Chapter 2. The Devil's Handshake
"Parker!" J. Jonah Jameson yelled. "Where are my pictures?"
"Right here J. J." Peter said as he entered the office of the Daily Bugles Editor-in-Chief. "I was able to get some real good shots of Spider-Man's battle with Razorback."
"I don't need an introduction. Give 'em here and get back out there." As he left, Peter laughed and shook his head.
"Good ol' J. J." he thought to himself. "Always goes out of his way to brighten a person's day." Peter walked down the hallway but stopped when he overheard Robbie talking to someone on the phone.
"It must be some kind of cult." Robbie said. "Graves defiled and the remains found arranged in an arcane fashion." Robbie continued his conversation as Peter snuck up to the roof.
"What kind of person would dig up dead bodies?" Spidey thought to himself as he swung around the city, checking out several cemetery's. The sun was beginning to set when he heard heavy metal music echoing out of the heart of a burial ground near central park. He landed silently and made his way toward the sound. Spidey peered around a large headstone and saw three teenagers, all drinking. Two boys and one girl, dressed in black with matching hair, eyeshadow and nail polish.
"A little late, ain't it kids?" Spidey said as he leapt out in front of them. Without saying a word, one of the boys picked up an empty whiskey bottle and hurled it at the hero.
"No, thanks." Spidey said as he hit the bottle with a webline. "I have to swing home." He whirled the bottle around once and crashed into the young man's face, rendering him unconscious. The second boy pulled out a switch blade knife.
"That toy is for ages six and up." Spidey easily dodged a thrust from the blade and grabbed his assailant's fist. He quickly snapped off the blade with his thumb. "Maybe you should stick with Hungry Hungry Hippos." With one swift jab, another criminal went down. Spidey turned to the girl.
"It's over, just give it up." the girl shot a look at the hero that chilled him to the bone. He had never seen so much hatred in a young persons eyes. The girl then turned and fled.
"Wait!" Spidey yelled. He shot a webline that the girl managed to avoid by ducking behind a tombstone. Spider-Man ran to the grave marker, but the girl was gone.
Spidey searched the grave yard for over an hour before giving up. The other two were in jail and there was no sign of the girl.
"She probably ran home." he said to himself before shooting a webline and swinging away. As he left, a pair of hateful eyes stared at him. She watched him swing out of sight until she turned to walk away. She stopped when she saw the most grotesque headstone ever made.
"This wasn't here before." she said to herself. A stone carving of a winged demon holding a human skull was perched upon a pile of bones. A live snake was slowly coiling itself around the skull. The stone had only one word scribed upon it, Dusk. The girl, in an almost hypnotic state, approached the statue and kneeled on the ground in front of it. She noticed that no grass had grown on the grave while the tombstone showed obvious signs of age. She gazed into the demon's eyes. The piercing stare of the statue reached deep into her mind. She heard a voice.
"Do you desire the power to destroy the spider?" a very ominous voice echoed through her head. She nodded slowly. "Relinquish your soul to me, and the power of Dusk shall be yours." The girl stood up and paused for a long moment before quietly speaking.
"Take it." she then began to yell at the top of her voice. "Take it and bestow upon me your demonic gift!" lightning struck her when she finished speaking, sending her sailing backwards and hitting the ground. She laid there, smoke rolling off of her body. When she sat up, she raised a trembling hand to her face and flinched as it was engulfed in black flame. An evil smile crept on to her face as she relished in her newfound power.
The next morning, Peter awoke and turned on the T.V. Mary Jane walked in and handed him a cup of coffee.
"Morning Tiger." she said as she sat down next to him on the couch and kissed him on the cheek. "Rough night?"
"Not really." he replied. "Just your run-of-the-mill grave robbing kids."
"Grave robbing? That's horrible."
"Yeah. What's the world coming to?" Peter's eyes suddenly fixated on the screen.
"What is it?"
"That's were I was last night." The news was showing a scene at the graveyard. Headstones were smashed and foliage had wilted and died.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, but I'm gonna find out."
It didn't take long for Spider-Man to make his way back to the cemetery. When he arrived, he saw exactly what the news had covered, but as he looked around, he noticed something more. He approached the tombstone that bore the work Dusk. When he stepped on the soil, his foot sank into the earth. As he bent down to study the ground, his spider-sense went off. He swiftly jumped back as the loose ground was blown in every direction by a black flame. Spidey watched as a dark figure was launched out of the grave by an explosion of black flame. The figure landed and stared right through the hero.
"You're the girl from last night."
"You can call me Dusk." she fired a swirling column of fire at the red and blue superhero. Spider-Man skillfully back flipped onto a nearby tree. "And that's Hellfire."
"Do your parents know about this?" Spidey asked jokingly.
"I have no parents!" Dusk yelled as she let loose a vertical wave of flame in his direction. Once again, Spidey leapt out of harms way. When the flame struck the tree, its' bright green leaves instantly turned black and its' once sturdy trunk rotted and collapsed.
"That's a neat trick." Spidey said. "I bet they just love you at the botanical shows."
"Shut up and die!" Dusk launched herself twenty feet into the air and unleashed a massive blast of Hellfire. Spidey narrowly averted another attack.
"She's not gonna let me get close." he thought to himself as he landed on the top of a stone mausoleum. He shot a webline at Dusk that bound her hands together.
"That should buy me some time." Spidey quickly headed for Dusk, jumping from headstone to headstone in an attempt to end their battle. As Spidey neared, Dusk blasted her hands free and shot off a barrage of Hellfire balls toward the advancing spider. After narrowly dodging several projectiles, his spider-sense went wild. He quickly changed his course, and attempted to swing hard to the left. He pulled hard on his webline as two large rolling balls of black fire careened toward him. He managed to evade the first, but was struck in his right side by the second. A screeching pain shot through his body as he fell to the ground and landed behind some foliage. He writhed in agony while looking down at his undamaged costume.
