3 . Subway of my mind.
Another right, another left. We dive towards the subway opening and I quickly dodge an incoming train, which blasts the tunnel with its echoing horn. I look at my reflection on the passing train window. My classic suit: black, with white and blue accents. I always preferred the dark tones on my things; not only did it blend better in the night, it was stylish as well. The blue and white were for style points, of course. If it were up to me, it would be all black, but Christina and Isla insisted on me popping it with a bit of color.
Talking about them, I tried the communicator again. I can hear some chatter through the static, what sounds like Isla's voice subtly passes through. Not enough to understand, though. Well, maybe I could if I tried, but all my attention was on those two circus clowns. Fighting in such a closed space was not dangerous only for myself, but for any passerby that happened to be caught in the middle of the fire. If it were up to me we would be on a vast plane with nobody around; or even better, we wouldn't be fighting at all. I don't got time for this.
Horns blast to my right. Electro has used her electric powers to overdrive the rails, sending the trains bursting through the line. I shoot my webs to further ahead, trying to create a nest to hopefully catch the train in motion. All of this fighting, Electro in the subways… It reminded me of something. A sense of deja vu made all the hairs in my body stand up. Flashbacks went through my mind's eye: me catching a runaway train caused by a panicked and hurried Electro, minutes before I caught him for good. Yes, you read it right. Him. Her predecessor, her father. Chills, again. Was this a vengeance plot?
I tried to shake the thought out of my head. The mere presence of the Hobgoblin there told me that must have not been the case. Villains were not known to team up. Not mines, anyway. They were usually superpowered robbers or lunatics going after their quick buck or some sort of grandeur principle. Electro was nothing more than a thief, and what Hobgoblin did was domestic terrorism. Like water and oil, they didn't mix well together. There was no chance the possessed demon lady was moved by the glorified thief's pleas of closure. Right?
BOOM! Explosions behind me. I was so preoccupied on not getting hit and managing the damage Electro was dealing to the subway line I didn't even see that Hobgoblin had me surrounded. Weird. My sense should have told me something. That's when I noticed a sign right in front of me, in trajectory to cut my head off. Shit. I quickly shoot my web to the other side, dodging by milliseconds. My spider-sense didn't activate again. What 's going on? Shit, if this keeps up we will get past Isla's lab. Maybe she can help me? No, I have to warn her just in case she is there.
I reached for my communicator. BZZZZZZT! Nothing but static. And, in fact, it seems like the static was going on this whole time. I focused my sight, seeing everything slightly blurred. It must be it. I tried yanking the transmitter out of my ear, without success. After all, the damn thing was sewn on my mask. Crap. Desperately, I leaped towards Electro with the help of my webs, going for a headbut and sending us flying ahead. "AAAAaarghghhghhh!" Screamed the woman, which resonated through the whole tunnel. Her voice felt artificial, as if said through some old synthesizer. She must be really trying now.
We exchanged a few punches with me hanging on to her floating body. I let in a few more headbuts, dealing a good amount of damage on the villain. Getting seemingly irritated, electric currents started to form around her eyes, which became white with static. Her whole body shone with pure energy, leaving her looking like a shining nervous system inside a static silhouette. I never saw her like that, but I knew what was coming.
"Thank you. That was a great birthday present." I said, as the enraged woman let out a glass shattering high pitched scream, letting out all of her stored energy and exploding in a blinding shower of pure power. All the lights in the tunnel went out, in fact every single electric powered device in our vicinity seemed to also explode with the surge of electricity. I was lucky my suit was not only water proof and fire proof, but also Electro proof! I did feel a sudden pressure and an impact that sent me flying backwards, though.
"Anybody else smell toast?" I said, scratching my head while I got up. I reached for my transmitter. Nothing. No garbled noise, no static, no voice. Nothing. My plan worked. Her electricity must have fried the thing. Thanks, Electro. My vision adapted to the pitch black environment, allowing me to see in the dark. Another perk of being bit by that weird spider. I looked up towards where Electro was, being met with a very not clothed woman that was seemingly very much not awake. The spike in her powers must have not only charred her suit, but also knocked her out. I swinged towards the perpetrator, shooting webs to cover her up and to restrain her against the wall.
"One out, one to go." I dusted off my hands. I did a quick check on my suit. Tattered, beaten, some spots had deep cuts. Not the most usual of nights, not the most usual of fights. Isla will be really mad when she finds out we need to repair the suit again. I let out a long sigh. Wait, Isla! No time for that now, though. I think she will understand, there is a murderous lunatic on the loose. I did a couple of jumps in place to sike myself out and slapped my face to wake back up. I was back on the top of my game, their trap had failed miserably. I was hyped. Time to do some demon hunting, baby.
A high pitched shriek behind me, the sound of flames and the distinct odor of sulfur. "Spidey, Spidey… Come out and play, wherever you are…There you are. I've been looking for y- Oh." She interrupted herself, seemingly having her attention caught by something other than my pursuit. Looking at her face, I saw it transform from mischief to pure anger. The air reverberated with the blend of shout and growl that came out of the woman. "Aaaaaaaaaaargh! How could you, thy lecherous Spiderling?! I knew thy villany and thy stray from God was concerning, but entrapping an innocent woman in thy web of sin?!" Hobgoblin was alternating her gaze from me to the Electro, who was on the wall. Trapped. On her birthday suit. Oh no.
