Interlude Part 2 - Thief
I swung frantically through the air, trying to figure out what had happened, but it was too late.
My third tutoring session with Felica had gotten off to a less that spiffy start. Specifically, it never started at all, what with the police ringing the building and smoke coming out of the shattered windows of the Hardy's penthouse apartment.
But I still got into my costume and started frantically searching. But as usual, I came up with zero. Zip, zilch, nada, etcetera, etcetera, and so on and so forth.
This, in turn, meant one of two things. Either, A, I'd never see her again, or B, this would all blow up in my face in one form or another. The thing I like about choice two is that it covers all the possible ways for this to go horribly wrong.
It's horrible of me to say, but I was really rooting for choice two, because that meant she was probably still alive. Things blowing up my face, no matter how it happened, was always bad in the short run, but not seeing her again meant she was likely dead.
And I really didn't like the thought of that.
I shook my head and went deeper into town. It was time to shake down a few informants.
I turned up nothing for several days, and frankly, was beginning to panic. Things usually went to hell long before this. Thankfully, I was occupied by a string of jewel thefts in the area, so I had something else to do.
Well, relatively.
Running a stakeout on a jewelry store is more than a little boring, but tonight it seemed that my efforts would be rewarded. I spotted someone running over the rooftops towards the store. The moon wasn't out, but the streetlights were giving me a little ambient lighting this far above street level.
I waited until the figure tried opening up the skylight before I acted. Jumping to the wrong conclusion had embarrassed me a time or two before.
I ran and jumped over the street at the burglar, tackling him from behind. At least I had assumed it was a he. This proved not to be the case as my hands closed around a somewhat generous chest of the female persuasion.
Obviously this lack of moonlight is hindering my eyesight more than I'd thought.
"Get your paws off me!"
Despite the fact that I'd waited for her to show some signs of criminal intent, I was still embarrassed as all get out. So I let go and jumped back, hoping this wouldn't set some kind of trend. I chose a flippant remark to throw back at her.
"Hey! I'm not some damn dirty ape, you know."
There were several seconds of silence after that as she jus stared at me. I used to take a better look. She stood just a little taller than me, wearing a more or less skin tight black costume with white fur in places, which went well with the platinum blonde hair that went down her back. She wore a mask over the upper part of my face, and she was looking at me like I was several bricks short of a wall.
How I'd missed that detail I'm not sure, but it was even more embarrassing than before. But, the silence was beginning to bore me, so I followed up.
"Geeze, I know people don't watch the classics anymore, but you should at least know that line."
She just stared harder. I tilted my head.
"Hello? Planet of the Apes? Surely you've at least seen the Simpson's episode where they do the musical of it…"
This time she visibly twitched. I didn't even need my spider sense this time to know to jump back as she tried to hit me. The claws were somewhat original though; I'd only seen that kind of thing a few times. Everyone else just uses their fists when I get too annoying.
I backflipped once or twice to gain some distance on her, and then went in with a punch. It was dodged.
Typical.
I'm one of those small time superheroes who can't seem to go more than a week without encountering someone who can probably clean my clock. As we trade a few more blows though, I come to realize her actual fighting skill was about like mine.
Which means it was picked up watching a few too many kung-fu action flicks, and dependant on her super powered speed, strength, and reflexes more than anything else.
Letting my ever faithful spider sense guide me around her clawed hands, I nailed her across the jaw. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to note that this would carry her over the edge of the roof.
Whoops.
So, I did what every hero is supposed to do for the damsel in distress, evil or not, and jumped over the ledge after her.
She was going up as I came down, firing off some kind of grappling hook, and I fired off a web line to chase after her. This lasted a good ten minutes as she managed to stay ahead of me.
Then, where she zigged, I zagged, and I managed to catch up with her long enough to nail a kick into the small of her back, sending her tumbling to a rooftop below. I dropped with her, just to make sure nothing bad happened.
She hit, and rolled over just in time for me to land on top of her. I spread my legs a bit at the last second to avoid any more actual contact, and landed in a crouch leaning over her. She grinned at me this time.
