Through the Eyes of the Storm

"Mommy!" the little girl cried out as she stroked her platinum-blond ponytail with her chocolate-brown hands, tears running down her face, "Daddy!" She didn't know how long it had been since the loud popping noises made the lights go dark, since the screaming everybody made had made her scared so she ran, since she realized that she didn't know where she was anymore nor where her parents were. Now she was alone and cold, lonely and scared. All she wanted to do was find her mom and dad and go home.

As she wiped away her tears, the girl sees a flash of light accompanied by a sound like a music note. As she turns to look, she sees a fenced-in area with a bunch of tall rectangular things. These things light up one after another in rapid sequence, each light flash accompanied by a different note.

Mommy likes music, the girl thinks to herself, maybe that's them, trying to let me know where they are! She doesn't recognize the song playing, and she doesn't care. The girl finds a gap under the fence that's just big enough for her to crawl under, then she makes her way inside.

When she got close enough to the music and the lights, she sees that it is not her parents. Instead, the girl sees a couple of guys chasing each other around like a strange game of tag. One guy, dressed in red and blue from head to foot, was swinging around the rectangular things from ropes that seemed to come from his wrists. The one who was "it", who looked like he was glowing blue like her night-light, flew after the other guy and appeared to be throwing lightning bolts after him, disappearing only to reappear somewhere else to throw another one.

After the red and blue guy got hit pretty badly by Mr. Nightlight, red-blue guy landed on a platform with some broken wires. He then attached his rope-thingies to the wires and, pulling himself back up, ties them together just as Mr. Nightlight hits Red-Blue Guy again with a continuous lightning bolt.

That's not how Tag is played! the girl thought to herself, When the guy who's It tags someone, then that person becomes It and chases the others around! The one who's It doesn't keep hitting the guy, and he definitely doesn't try to hurt him! "Stop!" the girl screeches at them as she steps from her hiding place, "Stop it!"

If either of them saw or heard her they gave no sign as Red-Blue Guy hollered at someone, "Gwen! Throw the switch! Do it now!" Then the girl heard a humming sound and saw Red-Blue Guy leap backwards just before all of the rectangular things, including the one she'd been hiding behind, lit up all at once. In fact, the entire city behind her lit up! As for Mr. Nightlight, he was still shooting his lightning bolts at Red-Blue's ropes even though Red-Blue Guy wasn't there anymore, and now Mr. Nightlight was the one screaming as both he and his lightning were glowing brighter and brighter. Finally, as Mr. Nightlight got too bright her to look at anymore, he exploded! The girl blinked in confusion, then she looked around to see if she could see him anywhere, but there was no trace of him.

But people don't explode like that, do they? the girl thought in fear and confusion, Mr. Nightlight must have just been a robot or something, right? For a moment, the girl's heart raced with fear as she thought that maybe Mr. Nightlight had simply disappeared and was now going to appear behind her, start playing Tag with her! She hoped not, she didn't like the way they were playing! Then, just as she had gathered the strength to run, something that looked like it might have been part of Mr. Nightlight's head fell down and landed at her feet. Most of it looked like charcoal except for a little thing that looked like a battery meter from one of her toys. That means Mr. Nightlight must have been a robot! the girl thought as her heart settled down, then she frowned down at it and kicked it, the soot breaking up somewhat as she muttered, "Bad robot!"

The girl then peeked around the corner again to see if she can find the Red-Blue Guy again. She spotted him at the base of the platform where he'd used his ropes to connect the broken wires, and as she followed his gaze the girl saw a very pretty young white woman come out of the shorter of the two buildings, smiling at Red-Blue. She must be the one who turned the lights back on! the girl thought excitedly, They must both be nice people! Maybe they'll help me find my Mom and Dad!

As she had taken her first running step towards them, the girl heard a terrible laughter echoing through the air that made her fearful again. This laughter reminded her of that bad Wicked Witch of the West from that Wizard of Oz movie she watched with her parents once, only this sounded more like a guy. As she followed the laughter to its source, the girl saw someone who was even scarier than that witch. Flying on what looked like a metal bat was a green guy with pointed ears, claws for fingernails, and needle-sharp teeth. As the Green Guy hovered between the pretty lady and Red-blue Guy, the girl ducked back into her hiding place, closing her eyes tightly and hugging herself as her breathing raced and her heart pounded.

For the most part, the only things that the girl could hear was her ragged panting and the violent beating of her own heart. But even though she still kept her eyes clamped closed in fear, certain phrases still seeped in through her panicked ears:

"Peter?"

"Harry? What had happened to you?"

"This is what you made me do!"

Even though she was still too afraid to look, the girl thought that the two talking were friends, and since she only heard male voices she guessed that it was Red-Blue and Green Guy. Of course she couldn't tell exactly who was who, but from the question "Peter" had asked Harry, the girl guessed that Peter was not Green Guy. Still, she thought it sounded like that Peter and Harry were friends, at least before whatever had happened to Harry, and that they would talk out what was bothering them and wouldn't start fighting, because that's what friends do. Then what she heard next dashed those hopes away:

Peter: "I was just trying to help you!"

