Chapter 3: The Wicked White Witch
Standard High School
"Richard Parker number 24 for Standard High has the ball. He's making it towards the end zone. He fakes a right and …TOUCHDOWN!" the announcer described the events occurring before him on the football field. "The score is now 14 to 8. Standard High is in the lead." The crowd in the stands cheered. "Go Richie! Go Richie! Go Richie!" the cheerleaders sang in unison directed by the head cheerleader and Richie's girlfriend Emily.
Richie was the star quarterback for the Standard High Sabers and loving every moment of it. He ran over to the other players and the coach by the bench. "Good job out there Parker," Coach Thompson said while patting him on the back, "You keep this up and we got this in the bag." Richard nodded. He removed his helmet to reveal blond curly helmet hair. He removed his mouth guard and got a cup of Gatorade. He watched the players on the field. Northbrook was a really good football team, but Standard High was better. Coach Thompson stood on the sidelines barking orders at the players to run faster and to go after the heavy hitters. Richard wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.
He looked over to Emily who was talking to her father in the bleachers. By the look on her face she looked upset and on the verge of tears. He'd wait until after the game to see if he was alright and let her cool off a little bit. "But Dad you promised you'd stay for our first game! Couldn't you at least wait until halftime!" Emily whined. Harry Osborn didn't even bother to look away from his cell phone to his irate teenage daughter. "Emily, I work. I'm an important businessman in charge of a multi-billion dollar company. I don't have time to watch some infantile teenagers play a primitive game of football." He sounded uninterested before the now trembling red headed girl in front of him. "I'll see you at home. And tell Richie I said hello."
And with that he walked past her and down the steps fading out of view. She finally broke down crying as she watched him go. The people around her who happened to see the spectacle wanted to reach out to her and comfort her. Jessica, Angel Parker's platinum blonde best friend, saw the whole thing and went to help Emily. She didn't even really like the girl, but she knew about having father issues. She grabbed Emily's hand and held it until Emily snatched her hand away and stormed off. 'This is what I get for trying to be nice' Jessica thought as she went back down to the field with the other cheerleaders.
Emily didn't even realize she was running until she tripped and fell in some mud. Mud and grass stains covered her cheerleading outfit. She covered her face in embarrassment. She heard snickering and looked up to see two teenage girls trying hard not to burst out laughing. She glared at them and they ran off. She walked to the main building and into the girl's restroom. It was completely deserted. She went into the stall and began to cry again. "He doesn't love you," a voice said from outside the stall. "Who's…sniff…who's there?" Emily asked through choked sobs. "Who do you think?" the voice replied. Curiosity got the best of her and she exited the stall.
She looked around and saw no one. She slowly walked towards the door. "Warmer… warmer..."the voice announced. As she walked past the sink the voice laughed maniacally. "You're Red Hot!" At first she was confused and then she saw it. Above the sink was a mirror. At first glance you wouldn't see anything wrong, but when Emily looked into the mirror she saw her reflection. A girl with long dark red hair pulled back in a ponytail and red, puffy green eyes stared back at her. Everything seemed to be normal. Except for the fact that her reflection had a sinister grin on her face when Emily had nothing to smile about.
"He doesn't love you. You were a mistake. An embarrassment. A burden. He didn't even bother to watch one lousy game." Was she going crazy? Was she losing her mind like her grandfather? Was she seeing things or were her insecurities finally being heard? "Worthless, pathetic, pitiful, tragic, sorry excuse for an Osborn. Make them pay. Make them all pay!" her reflection screeched. "H-h-how?" Emily fumbled. "You know exactly how!" Laughter could be heard coming out of the restroom and pouring into the empty hallways.
"Come on, Parker! Don't give up now!" Coach Thompson yelled to Richie. Richard was barely paying attention. He was worried about Emily. No one had seen her since she stormed off. That was about half an hour ago. Richard tried to focus on the game before him. The other team, the Westbrook Wombats, had the ball and was quickly catching up to the Sabers. The score was now 14 to 12. The Sabers were still in the lead. Barely. One of the players lunged at Richie, but he quickly dodged him.
Suddenly, like going in slow motion, all the players stopped. The coach stopped shouting. The cheerleaders stopped cheering and the crowd grew silent. Richie stopped running and looked to the crowd. The crowd was silent except for a few people muttering and pointing. He looked up to see what was so important and that's when he felt his spider sense go off.
