Chapter 7: Chapter 7

 

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Chapter 7– Pilferer in Training.

 

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"Hmmph, I swear, this is so unfair. It took me years to refine my art to such a degree, and yet here you are after a couple of hours, reaching my level of skill with such ease." Felicia harrumphs after seeing me crack open a safe in under a minute, and not just any safe but a high tech almost unbreakable safe held within the basement of one of New York's most luxurious jewellers, which I had just finished cracking with unbearable ease.

 

"Well, it isn't that hard, what with the vault's nowadays being more technology-based than having any manual processes to open it. All it took was quickly crafting some tech to help with the techy bits, just a scanner to find the fingerprints on the number pad of the safe and figure out the passcode from that.

 

I then extrapolated the fingerprints for the fingerprint scanner as well as used those same fingerprints to look through various databases across the world to find the owner, and then using the preprepared copies of all the worker's eyes, I used the correct one on the eye scanner." I say, standing back up to my knees and grabbing the handle of the safe and spinning it, hearing a series of clunks as it does so.

 

"I only told you that we would be cracking this safe yesterday when you agreed to start helping me with my jobs; how could you have prepared so much in such little time? And that still doesn't explain how good you dealt with the practical part of the safebreaking, turning the dial and listening to the mechanisms. I only started teaching you that part earlier today on the bunch of safes I have stored in a warehouse to keep my skills from going rusty, and just now, you cracked the safe almost as quickly as I would have. It's frustrating; how?" She questions as the handle of the safe finally stops spinning and comes to an end.

 

Reaching towards it, I grasp and pull on it to avail the insides of the nigh unbreakable safe. What greets my eyes are stacks and stacks of cash along with priceless jewels, jewellery and diamonds neatly arranged upon shelves.

 

"What can I say? I had a lot of time on my hands, and I always like to be prepared. Plus, the technology isn't that hard to make if you know what you are doing, you don't even need any expensive or rare materials, just the know-how. As for the actual safebreaking, the two hours you spent teaching me was enough for me to become proficient at it. After that, I only needed the technical knowledge and the information about the inner workings of safes in general and as a whole; after that, my powers did the heavy lifting. The keen senses help me to hear precisely what I need to, and I just need to be aware of what it is I am actually trying to listen for." I answer her taking a step back to admire my work, proud that I had become an excellent safecracker in less than a day, but as I do so, Felicia saunters inside to take a glance at the valuables held within.

 

"Hmmph, cheater. Well, I don't care since you are on my side now, and this way, I won't have to go to the Tinkerer for tech anymore. That bald old man always charges an arm and a leg. Ooh, shiny. A treat for a job well done, gimmie." Felicia finishes as she reaches out and picks up an enormous diamond, most likely worth millions, and brings it towards herself, using her other hand to grasp the suit and pull it wide to reveal her cleavage, which she goes to place the diamond within.

 

"Stop." My hand grasps her forearm, keeping her from stowing the diamonds between her breasts, where I would never have been able to retrieve the diamond from. But, instead, her greedy eyes rip away from the sparkling blue diamond to behold my own firm eyes that make it clear that I will not allow her to take this diamond out of this safe, not under any circumstances.

 

"Remember our deal, Felicia. I will only help you steal from bad people and those who can afford it, and that is it. I will not help you steal from establishments like this, museums, or innocent people. If you want to do that, then do it on your own time because I will not be a witness or an accomplice to it. So put the diamond back, and let's get going; this was only supposed to be a test after all." I state firmly, staring her dead in the eyes, my will unrelenting. No matter how much I may try to deny it, there are still vestiges of Peter and his morals inside me, so I absolutely will not steal from those who do not deserve it.

 

Plus, this helps me to set the terms going forward working with Felicia and serves to make sure that I am not her obedient little lapdog or minion or something so that I will not be dragged under her spell. I have a firm rule that I will abide by that will help me to keep aware of who I am and what I want; I haven't figured out the other rules yet, but I am firm in my decision that I will not harm any innocents at any time, apart from that I could do what I want.

 

"Ben, you do know that this diamond, much like every other thing in this fault, will end up in the hands of some corrupt politician, some ruthless mobster, or even some supervillain. So it doesn't matter if we take it now because it would be similar to just taking it from them later; this just saves us time that we can use to take even more stuff from more people who are undeserving of it." She tries to argue, but I am hearing none of it.