"Not bad, Spider…"
Well, despite the fact that the sultry level in her voice could turn my legs to jelly, I managed to keep up, and fire off a witty remark of my own.
"Thanks. Now how about rewarding my efforts by letting me tie you up and take you to the nearest police station."
"Sounds… kinky…"
I twitched internally. Obviously sexual innuendo was going to become something of a habit for this particular bad guy… girl. Whatever.
"Sorry. I don't do that kind of thing with people whose names I don't know."
She reached for my facemask as she smiled. My spider sense wasn't saying anything, so I listened to the other instinct, shock, which made me freeze up and stay still.
"The name's Black Cat…"
Then she lifted the bottom part of the mask and pulled my down for a kiss.
It was now that my spider sense choose to scream. It had to battle with both shock and hormones for a second, so I was a bit to late to react when she flipped us both over and ran for the edge of the roof, jumping off. By the time my mask was down and I was over there, she was gone.
I spoke to the now empty night.
"Well… that was interesting."
Regarding the Hardy family disappearance, I had decided that a more proactive approach was needed. So, I started poking around, asking questions about who knew the Hardys. This didn't turn up much, but considering I did most of it as concerned friend Peter Parker, it was hardly surprising. Eventually, I went to the internet, and slapped myself for not doing it sooner. There it was.
A front-page newspaper column on how Jack Hardy, the cat burglar, had been arrested.
I nodded slowly to myself as I considered the facts.
Jack Hardy was a cat burglar.
The new cat burglar called herself 'Black Cat'.
Felicia and Black Cat both shared hair and eye colors.
This was hardly conclusive evidence, but it fit my life to a T. The only thing to consider was the slight difference in builds. Felicia hadn't been that muscular when she'd been kidnapped I didn't think.
Then I glanced down from the screen to my chest.
Then again… who knows?
Then I sighed and rose. Whether Felicia was the Black Cat, or someone was trying to pin it on her, was not the point. But it was enough to drop the bombshell at my next meeting with her and see where things went.
I got up and left the building.
This proved to be a mistake, but it was better than being in the building I suppose. Two men stepped out from the sides of the entrance of the library, and carted me into a car. Not wanting to clue off that I was anything more than a fourteen-year-old kid, I collapsed and pretended to be unconscious when they belted me in the back of the head a few times.
As they threw me into something that resembled a cell, I reflected on the irony of my life.
Ten bucks this has something to do with Felicia.
This proved to be a safe bet, as I landed on her sleeping form. I rolled off immediately as she woke up. She looked at me in surprise.
"Peter?!"
"Hi Felicia."
The door opened again before she had the chance to say anything, and they tossed in her father.
"DADDY!"
I helped her move her father onto a cot, then turned to her.
"Can I ask what's happening yet?"
"Peter… it's a long story…"
"I don't think I'm going anywhere."
She sighed.
"Fine. This is a quick run down. Daddy's got a photographic memory, and he saw something he wasn't supposed to back when he was a kid. And this guy, Kingpin, wanted it. Daddy wouldn't do it, so he kidnapped us. Daddy gave it to him then, but he wasn't convinced it was real, so he had it tested… on me."
My eyes widened a bit.
"What… was it?"
She bit her lip a little.
"The super soldier formula…"
Oh boy… Kingpin with super-soldiers. That's not good.
"So… why was I grabbed?"
She looked away.
"He was having me steal for him. I don't want to anymore, so…"
"They took me in addition to your father."
She nodded.
Great. Even when it's not me, it's me.
Then, the door opened, and the fat man himself was outside.
Not my week.
Okay, any die-hard Spider-man fanatics will likely flame me for the use of the animated Black Cat's origin and powers, but that's the way it goes. I can't write bad luck powers well. It's either completely overwhelming, or it's too weak. Especially when you're dealing with a gut with Spider sense.
Not pretty, so I took the easy way out. Besides, I personally like the super soldier powers better than that anyways. And it was a good way to do it.
It's been a while since the last update, going on a year now, but I finally think I may have figured a way out of the whole I wrote myself into on the main story. I figure there's only one or possibly two chapters left on the interlude, so we'll be getting back to that soon enough.
