peter had suddenly pulled off his mask like this, but she was even more surprised by his words. "What does that have to do with anything," she asked.

"Everything," Peter replied. "Someone a lot smarter than all of us told me that once, and I didn't listen to him. Because I chose to ignore that advice, he had to pay the price with his life, and ever since then, I've sworn to never ignore those words of wisdom ever again. Sure, it got hard, and did it hurt when people accused me of things that I'm not? Of course! It always sucks when people say terrible things about you that aren't true, but none of that really matters. Sure, a lot of people would believe the lies that were spread about me, but what other people say doesn't determine who I am, or who you are. You do, and not by your words, but by your actions. We know the truth about who we are, and I'm sure there are at least a few people out there who know it too. That truth will come out eventually, but until then, I plan to keep on fighting, just like I always have. It's not about getting recognized as a hero, getting praise, or even getting thanks. All that matters is doing what's right, and saving lives is always the right thing to do. Maybe some of them don't deserve saving, but that's not our call to make. The only thing we decide is whether or not we act to save everyone we can while there's still a chance."

"Even if it means losing ourselves in the process," Fang demanded. While she did get what Spider-Man was trying to say, at the moment, her mind was in a place where barely anything was getting through to her. Nothing other than the pain in her shoulder that is, which made her drop to one knee as it flared up stronger than ever. "You turn Cie'th, and there's no coming back! I'm not…"

"Fang," Vanille called out in both worry and caution, because she had taken notice of how her friend's brand was glowing rather brightly all of a sudden.

"I'm not…lettin' it end that way," Fang finally shouted, but her declaration was soon drowned out by the cry of pain she released seconds later, as a large pentagram made of light suddenly sprung out from beneath Fang's feet.

"Oh, this is looking a little too familiar," Spider-Man muttered as he and Lightning both moved to stand protectively in front of the group.

"No kidding," Lightning mumbled in agreement as a beam of light shot out from Fang and into the sky above her.

Just moments later when the light had died down a bit, something came flying down towards them from the sky. Whatever it was, it past by the group so fast that they could barely even glimpse it, mainly because of the powerful wind that blew over them from its slipstream. The being passed by their group a few more times, still flying at the same incredible speed until it came to a stop several feet above them with a powerful roar that made Spider-Man think of a few of the dragons he had encountered in the past. As the beast began its descent, he found that the comparison was probably a lot better than he first realized, because the thing, which they all finally realized at last was most likely an Eidolon definitely held a very draconian appearance. From the blood red claws on its hands, to the large, purple wings that extended from its back, and even right down to its head and the razor sharp teeth that the web-head could glimpse within, there was no doubt that this deep purple, mechanical monstrosity could have been mistaken for a dragon if someone were to only catch a fleeting glimpse of it.

"Wh-What's he doing here," Fang gasped as the others all ran up to stand around her, Vanille being the first one to reach her and start checking to see if she was all right.

"You recognize this Eidolon," Spider-Man asked.

"Only by reputation. He's Bahamut, said to be one of the most powerful of all Eidolons," Fang admitted, though the web-head still had to wonder if Fang recognized him for another reason besides that. Fang glanced at her brand for a minute before sighing and looking back to Bahamut as she questioned, "Come to take pity on me? Come to take care of a broken l'Cie?"

"That thing's here to help us," Snow asked in disbelief as he watched Bahamut retract his wings.

"Does that mean we're not going to have to fight it like we did when Odin first showed up," Spider-Man asked, his voice making it clear how much he was hoping that was the case.

"Yeah right," Fang scoffed, and that served as all the signal that Sazh, Lightning, and Hope needed to fully draw their weapons, even as they listened to Fang talk. "The truth of the matter is that Eidolons are our salvation. If we can't decide what to do next, they come put us out of our misery!"

"Wait, so you haven't made up your mind yet," Snow questioned, having not caught on to the hesitation that was in Fang's eyes before like Spidey and Lightning had.

"Snow, not really the time for…" Peter started to say, until he saw Bahamut was gathering energy in his hands, and he immediately slid his mask back on as he shouted out a quick command. "HARD LINE BLOCKER!"

In an instant, Lightning had jumped in front of Fang with her gunblade raised in a defensive position, with Spider-Man taking up a similarly defensive position next to her, and Snow quickly jumped in front of both of them with his arms crossed as he cast his defensive spell, Steelguard. When Bahamut's blast came down, Snow ended up being all that they needed, because managed to deflect the attack away from them easily enough, thanks in no small part to his Steelguard spell. Not that it really helped Fang make sense of what had just happened.