 

"If this stuff is just going to end up in their hands, then we will wait for it to do so, wait for them to pay for it or take it and then we can take it back from them rather than stealing money from the pockets of the people that work here. You need to understand that, or we can't work together, and you will just have to go back to buying tech from the Tinkerer." So I state, as a matter of fact, my resolve unshakeable. Either she abides by my rules, or I walk. There is no other option, and I have already learnt what I can from her, and I can learn the rest from other places.

 

"Tch, fine, I'll put it back. Are you sure you are Spidey's clone? He would usually say, stop stealing from people, become a hero, use your skills to help others while you are telling me to do it when you are not around, quite a big difference." She lets out grumpily as she pulls her hand out of my grasp, which I let her do, knowing that she won't be trying anything again.

 

Felicia moves to place the diamond back on the shelf she took it from, though she is clearly not happy with it as she makes sure to try and get a little dig in and be spiteful by mentioning my clone status, which doesn't even phase me after all my origin has much more complicated issues than just cloning.

 

"Being made up of someone else's DNA, someone else's everything, being a clone really changes your perspective on life. Being in such a situation, where I had no choice in my creation, made me realise some things. Primarily that I can only control myself and what I do, and I cannot control others and what they do. So if you want to steal from people who don't deserve it, then go ahead, I can't stop you, but at the very least, I will not be part of it." So I tell her as we both exit the safe with the diamond placed back where it belongs, leaving the inside of the safe practically untouched.

 

Part of the reasons behind my new philosophy is the morals left by Peter inside me, and part of it is the fact that I don't want to create trouble for the superheroes in the world so that they can continue keeping the world safe and allowing me to live a good life. So I will control myself and my actions to make a minimalist impact on the planet, and my existence will undoubtedly have an effect.

 

On the other side of the spectrum, I cannot control what others try to do, meaning people who may significantly impact the world, like supervillains or superheroes. However, Felicia doesn't make much of an impact being a selfish cat thief, but even so, I don't want to change who she is and what she does.

 

"What, did you get that from a self-help book or something? Do you have any more inspirational quotes of wisdom for me?" Felicia snidely says as I close the safe door and spin the handle to lock it back up; when the thunking and clunking from the mechanisms inside finally stops, I take a step back to look at the shiny safe door, which shows the reflections of myself and Felicia.

 

Felicia is dressed in, surprise, surprise, her Black Cat outfit and me wearing the clothes she had procured for me earlier. From top to bottom, them being a black cap, the black sunglasses I had procured for myself, and a black rag that I had wrapped around my lower face, which completely disguised my head. And then I had on a plain black T-shirt, a black leather jacket, a pair of black leather gloves, black leather pants, and to finish the ensemble, black leather boots that ended at my calves.

 

Obviously, Felicia decided on these clothes due to my comments the other day, where I said I would not be caught dead in leather. But unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about my choice of clothing as I had to come out for this expedition and Felicia no doubt knew that I would have no time if I accepted her offer, no point dwelling on it.

 

"Quotes of wisdom, quite a few, actually. How about, You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you. That one, I quite like." I don't feel anything at the barb she sent at me, but I still know that it carried malicious intent. So I pretended not to notice it and answered her query calmly though I do be a little mean, and gave her a quote that may hold particular meaning for herself. I am a little bit of a dick, but what goes around comes around; you shouldn't dish it out if you are not ready to take it.

 

Felicia goes strangely quiet at my words, and we just stand there in silence. I feel a bit strange at that since I am used to her being chatty and giving as good as she got, but when I look at her face, she seems weirdly reflective, so I leave her to it. I also take a moment to think about the quote I just said as well; I couldn't control what happened to me, but I can control how I view it, and instead of letting it change me, I can choose how it changes me, something to ponder on.

 

"Sigh, alright, we can't just stand around here all night. It's time we leave, so let's get going." I say, breaking the silence and ripping Felicia away from her thoughts. She looks startled as she looks up at me, only just realising that she had been lost in thought, but she quickly smirks at me and takes the lead in walking towards the exit, and I move to follow her.

 

With the safe being in the basement of the jewellers, which is full of cleaning supplies and other such things, we had to get through some security to get down here. We entered through the door which leads upstairs as that was the best option, at least according to Felicia and who am I to argue with arguably the world's best thief.