I swung frantically through the air, trying to figure out what had happened, but it was too late.
My third tutoring session with Felica had gotten off to a less that spiffy start. Specifically, it never started at all, what with the police ringing the building and smoke coming out of the shattered windows of the Hardy's penthouse apartment.
But I still got into my costume and started frantically searching. But as usual, I came up with zero. Zip, zilch, nada, etcetera, etcetera, and so on and so forth.
This, in turn, meant one of two things. Either, A, I'd never see her again, or B, this would all blow up in my face in one form or another. The thing I like about choice two is that it covers all the possible ways for this to go horribly wrong.
It's horrible of me to say, but I was really rooting for choice two, because that meant she was probably still alive. Things blowing up my face, no matter how it happened, was always bad in the short run, but not seeing her again meant she was likely dead.
And I really didn't like the thought of that.
I shook my head and went deeper into town. It was time to shake down a few informants.
I turned up nothing for several days, and frankly, was beginning to panic. Things usually went to hell long before this. Thankfully, I was occupied by a string of jewel thefts in the area, so I had something else to do.
Well, relatively.
Running a stakeout on a jewelry store is more than a little boring, but tonight it seemed that my efforts would be rewarded. I spotted someone running over the rooftops towards the store. The moon wasn't out, but the streetlights were giving me a little ambient lighting this far above street level.
I waited until the figure tried opening up the skylight before I acted. Jumping to the wrong conclusion had embarrassed me a time or two before.
I ran and jumped over the street at the burglar, tackling him from behind. At least I had assumed it was a he. This proved not to be the case as my hands closed around a somewhat generous chest of the female persuasion.
Obviously this lack of moonlight is hindering my eyesight more than I'd thought.
"Get your paws off me!"
Despite the fact that I'd waited for her to show some signs of criminal intent, I was still embarrassed as all get out. So I let go and jumped back, hoping this wouldn't set some kind of trend. I chose a flippant remark to throw back at her.
"Hey! I'm not some damn dirty ape, you know."
There were several seconds of silence after that as she jus stared at me. I used to take a better look. She stood just a little taller than me, wearing a more or less skin tight black costume with white fur in places, which went well with the platinum blonde hair that went down her back. She wore a mask over the upper part of my face, and she was looking at me like I was several bricks short of a wall.
How I'd missed that detail I'm not sure, but it was even more embarrassing than before. But, the silence was beginning to bore me, so I followed up.
"Geeze, I know people don't watch the classics anymore, but you should at least know that line."
She just stared harder. I tilted my head.
"Hello? Planet of the Apes? Surely you've at least seen the Simpson's episode where they do the musical of it…"
This time she visibly twitched. I didn't even need my spider sense this time to know to jump back as she tried to hit me. The claws were somewhat original though; I'd only seen that kind of thing a few times. Everyone else just uses their fists when I get too annoying.
I backflipped once or twice to gain some distance on her, and then went in with a punch. It was dodged.
Typical.
I'm one of those small time superheroes who can't seem to go more than a week without encountering someone who can probably clean my clock. As we trade a few more blows though, I come to realize her actual fighting skill was about like mine.
Which means it was picked up watching a few too many kung-fu action flicks, and dependant on her super powered speed, strength, and reflexes more than anything else.
Letting my ever faithful spider sense guide me around her clawed hands, I nailed her across the jaw. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to note that this would carry her over the edge of the roof.
Whoops.
So, I did what every hero is supposed to do for the damsel in distress, evil or not, and jumped over the ledge after her.
She was going up as I came down, firing off some kind of grappling hook, and I fired off a web line to chase after her. This lasted a good ten minutes as she managed to stay ahead of me.
Then, where she zigged, I zagged, and I managed to catch up with her long enough to nail a kick into the small of her back, sending her tumbling to a rooftop below. I dropped with her, just to make sure nothing bad happened.
She hit, and rolled over just in time for me to land on top of her. I spread my legs a bit at the last second to avoid any more actual contact, and landed in a crouch leaning over her. She grinned at me this time.