Harry: "Yeah, I know. 'Spider-man gives hope to the people.' Then he goes and takes that hope away! Well, now I'm going to take away your hope.

Peter: "Gwen, run!"

That yell makes the girl snap her eyes open, and she pokes her head around the corner in time to see the Green Guy, whom she was sure now was Harry, fly after the young woman (Gwen), grab her by the arm and fly up into the air before Red-Blue (Peter) can catch them. Then Peter used his rope thingies to swing after them, gaining altitude with each pass and trying to catch Harry and Gwen with his ropes on every other swing, but Harry was just too fast and nimble to be caught. Finally Peter was as high as he could possibly go, so he called out desperately from the top of the clocktower, "Harry, please! Put Gwen down!"

Harry looked down at Peter for a moment, then said, "Okay."

Then Harry dropped Gwen.

The little girl gasped. She knew that Gwen could get hurt by falling from such a long height, but Peter jumped up much higher than she ever seen anybody jump before, grabbed Gwen in mid fall, then they fell through the windows on the clocktower's roof together. After throwing something in after them, Harry flew in himself.

For a moment, the girl was too stunned to move. Why are they acting like this? she thought desperately to herself, They're friends, aren't they? Friends shouldn't fight like this! As she stood, the girl was torn between a need to run away from the crazy guy and get back to her parents now that the lights are back on, and a desire to help the nice people who turned those lights back on. A second or two passed, then she took off running towards the clocktower, determined to find a way in and stop them from fighting no matter what.

As Peter struggled with his one-time friend Harry Osborne, who was now acting like a madman, he struggled to hold onto the web-that Gwen was now desperately clinging to, while he also kept one foot on the gear whose cog now threatened to sever said web-line and send Gwen falling to her death. All the while, several questions ran through Peter's mind. Why didn't Harry just give me time to help him find a safe cure? He should have known that I wouldn't let him die without a fight! What happened to make him flip out this way? Why is he taking his anger out on Gwen if he's so mad at me? Why couldn't I just let Gwen go to college in England where she'd be safe?

As his spider-sense tingled, Peter saw Harry remove something from his battlesuit: a wicked looking knife with two blades that curved away from one another. Realizing that Harry intended to cut the line himself, Peter made a gigantic effort and heaved Harry into one of the clocktower's walls, knocking him unconscious. Unfortunately this proved to be a huge mistake, as the effort caused the weakened clockworks to break free from their settings, raining gears all around him and breaking Gwen's web-line. As she started to fall, Peter dived down after her, determined to save the one thing he could not live without. However, as he started to aim his web-shooters in her direction, Peter's spider-sense tingled even louder, directing his gaze to something past Gwen that made his blood run cold: there, on the clocktower's ground floor, was a little girl looking back up at them! Maybe ten or twelve years old, she appeared to be of African descent with big blue eyes and hair as pale as the moon, and she was standing directly beneath the deadly rain of metal! Even if his web-line had the propulsion to reach Gwen and catch her before she could hit the ground, there was no way that he'd be able to outrace the falling debris before it would flatten the child!

As the girl finally saw the danger she was in her eyes widened (did her blue eyes just turn white?), the she threw her arms over her head and closed her eyes as she screamed. Before Peter could yell at her to get out of the way, a huge wall of wind slapped him in the face and slowed his descent, as if the clocktower had been transformed into one of those vertical wind tunnels you often see in fairs and whatnot to simulate skydiving. In fact, the descent of almost everything, including Gwen and most of the falling gears had been dramatically slowed. Only problem is that the larger gears, including the enormous master gear, hardly had their speed slowed down at all, and that master gear was heavy enough to kill Gwen in mid fall on its way to turn the girl into a pancake!

Acting in desperation, Peter tucked his hands against his body in order to minimize his wind resistance and dived through the field of slowly falling debris, ignoring the minor scrapes and bruises that resulted from such a maneuver. Then, just before the huge gear could slam into Gwen, Peter shot a web-line at it and attached the line to a nearby wall, causing the gear to swing in the opposite direction, the pendulum motion sweeping some of the slightly smaller gears along with it, then he webbed it in place as the gear struck the wall.

As he reached Gwen, she wrapped her arms and legs around his neck and waist, freeing Peter's arms to create a web net above them to catch even more of the falling metal. Then, at the last moment, Peter fired one more line at one of the walls, holding onto it and allowing the momentum to jerk him upright and swing in an arc towards the girl (who was still standing there screaming), then he and Gwen scooped up the girl and formed a protective cocoon of arms around her to shield her from the impact with the wall, upon which Peter got to his feet to shield both ladies from what falling metal made it through his net once the wind finally stopped.