"Why are you protecting me? What are you doing," Fang questioned.

"Protecting one of our own," Lightning easily replied, her eyes never leaving Bahamut as she silently challenged him to try and make another move against her friends. "We can do without their brand of mercy, and we don't need a fal'Cie's orders, either. I'm fighting this Focus to the end, assuming it is what Barthandelus claims it to be. We all are."

"That goes doubly so for me," Spider-Man agreed before turning to Fang and offering her a hand up. "Like I said before, the only one who gets to decide what you do and who you are is you, and not by your words, but by your actions. You got this far because you wanted to keep your friend safe. Don't start going against that now, because we all want to do the same thing, only on a bigger scale. We want to keep all of our friends safe, and that includes you, Fang, so what do you say? Are you going to give up, or do you want to keep fighting along with the rest of us?"

Now that she was trying to fight back any pain and thinking clearly, Fang was able to really consider Spidey's words, and the words that Lightning had just spoken as well. Not that she needed to think on them for too long, because she knew that they were both right. There was no way that she was going to start bowing to some fal'Cie now after all that had happened, even if there was a chance it would keep Vanille from turning Cie'th. The only one who really decided how to protect her oldest friend was her, and Fang was not going to let anyone tell her differently. So, it came as little surprise when she grasped Spidey's hand and gave a determined nod in return, one that she also gave to Lightning soon after as Vanille helped Spider-Man get her back on her feet. The minute she was up again, Fang moved to the front of their group, and with a twirl of her spear, she was in her battle stance, and proudly shouting to the others, "Ready when you are!"

That made both Lightning and Spider-Man smile a little, though not quite as brightly as Vanille did, but they had more important things to worry about right now, and they quickly returned all attention to the matter at hand. "Hope, Snow, and Sazh, you three get back and stick to providing support for now. This is Fang's fight, and I get the feeling that the real help she's going to need right now is going to come from me and the other girls of the group."

"You got it, Webs," Snow cheered in reply. He personally felt that it would probably help a little more if he were running front line with the girls and Spidey, but after experiencing his own battle with an Eidolon, he knew that it was better to let the person who summoned it take point with whoever could provide the best support at the moment, and obviously, Spider-Man, Lightning, and Vanille were the best choices here.

From that point on, Spider-Man and the girls were going at Bahamut in full force, throwing every spell, attack, or web that they could at the Eidolon. None of them had fooled themselves into thinking the fight would be easy though. There was a good reason why Bahamut was considered to be the most powerful of all Eidolons, and he was proving that with every second that passed in the fight. Despite his massive size, his attacks were incredibly fast, almost to the point that they outpaced the speed of Peter's Spider-Sense, and his blows were just as vicious, assuming the deep gashes his claws left in the floor were any indication. Thankfully, no one was in the way of those claws when the attack came down, since they had all dove to the side before the draconian beast could hit them. It was not just the regular attacks that were strong either, because it turned out that Bahamut possessed all kinds of other abilities as well, including a powerful fire blast that would likely turned any of them into a burning pile of ashes if they had been directly hit. Lightning would certainly believe that when her cape was caught by some of those flames and almost ended up getting burned off of her shoulder had she not quickly put it out with some help from both Peter and Vanille. Aside from that, Bahamut also used various other types of magic and attacks, including another powerful energy blast like the first one he tried to hit Fang with before, and an attack that drew them all in close so before he blasted them all with a powerful pulse that was unleashed with a clap of his clawed hands.

All-in-all, the fight with Bahamut was not proving easy for anyone, even with the rest of the boys providing support from the background. Every attempt that they made to distract Bahamut seemed to be equivalent to a small bug bite in the sense that it went unnoticed when it actually happened. The only difference was that Bahamut never stopped to scratch these bites, and instead just focused entirely on the ones who were fighting him directly. Fang of course was always on the forefront of the group, seeing as she was Bahamut's main target, and as a result, Spidey finally began to take notice of some of Fang's magic abilities. She did not ever use any attack spells like many of the others, but she did have a good number of spells that seemed to weaken Bahamut and make him more vulnerable to their attacks, along with a few spells that strengthened her defensive strengths. This may not have seemed like much to some, but in Peter's mind, it did seem like it was enough for Fang at least. He knew from the moment that they had met that Fang was the type to get in close to finish off an enemy, and hated attacking from a distance if she did not have to, so it was little surprise that Fang did not use any spells like the many versions of Blizzard, Fire, Thunder, or Water to attack Bahamut.