Something was flying towards the field. Fast. The figure slowly came into view. It was a woman on a flying…broomstick? She wore a tight black outfit with white knee high boots and gloves going up to her elbows. She had long white hair with black highlights and pale skin. She had on black lipstick and black circles around her pupil less eyes. Maybe it was just a mask? Richie wasn't sure. A white belt across her slim waist had two silver W's on the belt buckle and small black skulls going all over the belt. She removed one of the black skulls from her belt. "Let's play ball!" She threw the skull and it exploded on impact with the ground a few feet from Richie.
The force of the blast knocked Richie and the other players back. Quickly getting to his feet he saw the crowd started to panic and were running to safety. People were running to their cars and falling over each other. Richie spotted a little girl lying on the ground crying and helped her up before she got trampled by the startled crowd. Angel ran up to him and grabbed him by the arm. "What are we going to do about that?" Angel pointed to the woman who was hovering a few feet above the hole and laughing maniacally.
"You go. I'll cover for you and help these people." She nodded and ran behind the bleachers. Looking around to make sure no one saw her she pulled out her costume. Taking out the scruncie that held her blonde hair up she quickly removed her cheerleading outfit and slipped into her costume.
The woman watched the people run away in fear. It was utter chaos. People screaming and falling over each other. "You gain power through fear," a wise man once told her. They feared her and she felt more powerful than ever. Of course this was just a distraction and a way to get the attention of the real challenge. She removed another black skull and aimed for the main school building. As soon as she reached back to throw the skull it was webbed to her hand.
"Couldn't you wait until half time? We were winning! Barely." She looked around frantically to see the owner of the voice. She saw a teenage girl in a skin tight costume coming towards her. 'Finally the real fun can begin' she thought. She tore off the webbing and threw the bomb at the girl. She quickly dodged the skull, grabbed it with another strand of webbing, and threw it back at its owner. It reached a few feet before exploding and almost knocking her off her broomstick. Recovering her balance she finally got a good look at her attacker.
She wore a skin tight black outfit with a huge metallic spider on her chest whose long legs wrapped around and connected at the back. She wore a black mask that covered the upper half of her face and left her mouth and nose uncovered. Two big silver triangular eye patches allowed her to see out but prevented anyone from looking in. An opening at the top of the mask allowed her long golden blonde hair to cascade down her shoulders.
"Sorry I'm more of a baseball kinda girl." Her voice was oddly hypnotic to Angel and brought back memories of watching the 'Wizard of Oz' for the hundredth time. Angel had never seen her before. She was definitely new…and dangerous.
"So what do the W's stand for? Wicked Witch? Witch of the West?" Angel lunged at her and tried to punch her in the face. "Cute. But no. Its White Witch, Spidergirl." She quickly grabbed Angel's fist inches away from impact and held her by the throat with her other hand. The White Witch lifted her up so she could look her in the eye…patches as the life was chocked out of her and smiled. "I expected more of a challenge. Oh well. Any last words?" Angel gurgled out something she couldn't understand. Angel shot out a web line that stuck itself to her eyes. Removing one hand from Spider girl's neck she tried removing the webbing from her eyes.
Using this to her advantage, Spidergirl used both hands to hold on to White Witch and kicked both of her feet into her stomach making her release her grip on Angel's neck. Using the momentum she flipped backwards in midair. The White Witch was flying uncontrollably on the broomstick and struggling to remove the webbing. Falling down to get some distance she shot out another web line to the bottom of the mechanical broomstick. She used it to pull herself up and come full circle and land on the broomstick behind the White Witch.
Finally removing the webbing she spun around and punched Spidergirl with all her strength. Her hand connected to Angel's face before she could duck. Angel grabbed her jaw in pain and stumbled back. 'Okay. So she has super strength too. Good to know' Angel thought. The White Witch held her hand in pain after hitting such a hard surface. She ignored the pain to focus on her opponent. She needed a distraction so she could regroup. She grabbed another skull from her belt with her good hand and threw it down to the bleachers. Angel's spider-sense went off but it was too late for her to stop it.
Several feet below Richie felt his spider-sense go off. He looked up to see a skull being hurled towards the bleachers where a few teenagers were standing and watching the fight. "Run you morons!" Richie yelled at the top of his lungs. Realizing they were in danger the group scattered leaving only Richie's best friend Danny Harris foolishly taking pictures of Spidergirl. Richie ran as fast as he could to save his friend.
'Come on Parker! Spiderman could save him!' Richie mentally berated himself. Danny was oblivious to the danger he was in. His eyes were focused on his camera and the pretty blonde yelling above him. He could hear a lot of shouting behind him but ignored it. He zoomed in on his camera and saw some black thing was blocking his view. Putting the camera down for the first time he suddenly realized it was a bomb and froze with fear.
