Post by The Wonderful Wachter on Sept 22, 2012 1:35:12 GMT -5
Road to the Future
Spider
Spider
By The Wonderful Wachter[/center]
New York
“That taco was a mistake,” moaned Anya’s masked companion, miming a belch beneath wide, white bug-eyes. “I’m not feeling too spectacular.”
“You did not seriously make that joke…”
“What joke?” he asked innocently, the corners of his mask curling up into a grin.
They had found a nice, secluded vantage point to hide at. It provided them the perfect blind spot – at least in terms of, so long as no one looked up or across from another building, then they were gold – from which to watch the growing protest rally in the plaza below. Her partner crouched like a monkey, stretching the black webbing of his solid red suit taut, atop a gargoyle. He craned his head over the edge to look down unhesitant and for an instant, she found herself jealous of both his lack of fear of heights and the fact his costume was so professional for an amateur.
Next to him, she looked like a girl playing hero instead of the other way around. Not that either one of them should be taken seriously – who would listen to a guy in a scarlet leotard? She had on a white tank top with a red spider on it that she had bought off the street with simple black pants and tabi-sneakers to help with movement. Then Anya looked like she had overloaded herself with accessories; a red backpack that had far too tight straps pushing her breasts together and a pouch about her waist. Those were normal albeit tacky. And they were needed. You see, they helped make sure she didn’t run into trouble with her precious gadget. Webshooters. Held various types of cartridges she could interchange with the ammo she had in the unusual objects she had wrapped around her wrists.
She didn’t even have a mask like him. Her reddish-brown hair flowed behind her in a tail, only a few looses bangs. What she did have was something better than a bug-eyed mask… Bug-eyed goggles that could see into about any spectrum imaginable and a few that didn’t exist in this dimension. They really popped off her tan features.
“You’re worse than him…” she muttered.
She called herself Arana originally. Fit her heritage. But now she was better known as Spider-Girl. Wasn’t her choice. The media called her that after another certain webhead that had once called the city home. Not Spider-Woman… Spider-Girl. Anya would have to remember to ask Sue how long it took for them to stop calling her the Invisible Girl and start with the Invisible Woman…. Hopefully the answer wouldn’t involve taking off her clothes or even something truly horrifying, married.
“What was that?”
“Just keep your head down and watch, Red.”
“Aye aye, Breasts.”
“What was that?” she snarled.
“I mean… As you command, Spider-Mistress.”
She would have pushed him off the statue if only he had his own web-shooters.
Leaning against a wall, the tips of her toes were over the edge. Wind whipped her hair, threatening to knock her off, yet she stuck strong. It was hard to imagine that only a couple months ago that she had been terrified of being this high, of falling. Yet now she loved it. No other thrill was quite like webbing your way through New York with traffic milling below you.
The plaza below was boring. Mostly full of people her age or a little older. They were protesting a violation of animal rights, something about the bees were dying. If only they knew. Mistreatment of animals was the least of AIM’s crimes.
“Why exactly are we here again instead of stopping, oh, I don’t purse-snatchers?” Red asked in his snarky manner.
“Patience, young spider. Rappaccini will show herself eventually,” she answered with a pinch of venom in her voice over the woman’s name. “Besides… how often do you seriously see a purse snatcher?”
“I stopped two yesterday and another tried to steal candy from a baby.”
“Just… shut up.”
Ten minutes later and still nothing had happened. She settled in for the long haul only for her stomach to growl in annoyance. Maybe she should have had a taco too.
A.I.M.’s – short for Advanced Idea Mechanics, now didn’t that sound evil – Manhattan headquarters soared high above all other nearby skyscrapers. The upper ten floors were completely unique in the entire city, designed with honeycombs in mind. The pattern repeated all around the building, sticking out from the walls like giant flatscreens. And that’s what they were. Images raced across them. Ads for A.I.M.. Everything from fuel-friendly cars to make-up to three-hundred dollar toy-guns that your child just had to have with Christmas right around the corner. It made for a neat, if distracting effect. Eyes blurred if you stared at them too long.
And Rappaccini’s office was hidden behind them. Not even her X-Ray vision could see through the screens… If that didn’t scream evil then she didn’t know what did.
Every couple of minutes, two men in yellow-striped jumpsuits would leave the building and watch the crowd, making sure that employees and guests could still enter. They’d look around like they had business elsewhere, sweeping the area with their gazes. They radiated the emotion that the protesters were beneath their notice and in no way, shape, or form the reason why they patrolled the entrance.
Anya adjusted the setting on her goggles after noticing something strange about the protesters. It was growing… Well, that wasn’t really unusual but… Her enhanced vision zeroed in on a man, no older than twenty. Dark haired. Squinty eyes. Pale skin. She scoped right and saw another just like him milling about. Then another. And suddenly she saw women of the same race join.
“I’m seeing Asian…” Anya stated in disbelief.
Red crawled over the edge of his gargoyle to get a better look. His white eyes curled up in what she recognized as a huge-grin based on the other spider’s reactions. “Oh… oh this is gonna be epic.” He turned his face to her and she could side his dimples up against the fabric of his mask. “Get out your camera. Quick!”
“Huh?” She felt like she was the only one not in on the joke.
Then it happened.
The honeycombs blanked.
“OPPAN GANG-NAMSEUTAYIL!”
