“Ben, are you okay?”

Ben Reilly looked up from the cell phone he was spinning on the break room table to Ollie Osnick. The engineer had his feet up on the table, and wore a concerned look on his face. He set down his cell phone, on which he’d been text messaging his wife Julie.

“Yeah, Ollie,” he said. “Just thinking. Alex Wilder was kidnapped a week ago. They just broke the story this morning.”

“Alex Wilder?”

“Only son of Geoff and Catherine. Leaders of the Pride.” Ollie whistled and put his feet back down on the floor.

“This is very big, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah,” Ben replied. “Very big.” Simultaneously, their phones began vibrating. They grabbed them and glanced at the caller IDs.

“Ezekiel,” Ben said.

“Julia,” Ollie declared. They both flipped the phones open. Ben sighed before saying hello. This wasn’t good. It was bound to be a problem.

“Hey Zeke,” he said. “What’s up?”

“My office,” he said. “In costume. Now.” The line went dead, and Ben hung up. He looked at Ollie as he hung up his own phone. He returned Ben’s look.

“Ezekiel’s office?” he asked. Ben nodded. “See you there.” They stood in unison and went their separate ways.

The Scarlet Spider crawled across the surface of the SimsCorp building. The tension he’d felt since confronting Lady Octopus and Scorpia was just building more and more in his head, resulting in a couple recent migraines. He could already feel another starting. He needed a Coke.

He crawled over the window sill to the open window, but nearly stopped as he saw the inhabitants of the office. Julia and Ollie were already there, Ollie leaning against the back wall with his arms folded, Julia sitting on the edge of the desk next to Ezekiel. Across from them sat three people.

Geoffrey Wilder. Frank Dean. Dale Yorkes. Three members of the Pride.

“It’s just a regular party,” Ben said as he crawled in, glaring at the trio of criminals. “What the hell do you want?”

“Ben,” Ezekiel said quietly. Dean and Yorkes both startled, but Wilder put his hand up to stop them.

“It’s fine,” Wilder said. “Welcome, Spider. We came… to ask for help.”

“Excuse me?” Ollie asked. Ezekiel pressed his fingers together and leaned forward.

“Alex isn’t the only one missing, is he?” he asked.

“No,” Wilder said. “Gertrude Yorkes, Chase Stein, Karolina Dean, Nico Minoru… Molly Hayes would have been targeted also if she hadn’t already been taken by Angelo Espinosa.”

“All of your children,” Ben said. “The Six?” Wilder held out a Ziploc with several scraps of paper. Ben took the bag and handed it to Ezekiel.

“Julia, do you have gloves?”

“No need,” Wilder said. “We’re not going to the police. That’s why we came to you. Alex is the only one we want them to know about. To bait the Six.”

“You want us to find them,” Ben said. “And stop them.”

“Exactly,” Yorkes replied.

“And if you don’t, there will be a war,” Dean said. “A war no one wants.”

“We’ll do it,” Ezekiel said.

“Ben, are you sure this is a good idea?” Julia asked in his headset. Ben swung down to the LAPD Complex and landed on the roof.

“Yeah, Julia,” he said. “If there’s going to be a war on her turf, we need to let her know.”

“And what about the Pride wanting the police out of this?” she asked.

“We are. We’re just giving the chief a heads-up.”

Alia Detores was already on the roof and jumped as Ben walked around the small structure that housed the stairs to the roof. She jumped as she saw the Scarlet Spider.

“Damn,” she said. “You got some ninja in you?”

“You ever had a spider sneak up on you?” he replied.

“Yeah,” she said.

“There you go,” he declared with a grin.

“What did you want, Spider?” she asked.

“You get right to the point, don’t you?” he said. He sighed. “There’s going to be a turf war unless I can stop it. We’re going to know in the next twenty-four hours.”

“What’s happening?”

“You heard of the Pride?” he asked.

“Only in every report on any sort of organized crime in the city,” she said, leaning against an air conditioner. “They’ve been my number one priority since day one.”

“They brought the Sinister Six into town,” Ben explained. “To get rid of me, I assume.” He took in a deep breath. “Like all super-villains do, they turned on them, kidnapped their kids. The Pride came to me and asked me to get their kids back.”

“And if you don’t, the Pride will,” Detores finished. “Why ask you first?”

