Issue #2: Spider-Girls vs The Killer Robots!
The things one would usually expect in the sky would be a bird or a plane, but neither wasn't quite normal if you lived in New York City. In NYC, what's normal is seeing a heroic spider punching a flying robot in the face. Like, come on, it's practically part of resident's weekday commutes. This showed how easy it was to be caught in a web of normalcy as the Spider-Girls didn't bat an eye over the fact that their morning now involved a death battle. What really worried the marvelous superheroines more was the time they had left before the first bell rang! 'Fifteen Minutes!' Spiderling telepathically alerted through their shared spider sense. She is currently battling four drones in the air through skyscrapers and high-rises. She swings over morning traffic while dodging laser blasts from her drone pursuers. Not too far away, her eldest sister is the first to respond.
'We won't make it on foot!' Spider-Girl grunts, fighting four drones and three robo-dogs on a high-rise restaurant balcony cluttered with patrons. The cross-fire caused dozens to flee for the exits while Spider-Girl defends thier escape. Simultaneously, she punches the heads of a drone and robo-dog. The dog stays down, but the headless drone continues its onslaught by unleashing its deadly flamethrower arm at nearby citizens. With a twirl of her wrist, her web cartridge switches to Ice-webbings, creating a thick web shield covered in ice. Spider-Girl leaps in front of the funnel of fire, shielding a family and allowing the last patrons to escape. 'We'll have to use our powers this time to make it!'
'That's what I'm always saying!' Wild-Spider telepathically said, battling four drones and five robo-dogs in a busy public park. She beefed up her arms with her symbiote powers and stretched them to nab a drone. With a boastful roar, she smashed him into a metallic paste. Doing so changed her suit's form. Now her black hair flowed out, the lower half of her blue webbed mask was all black, and her lens had sharper edges. This was her body reacting to using her strength; the less she held back, the more her suit morphed. Against two-bit thugs or corrupt cops, she uses a sliver of her strength, but against mindless robots, she's more than happy to crack their metal skulls.
One drone fires several small rockets while dozens of civilians try to flee. These rockets weren't aimed at Wild-Spider but at the escaping civilians. Wild-Spider shoots several impact webbings, exploding some of the missiles, before she rushes to save the remaining targets. There were three targets: a couple, an old lady, and a small boy. Wild-Spider dispatched two rockets by snatching them with her organic webbing. With her immense strength, she outpowers their propulsions and smashes them into an empty field. The last rocket neared the little boy. Wild-Spider had only seconds, so she leaped forward and snatched the boy away, the missile exploding behind them.
Briefly safe, she lets him go but sees the little boy still deathly frightened. Wild-Spider smiles to calm him down, incidently showing her fearsome fangs. The boy screamed and ran over to his parents. Wild-Spider sighs, 'Why are they always scared of me?' Distracted, the robo-dogs suddenly attack her, but Wild-Spider violently dispatches them before destroying a nearby drone. However, mere moments later, the drone began to repair itself. She realizes that the nanobots are reattaching their broken parts! She tells her sisters, 'Bad news. These drone nanobots are fixing them faster than we can crush'em!' She decides to leave the problem-solving to them and unleashes her anger by charging after her regenerating foes. "You think your fancy gadgets will help you?! I'll destroy you all!"
Back to Spider-Girl, she's wall-crawling on another skyscraper while avoiding blaster fire and retaliating by firing her spider-stingers. These thin, sharp metal rods pierced through the last robo-dog, its scattered pieces falling against the building. 'Took care of all the robo-dogs on my end. Still dealing with four tin heads,' she communicates. She leaps from poles and ledges, trying to counter-attack their onslaught as her spider sense helps her avoid their attacks. Spider-Girl switched her cartridges, firing a string of electro-webs to short-circuit thier systems, but it only staggered them.
Spider-Girl gasps when the drones purposefully fire at the skyscrapers' apartments. 'Why would they switch targets?'