The words bounced over the plaza echoing from unseen speakers hidden about the comb-screens and voices down below screaming out in unison. Suddenly each screen had a face… A cartoon face. A round-faced Asian man with fish lips and Elvis hair. A beat began as music played.
“A.I.M. just got flash mobbed,” laughed Red, almost falling off his perch.
A second later, he did fall off his steadfast gargoyle.
“Nice. Gangnam Style,” Franklin Richards said. “Brilliant.”
Thankful for her reflexes, Anya webbed Red by his feet and caught him before he had fallen ten feet or could start screaming. She dragged him back up without much effort. “If you’re gonna be a hero, you can’t let a thing like that surprise you.” As she helped him onto his perch with a look of relief in his bug-eyes, she turned her glare on the new arrival. “And you! I’ve warned you not to sneak up on me.”
Franklin Richards, dressed in a fashionable suit with a blue shirt and a loose tie whipping in the wind, shrugged his broad shoulders in answer. His eyes were on the crowd below as he floated in the air. People had started dancing among the protestors. They shuffled about like they were riding horses… What the hell was this?
“Y-you… you’re Franklin Richards!” gasped Red in hero-worship. So young. “Captain Fantastic!”
Wait. What? Captain Fantastic?
“Just Fantastic,” Franklin waved off any further attention so he could watch the scene below.
Before Anya knew it, she had out her palm-sized digital camera and was recording the incident. When did that happen? She couldn’t remember opening her backpack.
“Eh sexy lady!”
Spider-Girl shut it off and turned a worried glance towards Franklin. He wasn’t smiling like he usually would. Or rather… his lips were twisted in a smile that never quite reached his crystal blue eyes. She tried to stare into them, find a gleaming of an answer to an unasked question before quickly averting her gaze. What had Valeria told her when they first met? It was a joke but it sounded serious.
“What are you doing here, Psi?” she hissed over the awestruck head of her partner.
The bearded man arched an impressed brow. “You didn’t call me Fantastic.”
“And you didn’t answer my question.”
Red shuffled around in his monkey crouch, his head bouncing back and forth like a tennis ball.
“Time for some community service.”
“No,” she jerked her jaw towards the honeycombs that now showed dancing beekeepers. “I got work here.”
He finally focused in on her and Anya saw stars. His eyes were supernovas, they burned with… with what? What had she been thinking? His eyes weren’t suns. They were oceans. Deeper than anything she had ever seen.
“Third time the charm, eh?”
She indicated Red with a gesture of her thumb. “I have a partner now.”
“I can see that,” he paused as Red gave him a weak wave hi. “You barely got out the first time. They captured you the second time… Given the escalation, I’d be worried if I were you.”
“You know what they did to me,” she growled, trying to put all her frustration over his continued inaction against A.I.M. in those words.
“Wait….” Her partner read between the lines of the unsaid. “I thought we were here because they were killing Buzz’s buddies… Going to break into that one lady’s office to search for proof when she addressed the crowd…”
“Certainly has something to do with insects.”
“Arachnids,” corrected Anya.
Franklin left it at that. “We need you. With the elections coming up, we need your brand. To prove to the people that you’re not a menace,” he rolled his eyes. “Gotta keep you in the F4 uniform… as a hero the world over. I won’t let them drag the names of people brave enough to do what’s right through the mud.”
She said nothing, waiting.
“Okay… Fine. You got me. If Mom is making me go to the Foundation opening then I’m making you. Suit up.”
“I see,” she thought it over. He was right... in a way. Capes had been brought up at the elections and had now become a debate point. Though the Fantastic Four refused to take sides or endorse any party, they weren’t above making their point known. After all, wasn’t that why Dr. Richards had built his station? “You’re right. You do need a spider. Take him.”
A pregnant moment of silence between them coincided with the end of the song.
Both men went “What?” at the same time.
“Your training did me good. Gave me gear. Upped my arsenal and improved my survivability rate…” she flicked her fingers, spraying Franklin with a web as an example. “He needs it too and obviously my temperament isn’t suitable for a mentoring position.”
“Take me for what?”
“You just joined the Fantastic Four,” Anya reached out and ruffled the top of his mask, feeling the mop of hair beneath, “Scarlet Spider.”
“Me?” The Scarlet Spider’s eyes filled all of his face in surprise. “A part of the Fantastic Four? A member of the World’s Greatest Heroes?”
Franklin sighed and reached out a hand towards him. “If you want.”
“Do I get those web-things like her?”
“Yes.”
“Hell yeah!” Red shook the offered hand.
An amused smile lifted the corner of her lips. It was a funny sight high above the streets of New York. Two men shaking hands, one crouched atop a gargoyle, the other flying. Just what kind of world did she live in?
“When do we go?”
“Now.”
“Where?”
“Space.”
“Space…” Scarlet Spider was all eyes for her after Franklin uttered those words. He mouthed thank you.
She didn’t say anything. The screens were all static now. Behind those honeycombs was the woman of her dreams, her nightmares. Anya would expose her for all the world to see… With or without the help of the Fantastic Four.
The Scarlet Spider swings into the pages of All Star Fantastic Four and just what will happen with young Anya and her A.I.M fixation? You’ll find out soon. Until then, stay tuned, True Believers, for Road to the Future: ????? to reveal the final member of the Fantastic Four. And this one is an oldie…