Chapter 2: Friendly Neighborhood Hero

I finally made it back to my dorm when I noticed the time: 5:35 PM. 'Aw, shit' I thought to myself, 'Have I been gone for that long?' I hurried and changed back into my usual look: jacket, black jeans, and my trusty shotgun boots.

A minute later, I saw Emerald watching on her scroll, and I asked, "What are you watching?"

"You don't know?" she asked. "Some guy just kicked the shit out of Junior earlier today. This is just rich" she said with a laugh.

I peeked at the video, and my eyes went wide; so wide you wouldn't think they'd be any wider. I could barely even hear the words coming off the screen amidst all the thoughts firing away in my head.

"We've just received footage of today's spectacular brawl between local thug Hei 'Junior' Xiong, and a mysterious masked vigilante who, according to the gangster, goes by the name Spider-Man. We have two eye witness reports who watched the entire fight. We go now to the interviews..."

The screen switched to show Ruby, with a huge smile on her face, screaming, "It was all so awesome! He saved my live from the same van over there," as she pointed at Junior's van, all covered in crate fragments, "so I followed him to see if he needed help. When I got there, the fight was going on, so I recorded the whole thing, so I may have uploaded it to both YouTube and Basebook. So, it turned out he didn't, which was cool, but then, I saw my big sister Yang climb out. She was barely wearing anything, other than some underwear and some sticky white goo. When I asked her about it, she said I didn't want to know, which made me assume that it was bad, so I stopped asking. I don't know who he is, but this Spider-Man guy is a great guy in my book!"

'Cheery as ever, I see' I thought to myself.

But then, the screen switched to Yang, who had tears streaming down her face. She barely spoke up, but she made out with this: "When I went to Junior's bar, I was just trying to have a nice drink, for once in my fucking life. Just one. But then, I started getting dizzy, and then I fell over and passed out. The next thing I knew, I was tied up and gagged in some van, in front of a bunch of Junior's people. They all looked at me, talking about how they would 'make me pay for trashing their bar all the time.' That's when Junior came in. He tore off my clothes, one piece at a time, and then he...he..."

She started crying, like she'd never cried in her entire life until this point. What did that bastard do to her exactly?!

"I'm glad that sick fuck is getting locked away. I was even more afraid of him going after Ruby next. Spider-Man, wherever you are, thank you. Tha-hank you so much."

She could barely even breathe at that point, but at least she was safe. The screen then switched back to the reporter:

"What a touching moment for these two young women. Rest assured, neither Junior nor his lackeys will be seeing much open space anytime soon, thanks to this masked crusader. I'm Lisa Lavender, and this was Remnant News."

I still couldn't believe that one little good thing could have such a big impact. This superhero gig rules! That's what I was thinking when Emerald popped in, asking, "So who do you think this Spider-Man is?"

Playing it cool, I answer "Nope" while popping the "p".

"Well, whoever he is, we'll have to keep an eye on the guy, see that he doesn't throw a wrench into Cinder's plans. As for Junior...yeah, he's done." That was the only thing we could agree on so far.

The next day, I went out to the rooftops to practice my web shooting. I tried a dozen hand signs for thirty minutes, until I bent my ring and middle fingers downward, while sticking my pinky, pointer, and thumb outward. With that, some webs finally shot out of my wrist. I made a mental note to remember using that sign while I swing.

I swung back to the school, and like an idiot, I didn't pay attention to what window I crawled through. I leapt off the ceiling, and I saw the room. It was littered with books, there was an Achieve Man poster on the wall, the curtain was sewn back together for some reason, and, it had bunk beds. Bunk beds! Why didn't I think of that? I was too busy checking out the room and taking off my mask when I heard a gasp coming from behind me. I made the serious blunder of turning around, and there was Ruby, a dish full of cookies in her hand. Well, it was until she dropped the plate and it was shattered all over the floor. A voice called out from the bathroom, screaming, "Ruby, what was that?"

"Uh, nothing, Weiss." Ruby responded. "I just dropped my cookies."

"I swear, you're such a clumsy dolt sometimes."

"Sorry!"

I turned to leave, but then Ruby said, "You're...you're the Spider-Man, aren't you?"

For the first time in my life, I started panicking, trying to come up with a convincing lie. Stammering, I barely said, "Well, I, you see, it was cold out, so I wore something warm to keep my face from freezing, and I had this face mask, so I-"

"You. Were on the ceiling!" She interrupted.

I gave a sigh that was as heavy as lead. This was it. I'm going to have to explain it to Ruby, or she'll blab it for all the school to hear. And if either Emerald or Cinder caught wind of this, no good will come out of it for anyone involved. Especially not me.

"That. Is. AWESOME!" Ruby cheered, jumping up and down like she was having a sugar rush. Wait. What?

MEANWHILE...

Junior was sitting in a dilapidated cell across from his gang. It was a shithole: rusty bars, a beyond fucked up toilet, and rats were scurrying all over the floor. He had it all, but after today, he had lost it all. Or he will, in a moment.

Before his very eyes, the cell across from him erupted in flames, devouring all his friends in their unforgiving blossom. Their flesh slowly melted right off the bone, their cries for mercy and death laced with sheer agony. It went on for a solid two minutes before even their bones soon dissolved into ash.

A woman dressed in red walked into the cell block, looked at Junior, and said, "Poor Junior. Couldn't help yourself and get thrashed twice in one day. It's alright, you outlived your usefulness anyway," with a dreadful smirk.

"Hey, hold up a fucking minute! You want more men or Dust? I'll get you some. Just let me li-" was the last thing that came out of his mouth before an arrow found its way between Junior's eyes. It drilled into his skull and out that back of his head, before he fell over, dead before he hit the ground.

"Perfect" the red woman said. "Now, who is this 'Spider-Man', hmm?"

Good GOD! That took a while to type. So, Cinder makes her debut in this story. What will be next for our unlikely guardian? Neither YouTube nor Basebook is mine. YouTube belongs to whomever created the site, and Basebook...well, the concept belongs to the creator of Facebook, while the name belongs to Red Vs Blue, which in turn belongs to Roosterteeth as well as the characters in this story. I've been watching Fairy Tail and clips of Game of Thrones, and it got me thinking: why not create wizard guilds in Westoros? It'd be a stretch, but I'll see if I'll come around to writing it down. For now, leave a comment down below and subscribe to my profile for more Mercurial Spider-Man. Kamina Out.