 

I would have thought the best entrance would have been the few small windows high up on the wall on the right side of the basement. Still, Felicia told me that was stupid, and that is the thought of every other two-bit thug, so those windows are alarmed, and any change will set off an alarm and alert the authorities.

 

I follow behind Felicia towards the door to the stairs, avoiding looking at her too closely, trying to limit myself and keep everything purely professional. Or as professional as possible, what with me living with her for the time being but containing myself is undoubtedly the best option to keep things uncomplicated.

 

Felicia suddenly stops out of the blue, and with me following closely behind her, I very nearly bump into her behind, but I manage to stop just in time. However, I am very aware of my groin as it lightly skims against her rear, but I quickly push it out of my mind for my own sake and back up.

 

"You know Ben, I have a quote of my own. Though I don't know if it is very inspirational, but I like to live by it anyway. So it goes, if everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." Felicia turns around, and there is a mischievous smirk on her face, which stirs an ominous feeling within my gut. And then, when I look down and notice that she has a cleaning bottle in her palm that she must have sneakily picked up from the various supplies around when I wasn't looking.

 

"Felicia, what do you mean? Don't do anything-" *SMASH* One of the small glass windows to the right is now shattered, the cleaning bottle now being outside of the building resting on the floor of a street, and Felicia is standing there with her hands on her hips looking very smug right now.

 

"Felicia, why on gods green earth would you do that? Now we-" *BEEP* *BEEP* The alarm blares insanely loudly, setting off a sense of urgency and panic within me. All the while, Felicia continues to stand there with a naughty smirk on her face looking like butter wouldn't melt, seeming to have fun at my expense and enjoying my distraught.

 

"Come on, Ben, we can't just stand around here all night. The police have already been alerted and are already on their way, so let's get going." Felicia Uno reverses me, spitting out nearly word for word what I had just said to her less than five minutes ago and throwing it into my face. I guess she didn't take kindly to my subtle dig at her, and now she is acting out. I am so stunned that I don't have time to say anything before she picks up a rag and walks over to the broken window, using the rag to clear out any remaining shards of glass and make a safe passageway.

 

"Well, hurry up. Are you staying here? Or are you coming with me?" Without even turning her head, Felicia says, and then without even waiting for a reply, she jumps up and slithers out of the newly made opening. Impressive, really, given that the window is literally around thirty centimetres in height and sixty centimetres in length, quite the small fit but easy for someone with her skills or someone with powers like mine.

You are reading story From The Smoke (Marvel) at novel35.com

 

"Note to self, do not start any more little fights with her. Even if she is the one that starts it, do not respond and ignore it. In the end, it is not worth the trouble. Just let the comments roll off of you like water and save yourself from the woman's wrath; like they always say, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." I sigh to myself, and having no other option, I quickly run over and slide through the window as well to follow her. But, unfortunately, I can't go through the door and up the stairs the way we came because we snook inside delicately, which means that way would take longer, so this is my only option.

 

Crawling out through the window, I stand up to my feet and look around the dim alleyway trying to spot where Felicia has headed as well as figure out my bearings. So that I can try to discern which direction the police will be coming from and figure out the best path to run to avoid them, it doesn't matter if it is the opposite direction of Felicia's penthouse as I can just loop back around.

 

"Come on, lazy pants, your falling behind down there. Don't tell me all the leather is slowing you down. Can't you climb walls like Spider-Man?" I hear Felicia laugh, and I look up to see her climbing up the fire escape on the side of the building and peering down at me, and then she reaches the top and quickly springs out of view onto the buildings. Not wanting to be left behind, I quickly run and jump onto the wall legs first, and not needing my hands due to my powers, I just run straight up the side of the wall and reach the top within seconds easily.

 

Not stopping my run when I reach the top and not losing any momentum at all, I quickly turn my angle by ninety degrees and begin running on the top of the rooftop. Sighting Felicia ahead of me, I promptly sprinted to catch up with her, not willing to be left behind. She leaps across a few buildings and sometimes uses her whip to bridge the gap, but I keep up using my powers and bridging those gaps with my superpowered jumps; I quickly catch up to her and begin to run side by side with her.

