What If…Republic City had a Spider Hero?
"Earth, Fire, Air, Water..."
A viewing window displayed a man stomping on the ground, shooting up a large boulder from it, then changed to an old man performing martial arts and shooting fire with his movements, then a young boy manipulating the very air around him, and finally a young woman manipulating a stream of water.
"In this reality, half of the world's population are able to bend one of the four elements, giving them great power. However, like in all realities, some would abuse that power."
The next viewing window showed soldiers in red and black armor marching across the land and using fire bending to burn down everything in their path. Another viewing window showed a shadowy form of a man standing up on a mountain, before bellowing out a roar and shot large streams of fire from his hands and mouth, all the while a bright red comet soared up above in the background.
"The Fire Nation, led by Fire Lord Ozai, attempted to destroy everything in their path with power of Sozin's Comet. Their war, which lasted for one hundred, has left families broken, homes destroyed, and lives ruined."
"However, hope was not lost..."
The next viewing window showed a young boy with blue arrow tattoos was standing across from Ozai, with his eyes glowing bright as the four elements surrounding him in rings. Ozai and the young boy floated up in the air, before shooting out their elements, colliding in a massive explosion.
"A young air bending boy named Aang, who was this world's Avatar, the protector and practitioner of all four elements, rose up to challenge Ozai, and to end his path of conquest once and for all. The battle was fierce, but in the end, Aang found a way to restore balance, without losing himself."
The next viewing window showed a downed Ozai as Aang stood tall in victory, defeating Ozai as he took his fire bending away from him.
"With peace finally restored, Aang and his closest friends worked on healing and rebuilding this world. That path has led to the creation of a new city, a city in which all benders and non benders can live together in peace and harmony. That city became known as...Republic City."
The next viewing window showed a more grown up Aang standing alongside his closest friends, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Zuko as they looked over the construction of Republic City with smiles on their faces.
"It brings a smile to my face to know that after so much tragedy befalling this world, the people managed to find peace." The Watcher's ethereal form soon appeared and hid among the clouds as he looked over a now completed Republic City. People were walking along the streets and went about their day, with smiles on their faces. The streets were filled with new vehicles called Satomobiles, and other technological advances came upon the city. "However, peace doesn't last forever, and neither does a single Avatar."
The next viewing window showed a funeral happening as a large amount amount of people came to pay the respects of Avatar Aang, who passed away. So many friends and family, including his own grown children watched on with sorrow as Aang was laid to rest in the Southern Air Temple when're he was raised, so he could rest with his ancestors.
"But just because one Avatar is gone, doesn't mean that the cycle of Avatar's is over." The next scene showed a young Water Tribe girl, who easily bended water, fire, and earth in front of her parents, who looked on in shock.
"But until the new Avatar is ready to face the responsibilities of keeping the peace and balance, Republic City needed a new kind of hero."
/
It was the dead of night in Republic City, and the majority of people were just relaxing in their homes to sleep the night away, but that was not the case for everybody. A lone car drove up to a closed store and four thug-looking guys stepped out and approached the store.
"Looks like they're closed." One of the thugs said with a smug look, before he shot his fist out and sent a powerful fire ball at the door, destroying it. "Not for us, though."
"Let's grab the money before company shows up." Another thug said as he looked around at the buildings surrounding the store.
"What? You scared of a few metal bending police?" A third thug said sarcastically as all four of them entered the store.
"That's not the kind of company I was thinking about." The second thug said as he gave one last look outside, before returning back to the task at hand and ransacking the place.
What none of them realized was a mysterious figure landing on top of the roof of a building across from the store, and looking dawn at them as soon as they entered.
The four criminals pulled out a couple of bags and started packing them with whatever valuables the store provided, whether it'd be expensive jewelry or watches, or the money from the cash register.
"I found the safe." Thug 3 said from the back as he looked over a black safe with a dial lock. He brought out a pouch before he bended water out of it, before he bended it to slice open the safe clean in half. He reaches in and pulled out a huge wad of cash. "Hahaha! We've hit the big score now, boys!"
"With this load, the Triple Threat Triad will definitely have to let us in now." Thug 4 said with a smug look as he stuffed a few watches into a bag. "We'll be in the big leagues from now on."
"I don't know about that." Thug 2 said with his eyes narrowing slightly. "I heard that one of their operations got hit pretty hard by 'you know who.'"