She swings down, barely catching a falling civilian. Then, one of the robots swoops down with its arm blade unsheathed. Watching this, she realized the answer, 'They're learning! Knowing we're heroes, they're using civilians against us to create opportunities to attack!' Spider-Girl narrowly swings away, but her lower left abdomen is slashed. She hissed in pain; nothing serious, but she probably won't be so lucky next time.
'Electro-Web won't work, and they're attacking civilians to lower our guards,' Mayday communicates through their senses. 'Annie, any other clue on deactivating them?'
As she asked, she saw Spiderling zoom by, hanging for dear life as her web was attached to one of four flying drones. 'Working on it, sis!' Spiderling thought. Annie's spider-sense tingles help her dodge a barrage of lasers from the three drones furthest ahead. In the crossfire, they critically strike the drone she's latched onto. Now falling, Spiderling fires a web, but it's cut by one of the three remaining drones targeting her. "Crap!" she gasps, falling further below before pressing a button on her wrists. Spiderwebbing in the shape of wing flaps form beneath her armpits, switching her suit into wing-suit mode. The momentum and high winds save her from a rough landing, and she glides at high speeds over the streets.
"Woo-hoo!" she cheered, gliding over a bridge with pursuers on her tail. She notices one drone power up its rocket boots, speeding up as it aims its arm blade for her. 'Spider-Bots, attack!' she commands through her spider-sense. Several spider-shaped droids, the size of a human hand, lept out of her red pouch and latched themselves to the drone. The design philosophy behind these bots followed the footsteps of her father's spider tracers, except this time, she can use her spider-sense to signal back commands rather than only receive signals of their locations. She uses this secret communication to have them unleash electro shocks across the approaching drone's systems. Staggered, Spiderling has the bots quickly scan how its nanobots work before latching herself to the drone, redirecting its trajectory upwards. With her quick thinking, Spiderling noticed how the metal goo shifts and powers the exoskeleton. A Spider-bot latches to her wrist and displays what it found.
"It has no internal generator, yet tons of energy's coursing through its system because...of the nanites! These drone nanites aren't just skin or some regenerative property. The nanites power all their systems and weapons. Gross that it is functioning like a human, except Tin-Man here doesn't have a heart." Spiderling quickly zooms in on the molecular structure of these nanites. "A complex and versatile synthetic substance like this gotta have some weakness in its molecular structure. Perhaps a modified form of gallium or- " Spiderling paused, recognizing the structure of a certain strand of molecules. "Mercury! It uses a new advanced alloy with non-toxic mercury as its base. That means one way to destroy its digital network is…!"
Just like that, a brilliant idea pops into her head.
Spiderling pulls out a cartridge of ice webbing and punches the drone's chest before cracking the capsule in her hand. The intense concentration of liquid nitrogen spreads, freezing the particles of the drone's nanites on a molecular level. Thanks to her suit's internal heating and spider powers, when Spiderling pulled out her hand, there was barely any frost on it. The drone's internal systems freeze until the robot is nothing more than an ice statue. "Huh, so telling foes to chill out can work," she quipped. She leaps off the now robo-popsicle, watching it plummet safely on a rooftop before whipping out her web wings.'Guys, I figured it out. They don't have a traditional mechanical power source. The nanobots ARE the power source. Use your ice webbing to freeze the bots by punching their core bodies!'
Spider-Girl smiles proudly before swinging after her pursuers. Seeing a construction crane, she latched on to swing up and over to sling herself onto a pursuing drone. She glances at a nearby clock tower, "10 minutes left," she muttered before punching her fist into the drone's chest. A crack of the ice cartridge later, and the drone froze up. "Hoo-boy!' she cheered, "the only thing Frosty here is missing is a carrot nose and a top hat. Thanks, Spiderling, you're astonishing!"