"Not bad, Spider…"
Well, despite the fact that the sultry level in her voice could turn my legs to jelly, I managed to keep up, and fire off a witty remark of my own.
"Thanks. Now how about rewarding my efforts by letting me tie you up and take you to the nearest police station."
"Sounds… kinky…"
I twitched internally. Obviously sexual innuendo was going to become something of a habit for this particular bad guy… girl. Whatever.
"Sorry. I don't do that kind of thing with people whose names I don't know."
She reached for my facemask as she smiled. My spider sense wasn't saying anything, so I listened to the other instinct, shock, which made me freeze up and stay still.
"The name's Black Cat…"
Then she lifted the bottom part of the mask and pulled my down for a kiss.
It was now that my spider sense choose to scream. It had to battle with both shock and hormones for a second, so I was a bit to late to react when she flipped us both over and ran for the edge of the roof, jumping off. By the time my mask was down and I was over there, she was gone.
I spoke to the now empty night.
"Well… that was interesting."
Regarding the Hardy family disappearance, I had decided that a more proactive approach was needed. So, I started poking around, asking questions about who knew the Hardys. This didn't turn up much, but considering I did most of it as concerned friend Peter Parker, it was hardly surprising. Eventually, I went to the internet, and slapped myself for not doing it sooner. There it was.
A front-page newspaper column on how Jack Hardy, the cat burglar, had been arrested.
I nodded slowly to myself as I considered the facts.
Jack Hardy was a cat burglar.
The new cat burglar called herself 'Black Cat'.
Felicia and Black Cat both shared hair and eye colors.
This was hardly conclusive evidence, but it fit my life to a T. The only thing to consider was the slight difference in builds. Felicia hadn't been that muscular when she'd been kidnapped I didn't think.
Then I glanced down from the screen to my chest.
Then again… who knows?
Then I sighed and rose. Whether Felicia was the Black Cat, or someone was trying to pin it on her, was not the point. But it was enough to drop the bombshell at my next meeting with her and see where things went.
I got up and left the building.
This proved to be a mistake, but it was better than being in the building I suppose. Two men stepped out from the sides of the entrance of the library, and carted me into a car. Not wanting to clue off that I was anything more than a fourteen-year-old kid, I collapsed and pretended to be unconscious when they belted me in the back of the head a few times.
As they threw me into something that resembled a cell, I reflected on the irony of my life.
Ten bucks this has something to do with Felicia.
This proved to be a safe bet, as I landed on her sleeping form. I rolled off immediately as she woke up. She looked at me in surprise.
"Peter?!"
"Hi Felicia."
The door opened again before she had the chance to say anything, and they tossed in her father.
"DADDY!"
I helped her move her father onto a cot, then turned to her.
"Can I ask what's happening yet?"
"Peter… it's a long story…"
"I don't think I'm going anywhere."
She sighed.
"Fine. This is a quick run down. Daddy's got a photographic memory, and he saw something he wasn't supposed to back when he was a kid. And this guy, Kingpin, wanted it. Daddy wouldn't do it, so he kidnapped us. Daddy gave it to him then, but he wasn't convinced it was real, so he had it tested… on me."
My eyes widened a bit.
"What… was it?"
She bit her lip a little.
"The super soldier formula…"
Oh boy… Kingpin with super-soldiers. That's not good.
"So… why was I grabbed?"
She looked away.
"He was having me steal for him. I don't want to anymore, so…"
"They took me in addition to your father."
She nodded.
Great. Even when it's not me, it's me.
Then, the door opened, and the fat man himself was outside.
Not my week.
Okay, any die-hard Spider-man fanatics will likely flame me for the use of the animated Black Cat's origin and powers, but that's the way it goes. I can't write bad luck powers well. It's either completely overwhelming, or it's too weak. Especially when you're dealing with a gut with Spider sense.
Not pretty, so I took the easy way out. Besides, I personally like the super soldier powers better than that anyways. And it was a good way to do it.
It's been a while since the last update, going on a year now, but I finally think I may have figured a way out of the whole I wrote myself into on the main story. I figure there's only one or possibly two chapters left on the interlude, so we'll be getting back to that soon enough.