"It hurts so bad." he thought as he pulled up his suit and saw that a patch of his skin, about the size of a basketball, had turned black.
"Stop hiding and accept you fate!" Spider-Man summoned all his might and rose to his feet. With a pain filled effort, he shot one web at the approaching Dusk, bounding her hands together once more. The other webline struck a headstone. Spidey yanked hard, sending the stone sailing into Dusk, knocking her to the ground. Spider-Man had to fight to stay conscious as he swung off.
Mary Jane was making dinner when she heard the window open.
"Peter, you're home." she said as she walked into the living room. She gasped when she saw her husband laying on the floor, passed out. She ran to him and was horrified upon seeing the large black burn on his side.
Peter awoke about an hour later and was welcomed by the pain of his Hellfire burn.
"How do you feel?" MJ asked, very concerned.
"Not near as bad as I did earlier." he looked down at his wound. To his dismay, the burn had grown no smaller but at least the pain had subsided greatly. "But I'll feel a lot better when I take care of Dusk."
"But you're still hurt."
If I don't go, this could happen top someone else, or it could be worse."
Spider-Man had swung his way all over within five block radius of the cemetery with no sign of Dusk.
"This time I'm not going to assume she 'just went home'." he thought to himself. As he swung by an old, abandoned church, his spider-sense went off. He quickly shot a webline to his right and jerked himself out of the way of a rolling black flame.
"It's about time spider." the hero looked up to see Dusk standing on top of the church before she blasted a hole in the roof and jumped in. Spider-Man crawled up the wall and onto the roof. He then carefully crept into the hole.
"Well, if I die, at least I'm already at a church." Spidey thought to himself as he made his way down a long hallway that echoed his every step. As he neared the corner, his spider-sense prompted him to jump up and stick to the high arched ceiling. As the black flame thundered past him, he saw Dusk standing at the other end of the hallway. He quickly caught her with a webline and pulled hard, sending her flying past him and into a large mirror on the opposite end. When she fell to the ground, Spidey dropped to the floor and began to approach her. She quickly sat up and screamed as she let out a huge explosion of Hellfire in all directions. Spidey barely had time to make a web shield before he was pelted by fire and mirror fragments. Dusk got up and took off down a connecting hallway. As she fled, Spidey looked around at the scorched church hall before fixating his eyes on an undamaged angelic statue.
"Sister," he said to the sculpture. "You just gave me an idea." Spider-Man make his way to the main congregation room, swung up to the front and quickly put together his plan.
He had just finished when the thick, double doors leading into the room were blown off of their hinges. Dusk walked through them, her hands burning with the familiar black flame. Spider-Man stood his ground at the front of the room, ignoring his spider-sense.
"Say your prayers little spider." Dusk said as she brought her fists together. The Hellfire slithered around her, engulfing her entire body. By now Spidey's sixth sense was going wild, but he managed to subdue it, waiting for the right time. Dusk thrust her hands forward and a massive wave of fire burst forth, toppling pillars and shattering stained glass windows as it moved toward Spidey. The hero leapt out of the way and the flame immediately burnt through the white sheets behind him and struck the angelic statues he had assembled. Dusk's eyes opened wide as she watched her power reflect off of the monuments and head directly toward her. She only had time to gasp before being caught in the wave of flame, sailing out of the room and crashing into a rock wall. Spider-Man approached her. She was not moving. He placed his fingers on her neck.
"She's alive." he said with relief before he webbed her up. He walked out of the church with the young girl over his shoulder. He hung her upside down from a large statue of an angel and then used a nearby payphone to call the vault. When he hung up, he lifted his costume to see that his big black burn had disappeared, leaving no trace that it was ever there.
Bio
Name: Dusk
Real Name: Danielle Thompson
height: 5' 5"
Weight: 110 lbs.
Eyes: Green, black contacts
Hair: Brown, dyed black
Age: 18
Superhuman Powers: Ability to conjure Hellfire, a black flame in which she can manipulate into a various forms of attacks. Also capable of using Hellfire as a "thrust", being able to leap up to thirty feet and slowing her decent.
Source of Powers: Received demonic gift in exchange for her soul.
Special Skills: None
Weapons: None
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man, New Faces #2
Origin: Danielle was born into a loving, caring home. She grew up receiving all of the love a parent could give. At the age of 13, Danielle's mother and father were killed in a car accident on their way to pick her up from her grandparents. Upon hearing the news, she ran away and let her emotions take her over. At her parents funeral, she secretly attended, and as she watched her beloved mother and father lowered into the ground, her heart was also buried. From that point on, her only companion was hate. Until the age of 18 she was in and out of foster homes, had no friends and had taken on a "goth" appearance. On her 18th birthday she ran off and joined a satanic cult that had been terrorizing New York for quit some time. She found the closest thing to a home for the first time since her parents death. After a few months, the police and Spider-Man had apprehended all but three of the cult. The three, including Danielle continued causing trouble. Vandalism, mugging and grave violation. One night while partying in a grave yard and preparing to defile another corpse, Spider-Man interfered and brought two of the three to justice. Danielle managed to hide from the wall crawler, and as he left, wished for the power to rid the world of him. A mysterious tombstone offered her the chance to fulfill her desire. By relinquishing her soul, she was granted Hellfire. She adopted the name of Dusk and waits for the opportunity to destroy Spider-man.