"Oh, come on, would you give it a rest by now?" Thug 1 said as he walked up to his fellow criminal. "You've been acting like a scared little Moose Lion cub all night long. We've been doing this for months now, and not once have we had any problems. What are the odds that something like what happened to the Triads would ever happen to us tonight of all nights?"
The moment he said that, glob of webs shot out right into the store and impacted thug 1, sending him flying and sticking him to the wall of the store. The three remaining thugs looked on in shock as the saw someone jump into the store and actually stuck to the ceiling.
The figure revealed themselves to be a woman with a red and brown helmet-like mask, that had large green eye lenses that covered half her face. Her clothing consisted of a blue shirt, brown pants, with red boots and gloves. She also wore a red corset that wrapped around her waist, and it had a large black spider symbol on the front of it. To complete her look, she wore what appeared to be a yellow metal backpack strapped to her back.
"Doing a bit of late-night shopping, boys?" The disguised woman said with a smirk and inspected. "You know it's rude to just leave a mess like this, right? I'm afraid I'm gonna have escort you guys out of here. I know a nice jail cell that'll fit all of you nicely."
"Oh no. I knew this would happen!" Thug 2 said in fright as the three remaining thugs got into a fighting position.
"And yet your still went out to commit a crime." The disguised woman said jokingly. "That's gotta be a new level of stupidity right there."
Thug 4 just growled in anger at her. "Enough talk! Let's just take this would-be lady hero down!" He sent out a wave of fire at her, forcing her to drop down from, the ceiling.
"Hey, try to get the name right, people." The woman said as she shot out a web line from her wrist that attached to the fire bender, before yanking him towards her and delivered spin kick, knocking him down. "The name's Lady Spider, okay? Trademarked by me."
Thug 3 bended multiple streaks so of water from his pouch, before he freezes them into ice spikes. He sent them flying at Lady Spider, but she managed to twist and twirl out of the way of each of them. She shot out a web on his face, blinding him, giving her the opportunity to web zip to his position and deliver a couple of punches. She delivered an uppercut that sent him sprawling to the ground, and she made sure he stayed down by pinning him down with some webs.
The final thing shook a bit in fear, before she bended some rocks out of the ground and sent them flying at her, but she just smirked as she saw them coming. She pressed a button on the side of her yellow metal backpack, which caused four mechanical spider leg appendages to pop out from the sides of it. She moved her arms in a hook swing, causing the metal spider legs to co-align with her movement and they smashed the large rocks to pieces before they could reach her.
"What the?!" The thug exclaimed in disbelief.
"Nice. The spider harness works perfectly." Lady Spider said in satisfaction as the mechanical spider legs retracted back inside her metal backpack. She looked back at the thug that was visibly shaking in fear. "So, what's it gonna be? Surrender peacefully, or run and get caught." The answer came when the thug raced out of the store and bended an earth ramp that shot down the road in order to carry him to safety. "And he chose 'run and get caught,' just like everybody else."
Lady Spider shot right out of the store and stare swinging in the air between buildings, catching up with the retreating thug. She swung down low in order to get the drop on him, but he saw her closing in, so he sent of a flurry of rocks at her while he tried to increase the speed of his earth ramp. The spider hero dodged each of the rocks sent at her, before shooting two web lines to slingshot herself forward to catch up.
"Stay the hell away from me!" The thug exclaimed as he bended a large boulder at her.
Lady Spider did a midair twirl to avoid the large boulder being sent at her, before she shot out multiple web lines at the large boulder and yanked it flying back at him. "Hey, buddy, I think you dropped this!"
The large boulder impacted the earth ramp the thug was riding on, shattering it, and causing him to be sent flying. He screamed in terror and waited to impact the ground hard, but it never came as Lady Spider shot out a web net that he landed on safely. The downside for him, though, was that he was now stuck.
"Aw, nuts." The thug said with a sigh.
"Nuts indeed, big guy." Lady Spider said as she grabbed the edge web net the thug was attached to, before swinging off with the captured criminal in hand.
/
A metal bending police airship hovered above the area where the store was being robbed, while on ground level, several police officers inspected the area. They looked inside the store and gasped by what they saw. All four thugs were bundled together in a string of webs that hanged from the ceiling. One police officer stepped forward and noticed a card attached to the webs, before pulling it off and read it over.
"Detective, talk to me." Every cop looked back and noticed the chief herself, Lin Beifong, arriving on the scene. She entered the store and looked around, before seeing the thugs tied up on the ceilings, causing her eyes to narrow. "It's her again, isn't it?"