Soon enough, each sister quickly dispatched the remaining drones. Due to her organic webbing, Wild-Spider had to finish off her opponents using the reserve ice cartridges she carried in case her sisters ran out. After finishing off her remaining foes, Spider-Girl linked up with Wild-Spider, and the two swung toward Spiderling's location. Thier little sister clung onto the last drone near the tracks of a Metro line over traffic. The robot was flying everywhere, trying to throw Spiderling off. It stubbornly does not go down without a fight. "Almost…got it!" Spiderling grunts until she spots an incoming train on the track. She's nearly thrown off as the robot flies to the track, its glass dome suddenly flashing red.
"Spider sense tingling!" the twins gasped.
Spider-Girl shouted, "Spiderling, get out of there!" Annie tried puncturing its chest, but her spidey senses went off, and Spider-Girl's warning made her swing away. A second later, it self-destructs, obliterating part of the metro bridge and train track. And not just any train track but the East Coast's bullet train rail system. The average passenger count for each train was almost fifteen hundred passengers, and now one of these trains was heading straight towards a destroyed chunk of track.
'Oh god!' They all thought. The oncoming bullet train was going too fast for its brake to save it from plummeting and crashing to thier deaths.
With no time to lose, Spider-Girl gives out orders. "Spider-Girls, form up! Spiderling, send the Spider-Bots to the conductor. Tell him about the track and have all the passengers hang on! Then you and Wild-Spider use web nets to perform formation twenty-two. I'll go slow the train. You both got it?!"
"Got it!"
The Marvelous Spider-Girls spring into action once more to stop a horrible catastrophe.
Following Mayday's orders, the sisters get into thier positions. They fire several wide websnets aimed at and below the destroyed track gap, quickly building two durable layers of webbing. Spider-Girl gets on the roof of the head train, webbing her feet. "I feel them putting the brakes on, but it's still too fast!" Seeing the metallic pillars and buildings around them, an idea sprung, and Spider-Girl fired several magnetic webbings onto them. Dozens of webbing latch onto these metal foundations while the quick strain burns her hands, but Spider-Girl maintains her grip on these thick webs with all her strength. Some snap-off, but her specialized fast-firing mode allows Spider-Girl to replace a web in a second. Suddenly, an intense pain burns across her abdomen. "My wound! Gah! Not now!" she hissed, feeling her grip loosen. "I…must…not…!" Try as she might, the strain widened the wound, and the train was still going too fast. "At this speed, dozens could still die! No, they won't die! I refuse!" Blood stained her suit, the pain worsening, and Spider-Girl's grip slips further. "No…"
Just as Spider-Girl is about to fail, arms lock around her shoulders, keeping her from collapsing. She knew that hug anywhere. It was Annie! "I got you, Spider-Girl!" she yelled, using her strength to support her sister. Despite their combined strengths, they had seconds left, and the impact was still too dangerous to risk.
Suddenly, several black tendrils wrapped around their waists and arms until these tendrils held onto the webbings. April was behind her sisters, puncturing her feet on the train's roof. "All that training, and you still need me," she smirked.
"Wild-Spider!" they cheer.
"Less talking, more holding!"
Together, the Parker sisters, with all their combined might, perform one last massive tug on the webs! 'Don'tsnap! Don'tsnap!' Mayday thought. Then the seemingly impossible happened: a train going over two hundred and fifty miles an hour crawled to a halt just as it tipped over the edge of the destroyed bridge. Even as the sisters struggle against the sheer momentum they're stopping, they don't stop holding on to the train and each other until the first layer of net-webbing safely catches the train's nose. As their faces turned red from the strain, they breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the webbings hold firm. The second the train stopped dead, the trio fell onto the bed of webs below.
Laying beside her sisters, Spiderling almost couldn't believe her eyes. "We…we did it!" she cheered, gasping for air.
WIld-Spider huffs exhaustedly, "Next time…I see a weird truck. I'm crushing it…"
Spider-Girl chuckles, "All in agreement?"
"Aye!" the sisters say in unison.
