It was a stormy night outside of the electronics department of the Junes general store and midnight was about to strike.
A weird tension filled the area as the clock arms finally reached midnight right in sync with the strike of a thunder and ... nothing.
The exposed tvs remained turned off and silent. Until a noise cracked the silence of the empty store.
A small electronic beep coming from the telephony section.
Here, there was a single stand exposing the newest piece of tech from the american start up, parker industries. These had been set in malls around the world to start a marketing campaign for the webware phone that had already been quite succesful in new york and it was just about to go global.
Said advanced phone was currently activating on its own, its start up screen suddenly turning into a black screen showing a single command line
Activating DSA
Autorizathion level : Admin
Remote control
Single summon
As quickly as these words appeared on screen they dissapeared, and an ominous red alchemichal circle appeared on it, and a buzzing chanting of spell started coming out of the speakers .
The chanting got faster and faster as dark wisps of energy crackled around the phone, in a crescendo, until finally they stopped.
And the silence was broken by a splashing sound of liquid. Said liquid was quickly shooting out of the phone screen falling right in front of it on the floor.
The liquid was murky and black with a slimy consistency.
And it moved.
The slime slowly made its way out of the empty store, trickling out of a fire escape.
As it made its way through the surrounding campaign, it started growing in size, gaining limbs as the slithering turned into an heavy walk and the fully formed creature stood tall in the moonless night of Inaba.
Large nostrils breathed in the night air, taking in the scents, looking for a specific one.
After a while, It finally found what it was looking for.
It disappeared in the night, slowly, with purpose.
Rise gave a heavy sigh, entering back into the room of the sleeping mary jane.
She was still sleeping with a frown on her face inside her futon, restless like she was having a nightmare.
Rise herself frowned too, seeing this and sat down on the floor near her , placing the water bottle she brought, on the small table nearby.
She had volunterred to stay with her for the night and possibly explain the situation, passing it to her grand mother on the phone as a sleepover with a couple of her girl friends.
Yukiko had another shift at the reception and mitsuru had some phone call to make to the rest of the shadow ops as they gathered to get back to Inaba.
Rise had felt the need to make sure the older woman was okay and had someone around once she woke up.
She didn't know why but she felt a connection that she couldn't explain with this american lady.
And besides, she also wanted to spend some time alone after what had happened on the way to the inn.
All of the recent weirdness going on around her ( her buzzing sensations granting miracle dodges, her burst of unexpected strenght when she caught the falling MJ, the proven correct prophetic vision she had before entering the TV world) deeply unsettled the young red haired girl.
She didn't understand any of this and wondered what could possibly be happening to herself.
She was also quite afraid of telling anybody, despite the loyal support her boyfriend and friends always showed her.
At the very least the midnight channel stayed silent tonight granting them some respite.
Her dark reflections were suddenly broken by a sharp intake of breath as the red haired woman shot up with a shocked expression.
An expression that quickly turned grief stricken as tears filled her eyes.
"No..."
"Miss watson? "
Hearing this she turned to the surpised Rise, looking at her with a vacant look in her green, bloodshot eyes , muttering
"I killed her... it's my fault... if only I had checked... the nausea... the lateness..."
"What are you...?"
She sobbed loudly as the tears started falling copiously.
" my baby ... it wasn't enough losing the first one... I had to let her down too... if only we knew..."
And then she just started crying, sobbing brokenly being unable to talk any further.
Rise was quite shocked at such expression of absolute grief, the likes of which she had never seen.
'She seemed more okay back when she was in the TV world, in danger, what could she have possibly remembered, if thats what happened ?"
Her sobbing grew a little louder and finally prompted Rise to do the only thing she could think of to soothe the older woman.
She hugged her tight, caressing her back, trying to comfort her as best she could, despite not knowing her, with physical contact.
MJ initially stiffened under her touch but eventually hugged the younger redhead back, crying disheveldly into the shoulder of her uniform.
As she calmed down they lowered back into a prone position, slowly falling back asleep, one still with tears in her eyes, and the other feeling exhausted and a weird warm calm in the embrace of a complete stranger.
Mary Jane slowly woke back up from a blissfully dreamless sleep as sunlight filtered into the room.
A steady sigh left her lips as she rembered the previous day... and all that came with it.