"Evidence support it, chief." One of the officers said. "The webs, and the calling card." He passed the card in his hand to Lin, which she read the contents of.
Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Lady Spider.
"And let me guess, no sign of her." Lin stated, rather than asked.
"Unfortunately not, ma'am, but she did capture the perpetrators responsible for this break in." The officer said as he gestured to the captured thugs.
"At least she managed to save us the trouble and capture these bozos for us." Another officer said with a chuckle, but that was a mistake as Lin held a stern look and stepped right up to him, scaring him quite a bit.
"If you even think about supporting these methods, officer, then you can just walk out the door without your badge." Lin said sternly as she looked at each of the officers around her. "That goes for all of you. It is our duty to uphold the law of Republic City, and we will not tolerate vigilantism in our city, is that understood?"
"Yes, Chief!" All the officers said resolutely.
With that said, all of the officers continued to investigate the scene, hopefully to find any evidence of where the vigilante Lady Spider went.
It didn't matter, as the spider-themed hero was a ways away from the store and was swinging away high above the streets.
"WOOOHOOO!" The hero cheered as she performed a few flips between each swing, before launching another web line and swinging away. "Who needs a Satomobile when you can travel the city in spider style!" She jumped up high from her last swing and landed on the roof of a building with a water tower, before jumping on top of the water tower to reveal a webbed-up backpack.
Seeing that she had some privacy, she reached into the backpack and pulled out a new pair of clothes and started to change out of her costume. Her new clothes consisted of a purple and red jacket over a red shirt, magenta skirt, long pants, and black boots. She removed her helmet to reveal her face, which revealed her to be in her late teens, had light skin, long black hair, and gorgeous bright emerald green eyes with a bit of eye shadow on her eyelids.
With her costume back in her backpack, she crawled down the side of the building back to ground level and started walking down the street. She saw a payphone booth at the corner of the sidewalk and entered it to make a quick call.
"Hello?"
"Hey, daddy, it's me." The young woman said with a smile. "Just calling to let you know I'm on my way home."
"Ah, Asami, I'm glad you called, I was starting to worry. I was surprised you left without taking our latest Satomobile out for a test drive."
"Yeah, I decided to head out without today." Asami answered with a chuckle, as she held her backpack strap close. "I figured I needed a bit of exercise today. I can't drive everywhere all the time, you know."
"I know, but I just want you to be careful. The city can get pretty dangerous, especially at night."
"Don't worry, dad. I'm a big girl now, and I can take care of myself." Asami said with sigh. 'Plus, I've got spider powers, but I can't let him know about that now, can I?'
"I know, Asami, but I still worry about you. It's a father's job to worry."
"I know, and I'm glad that you care." Asami said with a smile. "I'll be home soon, daddy. Love you."
"I love you too, Asami. See you at dinner."
Asami hanged up the phone and exited the phone booth to continue on towards home. Up above the night sky, the ever-vigilant Watcher looked down at her as the stars made up his silhouette.
"Republic City may have lost its Avatar for the time being, but it has now gained a new hero. A hero that strives to protect its people from all manner of threats, whether they be bender, non-bender, or more." The Watcher said as he watched her go. "In this reality, the young Asami Sato chose to rose up and be that hero, but her story is rather different than most other spider heroes."
/
"Asami's story, like all heroes, began with tragedy, but this tragedy occurred when she was just six years old." The Watcher said as a viewing window showed a six-year-old Asami standing outside of her family mansion, which was on fire and burning to the ground, with her father by her side as he held her close. She had tears flowing down her eyes with a traumatized look on her face. "A fire bender came into her home and killed her mother, burning her home to the ground. It was this moment that started her path." The next scene showed a teen Asami kneeling down in front of a tombstone and laying a flower down on top of it.
"Ever since then, she has dedicated her life to improving her skill in technology and physical prowess, in the hopes of finding the man who killed her mother and bringing him to justice." The next viewing window showed Asami working in her own workshop, while a split viewing screen showed her in a dojo practicing martial arts. "And while her past trauma changed her life for the worst, one event changed her life for the better, in an extraordinary way."
The next viewing window showed Asami in her workshop, before a glowing light was shown behind the shelf that held some of her personal gadgets. Confused by this, she grabbed the shelf and moved it to the side, revealing what looked like a small tear of some kind, made entirely out of pure light.
"For some unknown reason, a tear between the real word and a dimension known as the Spirit World appeared before her. A hole that was too small for any rogue spirit to enter, but still big enough for one small thing to get through."