Once the cacophony of falling metal finally stopped, the little girl started crying, which prompts Gwen to start rocking her, stroking her hair and back while she said soothingly, "There, there. It's all right now." As she continued to try and calm the girl, Gwen glanced into Peter's face with a look that clearly asked "What was that just now?" for which Peter had no answer. Whatever was behind all this, it is clear that this girl wasn't cut from the same cloth as Harry, Max or Connors: one moment she seemed all-powerful, generating gale force winds from her hands, and the next she's sitting there bawling like any other frightened twelve tear old girl.

Finally, as the girl's crying tapered off to a series of hiccups and whimpers, Gwen asked her, "Are you okay? Nothing too badly hurt?"

The girl sniffed and said, "I'm fine."

"Where are your parents?" Gwen asked in the same soothing tone, "How did you get here?"

"I don't know where they are," the girl sobbed, "We were going to the movies when there was a loud noise and all the lights went out! Then everybody started screaming, and I got scared so I r-r-rannn, and I couldn't find Mommy or Daddy anywhere!"

"Shhh, shhh, shhh, it's okay!" Gwen said as she began rocking the girl consolingly when her crying began to pick up again, "We'll help you find your mom and dad. What's your name?"

"Ororo," the girl said with a sniff, giving Gwen a watery smile, "Ororo Munroe."

"Ororo, what a pretty name!" Gwen said with a kind smile, "My name is Gwen, and this is…"

"Peter, I know," Ororo said as she smiled at him, "I heard that mean guy Harry say it when he was arguing with you two."

Peter and Gwen shared an alarmed glance with one another before Peter looked back town at Ororo and said, "Harry's not mean, not normally. He's just scared because he's really sick, but I'm going to make sure that he gets the help he needs to get better. And when I'm dressed like this my name is Spider-man, or Spidey, okay? It's really important that you don't tell anybody my name is Peter, not even to your parents, okay?"

"You mean like a secret?" Ororo asked him, her smile bigger and more sure.

"Yeah, a secret!" Peter said to her, "You can keep a secret, right?"

"Okay Spidey," Ororo said with a huge smile, the last of her tears dripping off her chin, "I promise to not tell anyone."

"Atta girl," Peter said as he tousled Ororo's hair, then he said, "Speaking of secrets, how'd you make that huge wind earlier? That really helped us out!"

"Wind? What wind?" Ororo asked in confusion, "What do you mean?"

Peter and Gwen exchanged a look with one another. Clearly Ororo didn't know what she had just done, so Peter decided to use another tact, "Never mind, it's not that important. So, what about your parents? What do they do?"

"Well, daddy takes pictures for the newspaper, and mommy is a princess," Ororo says proudly.

"A princess?" Gwen asks in confusion.

"Yeah! In Africa!" Ororo says with a huge smile.

Peter couldn't think of any place in Africa that was under any kind of monarchy. Then some pieces of information clicked in his head as he asked Ororo, "Do you mean a priestess?"

"Yeah, that's it! A priestess!" Ororo confirmed.

Peter nodded, but felt even more confused that before. Nothing she said explained why she was able to do what she did, unless you believed in magic, which Peter didn't. That left Ororo as a big mystery, but he figured that there would be time to figure that out later. For now, they needed to get her out of here and back to her parents. "So how did you get in here?" he asked her, to which she pointed at an open air grate along the lower wall. While the opening might have been large enough to let her through, neither Peter nor Gwen would fit, so Peter looked around and found the main entrance. It was locked, but Peter had no trouble forcing it open, then he knelt in front of Ororo and said, "Listen, I've got to go back up and get my friend Harry so we can take him to a doctor, so I want you to stay here with Gwen until I come back down, then we can look for your parents together."

Ororo then threw her arms around Peter's neck and kissed him on the cheek as she said, "Thank you Pet…I mean Spidey!"

If Peter hadn't been wearing his mask, Ororo and Gwen might have seen him blush. As it was, he simply nodded to them both as he slingshot himself quickly back to the top of the tower.

As it turned out, they did not have to look far. Once he located the unconscious Harry where he'd left him, Peter secured his hands and fee together with webbing and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, carrying him out the broken windows at the top. Once there, Peter saw the sweep of flashlights at the street near the entrance of the power station, accompanied by the voices of a couple calling out Ororo's name. Slinging his way quickly to the gate, Peter broke open the lock and opened it as he called out, "Hey! Over here!" The distraught couple hurried over to Peter's location where he asked them, "Are you Ororo's parents?"

"Yes?" The husband said uncertainly.

Ororo, whom had been riding in Gwen's arms as she followed Peter to the gate, lit up with delight as she squealed, "Mommy! Daddy!" Then Gwen let her down as she raced over to her parents, who knelt were they were at and smothered her in a group hug, crying and covering Ororo's face with kisses. The father then looked up at Peter and said gratefully, "Thank you, Spider-man, thank you so much!"

"Actually we're the ones who should be thanking your daughter there. You have one brave and special little girl there. Make sure to take good care of her, okay?" Peter countered.

"We will," the mother said gratefully, "Thank you!"

Peter nodded at them and at Gwen, then he shifted Harry's weight on his shoulder and swung off into the night.