SPIDER-GIRL 7: Defend Thyself!

 

***

THWIPP!

The webbing hit squarely and May had to grin. She was really getting the hang of this now…

All she needed was to see that the window was open – and as she thought that, it slid upward, and the grin just got wider. She put her head down and swung in., releasing the webline as she did so.

“Well done, May, the window’s stuck now,” the metal man said, with a surprisingly old voice; rich in timbre but very much an old-fashioned voice… how, she wasn’t sure; but there was age there, age and experience, without sounding aged.

“It wears off in an hour,” she said. “Hi, Alloy. Has the meeting started? I’m not late, am I?”

“Not for another half hour, no,” it chuckled. “Looking forward to it, are you?”

“Uh, well…” Beneath her mask, she blushed. She knew how the next sentence was going to sound, and it being more than halfway true didn’t help matters much. “Actually, I was looking for Bruce.”

Looking into the walking statue’s metallic face, she realised suddenly that her father hadn’t been the only one with a trick of demonstrating emotion with an immobile face. With no change of expression, with only the slightest tilt of the head to throw the shadows into a different shape, the statue seemed to be laughing silently.

“We met on patrol last night-“ she blurted, hoping to explain, but Alloy just raised a hand calmly, confidently.

“So he told me. Out the corridor, left, and the third door on your right. Don’t, whatever you do, stick your head in the fourth door – I don’t think the Doc’s taken the portal to hell down after last week.”

“Uh… right.” May nodded her thanks, and ducked out of the room, wondering whether Alloy was serious or not.

She decided not to chance it, and just knocked on the third door before opening it a crack and sticking her head in.

***

The room turned out to be Bruce’s bedroom. He was sitting up in bed, sheets drawn up to his waist, naked above that, playing on a game console via telekinesis – the joypad was floating in the air two feet in front of the TV screen, at the other end of the room to the bed. The room was unlit, save for the glow of the television.

“Yeah?” Bruce said, without turning his head to see the door.

“Uh… sorry, is this a bad time?”

Bruce’s head came around fast at that. “May! Uh, gimme a minute-“

He extended a hand; the joypad dropped gently, and a pair of trousers levitated up from a heap of clothes on a chair and flew across the room toward him. May stammered an apology, and stepped back to close the door.

***

Bruce emerged from the room a minute later, now wearing his jeans. A pair of socks had been hastily stuffed into the pocket and he held a T-shirt in his hand. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Side effect, I guess, of home schooling… you just get up when you have to.”

“Sounds like a plus to me. Did you catch that guy?”

He shook his head. “Think the jet was faster than my TK. That or he had some kind of sight-effective cloak… It’s not impossible. Iron Man used them occasionally. Don’t think Mainframe’s got one, though, but-“

“So he got away,” May cut in. “Great.”

Bruce nodded. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem in itself… Just that the paper’s realised there’s a Spider in town again.”

“Oh?”

“’Spider-Girl: Heroine or Menace?’” May smiled sardonically. “Didn’t take ‘em long, did it? Whoever took the shots got a picture of you and me when you pulled me out of the fall, so I think you’re going to be dragged into all this. Just so you know.” She looked away quickly.

“Right,” Bruce said, staring absently through a point somewhere to the left of Mayday’s head. “OK, no problem. Thanks for telling me. What did they say about the guy we were chasing, or didn’t they see him?”

“Some guy called Killshot. A ‘cyber-mercenary’ or something. And apparently he was hired to protect the city, which has to be bull.”

“I’d think so. Last night was the first time I saw him, and I’ve been patrolling for weeks. Of course, it’s a big city, but I’d say he isn’t earning his paycheck.”

May nodded. “Not much we can do about that now, though… Just have to wait for him to show up again.”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent, then, and Bruce used the time to pull his T-shirt on.

“Let’s get to the meeting room,” he said. “I need to sit down somewhere and put my socks on.”

Mayday nodded again.

“Did you really go to hell last week?”

“Cloak and Kingfisher did,” Bruce said. “Nightmare told them that was where Mom ended up, and they were gonna drag her out of there if he was right. Wouldn’t let me go with…”

He frowned. “Bastard was lying through his teeth.”

May reached out, rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry…”

“Yeah, well,” Bruce tried to smile. “It does raise the chances she’s in one of the heavens instead. Mom deserved that, the amount of work she put in… But after the whole thing with her killing Council, we weren’t sure. He was a god of sorts, after all…” There were tears in his eyes. “Even if he was… well, evil.”

“God…” May whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Having superheroes for parents,” Bruce said, miserably. “Guaranteed to screw your life over somehow, right?”

***

“Defenders,” the Doctor intoned, his eyes locking with each of theirs in turn, plumbing the depths of their souls. “After our recent tribulations, there has been little of consequence. Up until, that is, three hours ago.”

“I’ll go get my boots,” Bruce offered.

Alloy, May and Scuba had to suppress smirks; everyone else present watched the young mutant go with barely controlled irritation.

“So what’s the problem?” the snake-woman asked.

“Do you remember the Israeli stealth air fleet we destroyed a month ago, Cobra?”

“Sure.”

“It seems Palestine has taken that as a symbol that we are on their side,” the Doctor continued. “My scrying has revealed a mass attack which will begin in approximately fifteen minutes. Their troops are already in place, infiltrated in over the past fortnight. A second symbol is needed; we are on neither side, and we will not tolerate this war.”

May’s eyes opened wide.

“Their operatives are to be stopped,” the Doctor said. “How you stop them is up to you, but non-fatal methods would be preferable. All equipment used is to be destroyed, civilian casualties are to be minimised, and any Israeli troops who counter attack are to be dealt with in the same fashion.”