Asami was curious by what she was seeing, as she reached her hand down towards the small hole of light, when all of a sudden, a blue and green spider jumped out of the hole and latched onto her hand. She yelped in shock and tried to shake it off, but it was too late, as the spider bit her hand, before it jumped off of her and crawled away. Asami held her hand in discomfort from the bite, but deep down inside, she felt something about her that began to change.
"The venom from the tiny spider spirit changed Asami's physiology, making her stronger than ever before and granting her powers similar to it." The next viewing window showed Asami in an abandoned factory as she started lifting up an old Satomobile above her head. "And gave her ingenuity skills some new inspiration." Asami placed gold colored braced on her wrists, before she shot out a web line from them. The next scene showed her swinging around on those web lines across republic city, but with a bandanna around the lower part of her face, so no one would recognize her if she was seen.
"With her newfound powers and inventions at her side, Asami decided that this would be be the ultimate opportunity to do more than just find the man who killed her mother, but to also fill in the void as Republic City's hero." The next viewing window showed a montage of Asami making her costume as she used a sowing machine at a table. When she was finished, she held up her design and smiled in satisfaction as she gazed upon a red fabric with a large black spider symbol on it.
The next scene revealed her standing on top of the highest building in Republic City, looking down at everything, before she put on her helmet. She took a few steps back, before running forward and leaping off the building.
"WOOOOHOOOO!" She cheered as she fell through the sky, before she came between two buildings and launched a web line, swinging away at such speed.
/
"So far, she has remained unsuccessful in finding the man who killed her mother, but she has made a name for herself in being Republic City's new hero. Some see her as a protector, others a menace, but one thing is clear, Republic City is her home, and she will defend it with her life." The Watcher said as his ethereal form watched Asami walking down the sidewalk, making her way back to her place.
She stopped along a crosswalk and waited to cross, but paused when her spider sense tingled. An explosion occurred up top one of the buildings and everyone began screaming in fear as they ran away. Asami looked up and saw someone actually flying out of the building with what looked like large metal wings and soared through the sky.
She gave a sigh in disappointment as she hid down in an alley and pulled out her helmet-mask. "It never ends, does it?" She said to herself as she donned her costume and swung out the alley to give chase to the winged individual.
"No, the life of a hero does never end, and sometimes we have to walk it alone." The Watcher said as his gaze changed into a different direction.
/
"But Asami has nothing to worry about, for she will not be alone for long."
The scene changed to the snowy village of the Southern Water Tribe, where we see a teen girl with dark blue winter clothes standing in the middle of an arena and she took a fighting stance.
She thrusted both her fists forward and sent out a stream of fire from them, before stomping her feet and shooting out a large boulder from the ground. She then bended the ice around her into water and shot it out in a powerful stream.
"Yes, that's what I'm talking about!" The young woman cheered with her fist in the air.
"Korra, you can practice your bending at another time. It's time for dinner."
"Coming, Dad!" Korra called out before she took off running, before she approached a large animal that looked like a mix between a dog and a bear and hopped on its back. "Let's go, Naga. Supper time." With that said, she rode off back home.
"A hero had fallen, another was born to take his place, and another one rose up through tragedy to share in the responsibility. Life is forever unpredictable, but as long as there are those to uphold its value and to protect all forms of it, then this universe is in good hands."
/
Hey everybody, I've come with a new chapter for you all.
This one was done a little bit quicker than the other chapters of this story, because it's pretty straight forward, in my opinion. The majority of my Beyondverse spider heroes are mainly OCs, so I wanted to shake things up a bit by having an existing character within this universe becoming a spider hero.
This universe is the Legend of Korra series, and I felt that Asami would be the perfect choice for becoming a spider hero. I loved her character arc in the show, and she proved that she was more than just a pretty face. I wanted to give her even more development and have her grow into her own hero before she becomes part of the new Team Avatar.
Since Legend of Korra cemented itself as a steampunk type of show, I decided to give Asami the costume of the hero Lady Spider, so look her up so that way you can get a clearer picture into what her costume looks like. I think the aesthetic matches the theme of the show, plus it's from a hero not that many spider fans know, so I though it sticks.
I will say, I wish I could have done the dialogue of The Watcher better in this chapter, but my previous chapters were all about teaming up with a different hero or team already, while this chapter teases a team up, but it hasn't happened yet, so I didn't have much to work at. Still, I'm glad I did this chapter, and I look forward to exploring this hero's life a bit more in the future.