"Nononono, it's not what it looks like!" I blushed, trying to block my view with my hands. "W-We were fighting, she went all bananas like 'Ooh I'm gonna kill you!' then she became all energy and stuff, then BAM! explosion. I didn't have anything to do with it, I swear!" This can't be happening. The last thing I needed was Jameson reporting on how Spider-Man beat up a naked lady. "Wait, why am I even explaining myself to you? You are a bad guy." Maybe the communicator scrambled more than just my spider-sense.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" She brought both of her hands up to her head, squeezing it as if in deep pain. I stumbled back a bit, covertly shooting webs towards my back to prepare for my escape. If I learned anything today, it is that my villains can explode somehow. My suit might have helped me survive the first one, but two might be stretching it. She continued, still on the same motion, seemingly distraught. "JUST BE QUIET! I WILL BRING YOU THE BOY, JUST SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
Strange. She never spoke to herself like that before. Was someone controlling her? Maybe she was really a victim in this situation? My curiosity got the best of me. "Hey, ugly mug. 'You okay there? 'You need an Ibuprofen or something?" I asked, walking towards her, still holding on to the webs, which were stretched slingshot style. If she did any sudden movements, I was ready to go flying. Maybe I could lure her to somewhere more open, away from potential people.
Her head snapped, moving towards me in the blink of an eye. Claws suddenly grew from her long black nails, a deep scratch being left behind in her head due to the sudden movement of her positioning into a more combative stance. She screeched, saying something on a tongue that I could never understand. Hauling a firebomb against me, I hopped, being launched by all the force being applied on my web contraption. With a twirl I dodged the fire graciously, quickly moving into a wall run while I thought of my next steps.
From wall to wall, from the ceiling to the ground, I leaped and webbed around the tunnels to not get caught by her attacks. The tunnel was dark for as long as I could see, which meant that Electro's explosion probably caused some outage or something. All this time away from the moonlight was making me weaker by the minute. I couldn't keep this up for much longer. I had to get out of the subway line as quickly as possible. I knew the closest way to an open area was not that far away, but to get there fast I would have to take the shortcut. The one that goes right through Isla's - I mean, ours - secret lab. Maybe I can take the long way around. I can strain myself a bit more. They must have evacuated the area by now, right? As I thought that, we sped through two trains, one on each side. I looked inside one of them for a second. They were still full. Well, I'll be damned. I can't put these people in danger. Shortcut it is.
"Hi, Miss Freddy Krueger?" I said, jumping from side to side in front of her, waving directly at her face. "I know we are having a lot of fun playing here, but could we skip this song and dance and get to the good part?" On my last jump, she clawed me, wounding my chest, which started to bleed real bad. "Wow, ok. Good part it is, then!"
I ran on the roof of a train, quickly pivoting into an upside down stance on the tunnel itself. Stopping for a second, I let Hobgoblin go ahead for a bit, due to my unexpected stop. I ran on the walls, getting right on the rails. Shooting webs on her shoulders, I threw her like an olympic athlete against a door to the side; she not only fell beautifully out of her weird skull flying thing, she tore through the passageway, opening it up for me. With a flying kick to her face I entered the much more claustrophobic tunnel she was in now.
"That has to be at least 80 points, right?" I asked, saluting the dazed demon as I got ahead in a powerful and quick leap. The pathway was so narrow she couldn't summon her glider, so Hobgoblin, foaming, went full animalistic, pursuing me on all fours. It seemed like her physiology somehow adapted to accommodate this change in transportation, her front limbs becoming more like legs and paws and her spine becoming less fit for a bipedal. Fire shot from her walking appendages, leaving a charred paw trail behind her. The foam that flew from her mouth became black and vile, her visage even more demonic.
This pursuit dynamic was… different from what I was used to. Well, at least with Hobgoblin. It seemed like because she lost her arms, Hobgoblin could not shoot me firebombs anymore. Which was good, don't get me wrong. What wasn't good was all the speed she had gained; I wasn't under direct moonlight, so my powers were not as tiptop as they could be. Which meant the demon dog lady was gaining on me. And fast.
Through my dark vision I could see the opening that signalized we were close to getting out of the line. The opening also meant we were about to go through the lab. If Isla is in there, I hope she heard all the commotion and got out fast. Please, dont be there. Getting to the opening, I leaped through the concrete clearing we called our lab. The circular open space, which was once used as a rest spot for the subway builders, now housed dozens of different lab equipment, prototypes, and plants. So many plants. As I quickly scanned the area, in the fraction of a second I could, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was tidy and organized. Too tidy and organized. Not noticing that, was the first mistake of that night.
I shot a web to the ceiling, swinging and giving myself enough of a boost to clear the whole room. Shoulder first, I calculated my trajectory to burst through the door into the night. I was so close. As quickly as they had gone out, every single light in the room came back at once. What felt like spotlights shone upon me and directly into my eyes, confusing and stunning me due to my physiology being on darkvision mode. I lost balance, hitting what was supposed to be an archway, but was now a wall of pure stone. Or should I say, sand.
Blood. The sand bleeds, a white and red Spider-Man figure clawing through it to get you with its pitch black claws. Its fanged mouth opens wide, as if a spider prepared to eat its prey. You hear her screaming. You see her lifeless body, and a beating, blue heart. You scream, you trash about, but nothing helps. The creature gets bigger, and with it the dread you feel only grows. You look up, towards its bloodshot red eyes. It's gonna finally finish the job, it's going to kill you like it did Is-
You snap out of it. Teacher looks at you with puzzled eyes, probably wondering where your mind went for that moment. Your mouth is dry, and your throat can barely form words. But you power through it. "I'm sorry, Teach. Can we continue this another day? I'm getting kind of tired, from the patrolling and all that." you ask, fidgeting on your seat. Even though she promised to never read your mind, you know she is not stupid. And you have "uncomfortable" written all over you.
The Teacher sips her cup of tea, crossing her legs. With a wave of her free hand, she telekinetically closes her notebook. Her blue eyes pierce you with judgment, and you feel like dying all over again.