Most of the assembled nodded gravely. May slowly shook her head.

***

They emerged from the Magus’ transportation portal in the middle of the fight, taking place in downtown Somewhere-May-had-never-heard-of, and immediately split up.  Bruce and the Kingfisher took off straight away, soaring into the air on wings and mental magic. What surprised May was that Scuba did so, too; she hadn’t expected that one, but it appeared the tiny wings on her heels actually worked.

Who would have thought?

Guns burst into their staccato chorus, and May’s spider-sense flared into brilliant life, blazing within her mind. Her arms came up almost of their own accord, hands held out, fingers double-tapped the weblaunchers, lines fired, hands grasped – and she was off the ground, swinging toward the nearest structure. Beneath her, the ground-based Defenders dispersed, with only Alloy ploughing straight toward the central machine gun nest.

“Is this what you do all the time?” she called as she swung past Bruce.

“Uh… Well, most of the time there’s a supervillain, but yeah…”

She shook her head. This wasn’t exactly as she’d envisioned it; superheroism wasn’t supposed to be this kind of thing.

Below her there was a rending sound; as she looked down, she saw Alloy standing in the middle of what had been a machine-gun emplacement, the crew unconscious, the gun being methodically pulled apart piece by piece… and judging by the sharp, jagged edges of the tears, not exactly as the factory had intended. Once it was completely splintered he turned and headed toward the other.

May’s spider-sense itched back into violent life, and with it came instructions riding the wave of instinct. She shifted left, ducking and cartwheeling at once to avoid the bullet.

Just the one; it was, she discovered as she turned, a pistol that had fired it. Her hands came up, web fired… Twin streams of white webbing splashed over the gun and the gunman’s hand. He looked down, puzzled, uttering imprecations in a language Mayday didn’t speak. No time for that, though; being able to hold the Rhino says nothing about restraining a bullet, so May acted simply on the confusion of the man before her. Two bouncing steps forward and her leg came up, smacking the guy cleanly in the chops. He went down fast, a trail of blood arcing out from his jaw as he did. May froze for a second – something felt like it had given when she connected. She stooped quickly to check his pulse.

Dead.

She swore at herself; Dad had kept on talking about the strength you gained, he’d really harped on that aspect of the whole thing. She’d just assumed this was because he never seemed to really flatten anyone when you watched the old TV reports; she’d assumed it was something he wished in hindsight he’d used far more often. But, evidently, she’d missed his point – Dad had been able to lift ten tonnes. She wasn’t sure if that was an accurate measure of her own strength level but as she was now realising, a ten-ton lift ability translated into a killer punch.

Spider-powers were evidently not as straightforward a bonus as she’d thought…

She was a girl. A teenage girl. And she’d killed a man. True, he’d tried to kill her – but – but that wasn’t exactly a good justification.

Her spider-sense gave her another twinge, but nowhere near as powerful as the last two. That meant not an immediate danger, right?

She turned slowly, concentrating on the itch. It got strongest when she faced the trapdoor onto the roof. She nodded to herself. That probably meant someone was about to come through, and they wouldn’t be happy about seeing her.

She jumped over there and stepped behind the arc the door would take when it opened. That ought to give her enough time to do something, she figured, but what?

And then it hit her. She turned to face away from the trapdoor and stood on her hands. Then she waited.

The door opened, and a man’s head emerged. It hovered there for a moment, studying the prone form on the roof, and then May let herself lose balance, falling forwards and bringing her legs around to smash into his gut. As she slipped forward, she caught the doorframe and hung there for a moment, watching the chaos as the man and five of his companions tumbled backward down the stairs. She smiled to herself, let herself drop, and webbed the group together, before walking up to them, extricating their pistols, and removing the ammunition clips. With that, she made her way through the building and back out onto the street.

Where she saw Bruce engaged in his own private re-enactment of Tiananman Square with a tank.

It had evidently decided that the cannon and machine gun ammunition were too expensive to be wasted on one such sitting duck, and was rumbling forward toward him. She didn’t hesitate; she fired two lines into his back, gripped, and tugged.

There had been perhaps fifty yards between her and Bruce; by the time that distance had closed to twenty, he had stopped in his tracks, the merest hint of his green energy crackling around his skin. He glanced over his shoulder, made a face at her, and then turned back to the tank. He flung his right arm out, fist clenched, and then opened his hand sharply.

The tank ripped open down the centre, parts flying away from each other violently. Three crew members hung suspended for a moment, then fell to the ground where they had been.

“Spoilsport,” Bruce said, coming over. “I was going to show off.”

“Uh… Show off?”

Bruce grinned. “I was gonna let him hit me and crumple the tank around him, or at any rate stop it… Like I said, my power’s a bit temperamental at high levels. I was kinda worried it was just going to dismantle the tank piece by piece when I attacked it then.”

May nodded. “I see, I think. How much longer do you expect this to last?”

“About five minutes,” Bruce said. “I saw Cloak dumping an entire howitzer battery into the Darkforce earlier. It’s hard to argue with power like that.”

May smiled, a little uncomfortably. “I don’t think I can be a Defender.”

Bruce looked upset, but nodded. “OK. But we’ll be here if you change your mind. I –“

He glanced around quickly, saw no one was watching, leaned in quickly and kissed her on the cheek. “I – I kinda needed to do that. I’m sorry.”

“Uh… no! No problem… Um…”

Beneath her mask, May Parker blushed, and felt around for words. “I… Can we deal with all this back in New York?”

“Sure, I guess.”

***

NEXT ISSUE: The hunt for Killshot continues…