“They want to control the city,” Ben said. “Not much left to control if you get into it with a powerful group of villains. You saw what happened to San Fran, and that was just one bad guy. Big leaguers like the Six?”

“Smoking crater?”

“You got it.” Ben paused again and rubbed his temples. “This is going to be ugly, Chief, whether I succeed or not. You probably want to start drawing in your troops. Get them ready.”

“I get it, Spider,” she said. “How will we know it didn’t happen? Your little mission?”

“Pretty simple,” Ben replied, striding to the edge of the roof. “I’ll be dead.”

He had to move quickly. There were pieces to put in place before everything happened. The sooner they were in place, the quicker he could make his move.

“You needed to see me?” Living Lightning said as he descended to the roof of the Sims building. Scarlet Spider nodded.

“Glad to see your communicard still works,” he said. “You heard about the Sinister Six?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Guess they made a mess of a bank downtown?”

“Big time,” he said again. “It’s going to be big, whatever th-“ The upper stories of the building suddenly shook. “What the he-“ It shook again, this time violently, almost shaking Ben off his feet, then again. Ben spun and was hit by a jolt of electricity, knocking him back violently.

“We’re he-ere!” The Eel stood at the edge of the building, with Lady Octopus standing directly him.

“Happy to see us, Spider?” she said. Ben stood and braced himself.

“Oh hell,” he said.

“Hell is right,” came another voice. Ben turned and raised his arms. A massive fist of sand slammed into him. Flint Marko congealed into a fully solid form. The Sandman grinned. There was an explosion of smoke, and a human figure walked out of the smoke, revealing Mysterio.

“It’s just a party, isn’t it?” Ben quipped.

“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” Sandman shifted again and punched Scarlet Spider, sending him flying. The other members of the Six followed behind. Living Lightning hovered for several seconds before cracking a smile.

The pieces were in place now.

Ben rolled in mid air, and fired a webline from his right arm, trying to cushion his fall as much as he could. He tugged, and flew forward. He fired again, this time from his left, and spun forward. He hit a rooftop hard and skidded to a stop. He took several deep breaths, then heard growling from the edge of the roof. He sat up and looked around. The Lizard paced back and forth on the edge of the roof, obviously waiting. Scorpia stood on the corner, her arms folded.

“It’s always waiting, waiting, waiting,” she said. “Always. I could just snap your neck and be done with you now.”

“Yeah, but that would take some amount of skill,” Ben replied, gritting his teeth. “Something you don’t have.”

“Ooooh, sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

“Shut up Scorpia,” Sandman growled. Ben turned to see the other four members of the Six standing behind him. “I should have never hired you.”

“Oh, come on!” she said. “I’ve helped.”

“You’ve been a pain in the ass,” Lady Octopus growled. She moved forward carefully. “You’re hurt, aren’t you, Spider?” She grinned. “You’ve got a bum leg now.”

“Nah,” Ben said. “Just waiting on the element of surprise.” He spun and threw his arms forward, firing twin weblines. Both passed through Lady Ock like she wasn’t there. Which she wasn’t.

“Damn, Mysterio,” he muttered as his spider-sense flared. He jumped as Trainer leapt at him from behind. He started to grab her tentacles when a blast of electricity threw him away from her. Ben hit the rooftop again, but rolled into a somersault as quickly as he could. He jumped as the Eel blasted at him again.

“This is too easy!” he cackled. “I should have done the tag team thing years ago.” He rushed forward, his hands crackling with energy. He fired on Ben again. Then again. Then again. Ben writhed on the ground and cried out in pain.

“Just too ea-“ Another burst of electricity tore Eel to pieces. It took Ben a moment to register what had happened. Blood mixed with bits of flesh and bone showered the rooftop. It wasn’t anything Eel had done that blew him up. Ben’s lungs ached for air, and he gasped desperately as he looked up at the source of the electrical blast. Living Lightning descended to the rooftop, his electrical form congealing back to flesh and blood.

“Lightning?” Ben gasped.

“No,” he said. “Miguel is out. You might say he’s a little too far gone to talk to you.” Lightning flashed brightly, and Living Lightning’s form transformed into something else entirely. A familiar form, clad in green and yellow. Ben gasped again, this time out of surprise.

“Electro.”

In Web of Scarlet Spider #10: The Scarlet Spider vs. the Sinister Six vs. the Pride! In the middle of the chaos a fourth player makes himself known, but who is it?