" I really wanna see what the next wise guy is gonna try to pull with me no... " mj was interrupted as a steady waterfall of memories filled her mind.Aunt may getting shotPeter getting desperate trying to save her.MephistoEverything came back to her. And with it the pain.The grief of being a silent spectator looking into the demon lord false promises and illusions snaring the both of them.The anguish of seeing peter losing himself in his guilt for what had happened, going against what he stood for and believed in. Against what May herself would want.The insormountable sorrow in seeing the demon lord's final mockery showing them the young red haired girl.And the last thing that finally made the vase tip over.The memories of her nausea right before peter showed up and her suspects about it being confirmed by said mockery.
She barely remembered losing consciousness. And had vague recollections of waking up in the Inn room from a nightmare that repeated these memories over and over again.
She did remember being soothed back to sleep again by someone, though.
At this a slight snore made her turn to the side still in her prone position under the futon.
And there she was. 'its that girl from back then, Rise, i think that was her name.'
She was sleeping with a peaceful expression over the covers on mj's right side still in her uniform and her hair up in twin tails.
'She must have looked after me, she is probably the one who helped me fall back asleep during the night' MJ thought.
As she stirred a bit she looked a little discomforted by her hairdo, and seeing this MJ tried to help her by undoing the tails as softly as possible.
As she finally did it , without waking her up, she noticed the texture was similar to her own, voluminous but not quite silkie smooth.
' uhm I guess it comes with the color' an almost imperceptible smile graced the woman's lips ' altough hers are a little more brownish in shade'
The smile quickly disappeared thinking again of her regained memories but she physically shook herself out of the temptation of falling into grief again.
' no' she determinely said to herself ' i've gotta go back to peter, I have to tell him everything, there must be someway to fix this. I've played my part in that monster's gig for all too long. I won't let him win.'
As she started thinking of her next move, she finally noticed the warm presence in the back of her head.
And as she focused on it she realized, that it was her persona,Arachne, and she instinctually knew what it could do.
' uh, neat, altough i don't really know how to make it come out'
As she was thinking this, a soft yawn resounded in the room as the teenage girl got up, with a sleepy look on her face.
Seeing this, MJ called with a kind smile " good morning"
The young girl turned with an akward smile and scratched her head sheepishly, saying "good morning... sorry, miss watson, i didn't mean to fall asleep h..."
"Hey, don't worry , i remember the other night and I'm glad we hugged it out. Thanks by the way, I really needed that"she then smiled and said " just call me MJ, though, you guys earned that much after saving my butt and witnessing my doppelganger's temper tantrum."
Rise nodded quickly " yeah, don't get me started on my shadow. She was literally running around in a bikini making suggestive poses.I never felt so embarassed " She said with a sigh.
Mj convened" at least mine was wearing a nice dress, I didn't really come to japan to flash a bunch of high school kids. I was a model but not THAT kind of model"
Both women giggled at this, feeling a little bit of relief from their respective worries.
Thinking back on the previous day,Rise hastily added" ehm, don't worry about your secret, we aren't gonna tell anybody, we have our share of important secrets to keep ourselves".
MJ let out a sigh of relief hearing this, the load off her mind.
Maybe she shouldn't trust these kids so easily but... somehow she felt she could , Rise especially reminded her a bit of her younger self, just less selfish and more earnest.
" listen, I don't know if you wanna talk about it but, " she paused a little embarassed " I had a similar breakdown around a year ago and" she smiled fondly " someone really important to me helped me through it, I just wanted to help as I could."
" yeah , and "MJ teased her with a smug smirk " was it possibly a certain gray haired boy ?"
Rise became as red as a tomato as she asked" how?"
"Hey, I'm a black belt in "concerned looks over heroic boyfriend" I noticed it back when you first arrived at the club and made the math"
The tomato asked, looking down " is it that obvious ?"
Mj giggled, happy of a little respite, but " getting back to business , is there a way to... use my persona ?"
"Why ?" The girl asked curious
" uhm..." mj 's face fell at this but she decided to be a little honest with her" mitsuru explained to me that you use this power to help people and fight monsters. And I may be heading towards a big fight soon enough, so I wanna have everything ar my disposal ready"
"Well... we can't really use them when in the real world but mitsuru-san and her group have a device that allows them to do that. It's called an evoker and its shaped like a gun. It's a little weird but apparently it does the job." Rise concluded, she then asked " is this about what the shadow said ?it talked about some injustice ?"