 

"Felicia, what the hell? Why did you do that? We could have easily snuck out the way we came with no one being none the wiser, but now you have alerted the police, and we have to run away when we could have just left." I shout to her over the rushing wind in our ears as we run at high speeds. Still, even then, my beratement doesn't seem to have had any effect on her as she doesn't even look towards me to acknowledge my presence by her side, not caring that I am seriously limiting myself to her speed right now.

 

"Haha, I did say tonight would be a test run, didn't I? Well, more often than not, my jobs end with a run from the law or some superhero, so I obviously had to test you under pressure and see how you handle it." So she says as we continue to run across the rooftops, and it is apparent that she had just made a barefaced lie. After all, she knows that I am a clone of Spider-Man and that I have his memories, so it is only natural that I can handle myself under pressure; I really have no clue why she did it.

 

I can hear sirens in the distance as the police have undoubtedly turned up at the jewellers, a fast response time that amazes me; Peter was not too used to the police being on the ball. After all, they must care more about expensive jewellers than some poor people being accosted in their own neighbourhoods; after all, the higher class don't visit them; they see the jewellers.

 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, when we both put our front foot on the edge of the ledge to jump forwards, Felicia changed direction. While I jumped forward to the other building, she did not jump at all and skillfully changed her momentum to change her angle by ninety degrees and go straight down through the gap between the buildings and into the alleyway taking me by surprise.

 

Skidding on the rooftop, I kick up some of the... whatever the top of roofs are made out of, and I quickly do a one-eighty and turn back to follow her. Of course, I could have just left and gone my own way, but I... actually don't have a good reason, and I am sure there probably is one; plus, I have already turned around to follow her and I have jumped to follow her down.

 

Falling down through the alley, I quickly spot Felicia. She had deployed her grapple to wrap around a pipe in the passage and was now nearing the precipice of her wing, bringing her to a point further down the alley and onto another building. But, of course, I didn't have my web-shooters to follow her trajectory because I left them at Felicia's penthouse, not thinking I would need them and not wanting to use them, Spider-Man uses webs, and I am not Spider-Man.

 

As I fall down, I reach out a hand and press it against the wall attaching myself to it, which changes my momentum as I fall down and then swing towards the wall catching myself with my hands and feet. Then, steadying myself, I detach my hands and stand tall on the side of the wall and then run along it towards Felicia having to go in a diagonal line as I had fallen quite a bit before catching myself, but I am now back on her trail again.

 

Unfortunately, that was not the end of my troubles as Felicia continued to pull tricky manoeuvres and take long detours as I followed her. Nevertheless, I managed to track her, only falling behind because her pathing was so slippery and hard to predict; I even ended up forgetting about everything else and just focused on following her, actually losing myself in the motion and enjoying the chase.

 

But I was reminded of the seriousness of the situation when I was following Felicia on a straight stretch across an arch bridge thing connecting two buildings, and out of nowhere, my spider-sense blared out rining inside my skull. So without thinking about it and following my instincts, I reach forward and grab Felicia around the waist before jumping off the side of the bridge and reaching my hand out to connect to the side and pull myself underneath the bridge to hide underneath it.

 

Felicia goes to say something, but I quickly wrap my hand around her mouth, preventing her from speaking. There was absolutely no police following us by this point in time, and we had been traversing through the city for quite a while with no one pursuing us, which made my spider-sense that much more bizarre, but I didn't question it at all.

 

I wait there in silence with my hand covering Felicia's mouth, and to my surprise, she doesn't even try to free herself. Eventually, my spider-sense calmed down, meaning that the danger had passed, even though I had no inkling of what it was, not even sensing anything or anyone passing through the space around me, but that was fine with me as long as we were safe.

 

Somehow sensing my relief, Felicia takes this opportunity to act out and bite the hand covering her mouth, making me, by instinct, remove it, giving her the power of speech again. I expect to hear her berate me or shout, which is why I am surprised when she turns her head around.

 

Instead, she suddenly reaches her hand out to wrap around my head and pull me down into a searing kiss, which is when I realise that I am pressing her body tightly against mine. I am hyper-aware of her ass pushing back against my crotch and my arm wrapped around her slim midsection.

 

I don't have time to think or realise anything else, though, as I lose myself in the kiss, and I reach my own hand out to the back of her head to pull her deeper into the kiss, feeling her smooth white hair in my palms.

 

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