Even under all of their combined powers though, Bahamut still found a way to power through, showing the strength of his metal as he did, and found a target to deliver his wrath upon. Unfortunately for him, that target ended up being Vanille, and Fang had not hesitated to come to her friend's rescue by placing herself between the redhead and the Eidolon. "You want to get her or any of the others, you're gonna have to kill me first," Fang promised, and that seemed to make Bahamut slow his advance a little. He did not stop though until Fang shouted, "JUST TRY AND TAKE ME, BAHAMUT!"

Everyone waited with baited breath as they watched the draconian Eidolon stare down at the spear woman, until it finally seemed to just nod before thumping its chest to Fang. When she heard a strong-sounding voice in her head, Fang could not help but smirk a little, knowing she had proven her resolve to this massive beast. "My strength is now yours to command, brave warrior."

Fang nodded in return before resting her spear on one shoulder, and the others all watched as Bahamut transformed in his Gestalt Mode. At first glance, and given Bahamut's earlier appearance, one would easily assume that his Gestalt Mode was that of a dragon. This was a mistake that could be easily forgiven, but the truth of the matter was that Bahamut had taken the form of a massive wyvern with incredible, large wings. A moment later, the wyvern blasted into the sky again at high speed, nearly creating a sonic boom before it turned into an oddly-shaped, purple-orange crystal that faded into the brand on Fang's shoulder. After the crystal had disappeared, Fang could not help but look over at her brand, thinking it might have changed after what had happened, but she ended up releasing a short sight of disappointment when she saw it was still as "messed up" as ever.

That did not stop Fang from smiling at Lightning a little when the soldier placed an encouraging hand on her shoulder, followed by Spidey giving her a soft nudge with his elbow to show he was just as glad she pulled that off as the others were. She was about to give the others a real voice of thanks for what they did, when something caught Vanille's eye that she had to alert the others to right away. "Look! A new path," the redhead cheered, making everyone turn to see that there was indeed now a way forward in the form of a walkway made up of what appeared to be ice-crystal colored energy. Seeing it made some of the group thinking of the crystallized state of Lake Bresha, but unlike back then, they were much happier to see such a thing now. "Maybe that thing did save us."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to call it a sign of me being right," Snow boastfully asked, only to feel a little disappointed when everyone just looked at him with flat expressions. "No?"

"Dude, the moment's passed, and besides, it's really more like a sign of me being right since a lot of what you said is stuff I've been saying for a little while now," Spider-Man teased.

"Yeah, okay…" Snow in concession of that, while Lightning just rolled her eyes a bit at the big oaf. He did not stay down for long though, because he was soon back to his usual self again, and declared, "Either way, if we keep our eyes on the goal, we'll be sure to figure something out!"

While Lightning and Sazh both shrugged at the blonde's enthusiasm, everyone else had to smile in agreement, and Spider-Man decided to take it another step further. "He's right. We've all got an idea on what we can do and want to do from here, so we should use that to keep moving forward. No more letting Barthandelus and his mind games mess with our heads. We stick together, as a team, as friends, and show the fal'Cie that our fate is in our hands, even with whatever Focus they try to force on us!"

"Well, guess it's time to 'face the peril of our plight' and 'bear witness to what our totem friend can truly do for us,'" Fang remarked, lightly teasing the words that Dysley and other similar individuals' words as she marched towards the new path. "Sounds splendid."

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it," Sazh agreed with a smile while following after her, his chocobo chick chirping in excitement the whole time.

"Alright! Let's do this," Snow cheered, and with that, everyone was headed down the new path. None of them were sure what was going to be at the end of it, but they were all now more sure than ever that they were going to be doing whatever they thought was right, no matter what happened.

AN: Okay, so looking back over most of this, I gotta admit that not very much changed this time around, aside from Spidey's presence, the additional dialogue, and anything else that was introduced in previous chapters.

Lightning: What about the confrontation with Raines? I seem to remember that initial conversation going much differently, and the one after the fight too.

AN: Well of course that was going to be different. I needed someone to give something of a start to the explanation behind Spidey's weird powers, or at the very least, why the fal'Cie who branded the group had made the request it did of Spider-Man. When you really think about it, I don't think that all fal'Cie would really agree with the plan that Barthandelus and likely a few other fal'Cie had cooked up to bring back the Maker. I mean, if they really are as sentient and intelligent as a human being, if not more so, then logically, there would be some naysayers that were against the idea, because as history has shown, no group, no matter the size, is ever able to truly agree on every decision 100 percent.

Sazh: So you introduced that here, and had Raines explain why none of the fal'Cie who are against the plan are really doing too much to stop it anymore, right?