Mary Jane nodded, feeling safe in opening up to this girl " me and Peter, we... we made a mistake and I fully intend to fix it" she said with determination.
Rise started getting up then " Hey, I'm gonna go look for mitsuru san then , i'll mention that you need help to her and the others, maybe we can do something."
She started heading for the door when, suddenly it slid open on its own. And the sight beyond it scared both redheads into a stunned silence.
Standing in the deserted hallway was a hulking red skinned giant of a man.
Dressed in a traditional blue garment, It had a fang filled mouth, resembling an hanya mask, pupil-less sapphire blue eyes filled with malice, and a single massive black horn jutting out of its bald forehead.
It's clawlike hand held a big black metal club at his side.
Rise started slowly retreating backwards, unused to such a thing happening outside the tv world as Mary Jane got up and placed herself in front of the younger girl.
The creature's stare didn't leave her the entire time.
It took a single step in the room , towards the two as they tried to get out of the room from the opening on the outer courtyard.
MJ whispered" Rise... run" the girl looked to her companion " what about you ?" " he wants me , have you noticed that he hasn't taken his eyes off me , go find help "
As soon as the girl tried to leave though, the monster moved faster than his size betrayed and had it's hand to mary jane's neck, destroying the small table in the room on its path with a loud noise.
As it lifted her off the ground it roared, choking the life out of her.
Rise, paralyzed with fear, looked on in grief, feeling quite powerless.
Out of pure instinct and against her own preservation, the young girl in a school uniform, ran towards the creature as it lifted it's mace to strike its struggling captive.
'I have to do something, I can't let her die '
The girl pathetically raised her arms, hands in a conjoined fist and planting her feet on the ground as best she could she struck the creature on the chest with all of her might.
And in the moment her strke connected... the demon was flung away, letting go of the woman, striking the wall of the hallway, creating a small crater on Impact and a loud noise.
Mary Jane , kneeled on the ground gasping for breath as she stared in complete surprise at the short girl, that just smashed a giant trhice her size.
Said girl was in complete shock at what she just did, but did not have much time to think about it as the giant recovered quickly and charged back towards the new threat in its path.
A weird dance started as the giant kept trying to hit Rise , but the girl kept skillfully and atlethichally dodging every single strike and swipe, guided by her returning buzzing sensation.
Mary Jane kept witnessing this completely flabbergasted.
' How is she doing this ? Is she a mutant or something ? '
But the answer to that question quickly showed itself, as the demon gave a wide swipe of its mace and the girl without other directions to dodge in jumped with all her strenght.
She landed ... on the ceilling , her shoulder lenght hair hanging upside down as she stuck there from her hands and feet, somehow fixed on the smooth surface.
MJ let out a stunned " It can't be ... who..."
Rise, taken in by the frenzy of the battle, sprung again from the ceilling, hitting the red skinned giant in the head with a flying kick she had only seen Chie pull off, sending him sprawling back out of the room, on the floor of the hallway.
But before it could get back up , a deafening bang rang out and the creature was suddenly enveloped in a thick block of Ice that shattered into icey dust after a couple of seconds, dispersing into thin air.
"Is everyone alright?" Mitsuru urgently said entering the room, holding a silver gun in her right hand.
The other two redheads looked on each other still stunned .
Mary jane especially.
' this is impossible , everybody, myself included got cured from the spider virus back then, how could she have Peter's powers... unless... no... there is no way, she is too old... she couldn't be...'
And at this moment, Mary Jane looked Rise in the eyes... and she finally recognized why they felt familiar.
Her big brown eyes, full of complete surprise like the very first time she had seen them, all those years ago.
Mary Jane's heart started filling with overwhelming hope and joy and then an unshakeable instinctual certainity, as she got on her feet and tackled Rise in a smoldering hug.
Once again the older woman was crying in the younger girls shoulder, only this time the tears were of joy.
Her voice could be heard among the sobs " you are alive ... my Baby..."
"...May..."
A.N. DAN, DAN, DAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.Yeah, so ... I did that, I stretched my synapses to put the alternate version of a beloved marvel character back in the universe, it took set up and planning, but i hope i pulled it off well, fusing her with a persona character is partly for fun and partly for reasons to be revealed.And as far as how the heck did this happen, you'll have to wait and see dear reader. Anyway let me know what you think.RR