The bomb was inches from his face when he felt himself being pushed out of the way. As if in slow motion the bomb impacted with the bleachers and caused a huge explosion that sent debris flying everywhere. Danny felt the impact of the blast as him and his mystery savior were sent flying into the football field. Danny's shoulder impacted with the ground and caused him to yelp in pain. He looked over to see the mystery person who saved him was a few feet away from him. Face down in the grass Danny saw he was dressed in a football jersey and had the number 24 and the name Parker on his back. nstantly, he realized it was his friend and called out to him. Panic shot through him as his friend didn't even move. He called out to him again but this time his friend moved slightly. Danny breathed a sigh of relief before he lost consciousness.
Danny awoke to see a paramedic checking his pulse in the back of an ambulance. His clothes were torn and singed while his short red hair was messy and had grass in it. He looked over to see Richie over in another ambulance being looked at. His jersey was torn and dirty also but other than that he looked fine. A large crowd of people had gathered around the ambulance to see who had gotten hurt. Most of the girls had panicked at the thought of their school's star quarterback being hurt even though he wasn't. He suddenly remembered Spidergirl and White Witch and looked up into the sky. Seeing no one there he figured he'd missed the fight while he was unconscious.
"How do you feel?" Danny looked to see Spidergirl standing next to him. "G-Great…strong as a horse." He flexed his biceps to prove his point. She giggled and pushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
"Glad to hear you're okay. Oh yeah. You dropped this." She smiled and held up his camera. He held it and checked to make sure it wasn't broken. Surprisingly it wasn't.
"Thanks. Wait…where's that girl who attacked us?" he asked looking up at her. She sighed. "She freaked out when she saw you two were hurt. Knocked me down and flew off," she said balling up her fist at her side, "I don't think we've seen the last of her." She looked over to Richie who was talking to Coach Thompson.
"Glad you're okay kid. Stay out of trouble." She shot out a webline from her wrist and swung off. He reached for his camera and started to take more pictures of the masked heroine. She turned and blew him a kiss before she faded from view. He wanted to melt right there. 'Wait…kid? How old is she?' he thought to himself. He shuddered at the thought of a 40 year old woman under the mask.
"You good Parker. Saved a lot of students. I think that's the fastest I've ever seen you run. Maybe you should join the track team," Coach Thompson said while patting Richie on his back.
"Uh…no thanks Coach. I got enough on my plate already. It was probably just a one time thing anyway. Adrenaline rush you know?" Richie replied nervously."Uh huh. Adrenaline." He didn't look convinced but he accepted his answer.
Elsewhere
The White Witch hid behind the school's main building. Curled up she held her knees up to her chest as she sat against the wall. She was crying silently behind her mask. 'I didn't want to hurt anyone. Especially not Richie. It's all Spidergirl's fault. She did this.' She removed her mask to reveal the tear streaked face of Emily Osborn. 'I never want to see this stupid mask again.' She threw her mask to the ground and continued to cry again. She made a silent vow to herself to never wear her costume again. Finally ending the Osborn legacy that had only destroyed lives and putting an end to her short-lived career as a super villain.
Standard High School, Monday
"Hey Joseph! Look at what I've got!" Danny Harris walked into the school newspapers office. The small room had only a few vacant desks, some computers, and a bulletin board. Old newspapers, articles, and pictures littered the desks and floor.
"Hopefully those pictures I of the football field being rebuilt like I told you to get," the school newspaper's editor Joseph said coldly while looking through some articles for the next printing.
"I have something even better," Danny replied confidently. He threw down a stack of pictures in front of Joseph. Joseph looked away from his articles and picked up the pictures. His eyes grew wide as he looked through the photos of Spidergirl fighting the White Witch.
"Leeza! Drop whatever you're doing and write me an article for these photos. I want this on the front page." Joseph handed the photos to a female reporter and she quickly began typing up a new article. "You know Harris, you keep bringing in photos like these and you could work for the Daily Bugle one day." Danny walked off feeling good about himself. He pulled out a photo of Spidergirl blowing him a kiss as she swung off and smiled.
Next: The Origin of the White Witch
A/N: Sorry it took so long but I've been a little busy. And there is the first villain for the Spider twins. And who better to be their first villain than Richie's own girlfriend? I know it says that Emily has already put her super villain career behind her but the White Witch will be forced out of retirement soon. I think Harry sounded too much like his father but I think it was needed to help steer Emily in the same situation he was put in by Norman. Also, if you didn't notice, I tried to make Danny like another Peter Parker but without the spider powers. Anyway, please leave comments. Thanks.