AN: Pretty much. If you really want to get down and basic with the whole thing, then the answer is simple: Barthandelus basically pulled a Hitler and tried to purge any fal'Cie that didn't agree with him. Dark? Maybe a little, but then again, this is also someone who gave the okay for people to be thrown into the Purge by the hundreds if not thousands.

Hope: You know, after that little expose that Spidey gave on our strengths and weaknesses, I was kinda expecting to see a little more of how we developed our abilities while in the Ark.

AN: Well, there was just so many other important things going on this time, that trying to fit in all those specific moments would've made this chapter much longer than it needed to be, or than what I was comfortable with. Don't worry though, we'll see Spidey helping the group getting more trained up in some of the coming chapters, since they'll be taking place on Gran Pulse, and there's quite a bit of work to do on that massive world. This is a part of the story where things really get interesting, in more ways than one after all.

Spidey: Hey, I thought we had gone over all the special functions in my suit a couple chapters ago. Why'd you add in the Enhanced Combat Mode and Instant Kill now?

AN: Well, partly because no one ever really goes over every last gadget they have on their new toy when they first get it, and I felt like if I didn't have at least a few surprises pop up now and then for you, you would start to seem a little OP in the story. Plus, I just wanted to see you get worked up about the Instant Kill Mode, because you gotta admit, it was pretty funny how you got about it in Homecoming.

Spidey: Okay...Yeah, maybe that was a little funny. What about those weird codephrases that we used during the fight with Raines though?

AN: Yeah, gotta be honest, part of that was inspried by RWBY, and how the team had developed combo moves with specific codenames. I figured that you guys would at least come up with a few small things similar to that in an attempt to improve your teamwork skills while you made your way through the Ark, and that seemed like a great way to showcase that. Plus, a lot of the wins you guys got in the last chapter were achieved via the Eidolons, so I wanted to go with a major battle that didn't rely on those guys. Cool combo moves like those were the best idea I could come up with.

Fang: Speaking of Eidolons, I felt like the fight with Bahamut could've used a bit more flare.

AN: Maybe, but honestly, the chapter was getting a little too long for my liking at that point, and while it would have been nice to give it some extra pizzazz, I just really wanted to get the chapter done. Besides, there wasn't really all that much to really say about the fight in this case. The main thing about it this time was the dialogue from before and after it, so that was what got the most focus.

That said, I feel like it's been a while since I've answered review questions, and I would like to take this time to at least address one of the ones that was brought up last chapter. Namely the one that asked if I could give some kind of hint as to what Spidey's weird new powers are appearing to be like. All can say is this: it is in fact tied to the Great Web and the fact he's a Spider-Totem, and he will be getting some other abilities that he'll be able to call upon at will, but it won't happen for a little while longer. Everyone will have been on Gran Pulse for a while before that finally happens, but I guarantee that Spidey will get some control over at least one or two of those powers in particular. Not that he'll really need or use them that much in this story.

Lightning: Does that mean he's going to use them a lot in the other stories of this series?

AN: Maaaybe. That said, "Monkey D. Conan", I like your ideas on how to, as you put it, "shake things up for Lightning", in regards to how she's handling her feelings for Peter. I may try to work them in later on, but that will all depend on whether or not it's possible. After all, romance is not going to be a very high priority for the next few chapters, at least not for the main pairing of this story. That's SpiderLight, in case you guys didn't already know that. In fact, the next few chapters will be a mix of things, and one of the main things you'll be treated to in these next couple chapters or so is about to be revealed right...now...Onto the Preview!...

The new path the team discovered with Bahamut's help has granted them a flight to the world below, and before long, everyone is saying a huge hello to the vast, wild, and wondrous world of Gran Pulse. Sure, it comes with a small crash-landing, but that matters little to them, because now, they've got a whole new area where they can search for some answers on how to beat the Focus that the six l'Cie are supposedly cursed with, and they waste little time in preparing to do so. Of course, what really makes this first night on the massive world special isn't what they do or don't find on Gran Pulse; it's the newest tales from his world that Spidey is about to spin for them. The stories behind the origins of the Web Warriors of New York and their first encounters with Spider-Man are about to be revealed at last, next time!

Yeah, you heard it here! At long last, we're finally going to be revealing the full story behind each member of this story's line-up of the Web Warriors! The various Spider-Heroes that Spidey's worked with in this continuity, and their eventual lead up to becoming a true team. Exciting huh? And I'll bet you're all just itching to see which of the other wall-crawlers will see first now. But until that time comes...

Please read and review, and swing on back for next time, fellow true believers!