Spider-Man : The Morales Trilogy

Chapter 40

“Are you okay?” Miles asked Sam once he found him standing in the center of a huge field that spread out for miles. He’d come here after leaving the MedBay.
“Well, I am better than okay. The Phoenix Force or Anti-Quantum or whatever has strengthened me. I feel a hundred times okay.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Well, I’m not merging with any orb so the chances of my mind getting warped are extremely slim,” Sam stated. “Only problem I have now is my light’s turned blue again and I was crushing on the red swag.”
“That’s why you’re out here staring at the clouds with a difficult expression on your face?” Miles asked and crossed his arms, staring intently at Sam. “Spill.”
“Well, we have to find the Phoenix Orbs, don’t we?” Sam asked.
“Yeah?”
“And if we’re going to find all the Orbs in order to rescue the Avengers, we’ll need to expand our reach. Cover more ground. Or space.”
“Space?”
“That much power can’t all be on Earth so there’s bound to be orbs scattered around on different planets or galaxies.”
“And you’re suggesting that we search the universe for these Orbs.”
“Not we.”
“Wait, you’re leaving?”
“Only for a while. It’s gonna take a lot of time before I find my way back there but I’m heading for Xandar. I need to join the Nova Corps and serve my intergalactic duties if I hope to find any of these Orbs.”
“Wow, man. What made you decide to leave?”
“You.”
“Whoa.”
“I don’t mean it in an aggressive ‘you pissed me off’ manner. You inspired me to accept my responsibility. You being so willing to avenge my death, willing to die for a cause you believed in and then I found that I didn’t really have something I believed in. I had you. And now I want to head back home, join the Corps and have a cause to believe in and die for.”
“What about the mission?”
“It’s not a permanent goodbye, Miles. We’ll still have the occasional team-ups to stop intergalactic bad guys. And I’ll be coming back here as soon as I have enough Orbs in my possession.”
“I’m going to miss you, man.”
“I’ll miss you too, buddy. I’m not the type of guy who wants the all out emotional teary goodbyes so you’ll have to tell Max, Dil, Hay, and Michelle that I’m leaving.”
“So you’ll have a new outfit when next we meet?” Miles asked and grinned.
“Definitely,” Sam answered and smirked at Miles goofishly. “It’s going to be hordes of magnitude cooler than your outfit.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Max Modell and Andy Stark are currently working on my next suit. And Max plans to throw in a few color fixes and upgrades.”
“Miles, you’re my best friend. Thanks for showing me what it’s like to be a hero.”
“You’re my favorite best friend,” Miles said and laughed. “And thanks for being there for me along the way, man. I don’t think we’d have won this without you.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Sam said and grinned and his eyes glowed a brilliant shade of blue. Brighter than it used to be before.
“Smug son of a bitch,” Miles said jokingly and hugged Sam, squeezing him tight. “Be safe out there. And don’t fly too close to the sun.”
“I’d just absorb it,” Sam replied as he rose off the ground slowly. “I’ll see you in a while, webcrawler.”
“See you in a while, torchlight.”
“Yippee kai yay!” Sam yelled and shot upwards with an amazing burst of speed and Miles watched him fly away till he couldn’t see him anymore.
“Goodbye, friend.”
***
“Well, New York has heroes again which means we can expect a whole lot of weird and creepy to surface pretty soon.”
“We’ll have to get working.”
“You think it’ll work? Can we really do it?”
“Yes. But we’ll need much more manpower. Much, much, more.”
“Richard Till. Daniel Wilson. Andy Stark. We have a lot of manpower on our radar. Do we make our move?”
“Yes. And once we reach the final phase, this city won’t need a Spider-Man.”