Spiderling notices blood on her, quickly realizing it's not hers but Mayday's. "Oh god, you're bleeding!" Panicking, Spiderling scrambles through her bag with intense worry across her face. She pulls out the trusty Spider-Aid. She and her father created this advanced medical spray some months ago. He joked that it's basically the opposite of a bug repellent. The spray Spiderling applied was one of the latest feats in medical science, where any flesh wound can be sealed up thanks to the spray's unique chemical mixture.
Spider-Girl sighs in relief as the pain goes away. "Thanks-" She's cut off when Spiderling lunges forward to give her a worried hug. "I really am okay now, Annie," Spider-Girl whispered.
"I just hate seeing you hurt," Spiderling admits, her worry clear and present.
Spider-Girl hugs her little sister back, "I know, but we're safe now, thanks to your help. You did well." She looked up to Wild-Spider and gave a thumbs up, which April returned in kind.
With their nerves calmed, the team begins helping passengers out of the train. Wild-Spider rips open one door, activating the emergency inflatable sliding tubes. Spider-Girl gets traffic below to create a safe space for passengers to gather while Spiderling works with the staff to guide passengers down the slides safely. To the team's relief, the worst injuries were some light bruises, which Spiderling helped patch up by having her band of Spider-bots use their equipped healing sprays. A crowd forms around the trio, applauding the team's efforts in stopping the threat and saving many lives.
"Another day saved, Spider-Girls!" The conductor thanked them.
"Spiderling, you looked so brave and cool up there!" some teen boys cheered. Annie thanked the compliment with an awkward wave but cringed at the heart shapes in their eyes.
"Spider-Girl, we love you!" A group of fangirls cheered and crowded around her. Mayday blushed, blowing a quick air kiss, causing several teens to swoon.
However, the adoring crowd cheered two names rather than three. Wild-Spider clenched her fists, remembering that kid in the park being more terrified of her than killer robots. She feels someone poke her from behind; she turns to growl at them but stops when she sees it's a little girl holding a worn-out monster plushy. She wasn't scared of her like the boy was. If anything, the child looked dazzled. She held up her hand for a fist pump, "You are SOOO cool, like my best friend," she said, glancing at her plushy. The little one must've been carrying it since she was a baby.
April sees how the girl lovingly hugs the toy, kneels, and returns her fist pump, "Thanks. Guess you're one of the few cool people in Queens."
Suddenly, the girl's mother pulls her daughter away, frighteningly whispering, "Sarah, don't touch that Mutie monster!"
April is about to snap at the bigoted mother when she hears the distant sounds of police cars approaching. "Crap," she hissed. Sarah waved goodbye at April, who waved back, proud of the kid's defiance of her mother's bigotry. April pulled her sisters away, pushing the crowd aside. "Police are here."
"Oh great," Annie sighed, checking her watch. "Crud, five minutes left? We don't have time for their heckling."
"You're right," Mayday nods. "Everything's under control, and buses will get these passengers to where they're going. Let's move- "She pauses upon seeing the burnt remains of the droid nearby. Mayday dashed towards it, confusing her sisters.
"What are you doing?" April asks.
"Gathering intel. Better in our hands than the police." Mayday held onto a burnt-up metal skull and a capsule full of nanobots.
"You're just going to hull around a robot skull around school? I mean, look how damaged it is," Annie whispers.
"I'll figure something out. We need intel on who made these things. Since this is the only robot not frozen, a shot in the dark is better than nothing." With everything gathered, the Spider-Girls swing away. The trio quickly gathered their hidden clothes and backpacks before rushing toward Midtown High, hopefully before first period ended.
[Later…]
Having just arrived, Mayday poked her head out of the corner and scouts the campus. "See anybody?" Annie whispered. The sisters were all currently tucked in a hidden corner of the east building, the windows to the women's bathroom a few stories below.
"Not one," Mayday answered.
"Which means everyone's in class already," April said.
"Yeeeep," Mayday sighed.
The sisters sneakily wall-crawled down, quietly opened the windows, and leaped into the empty bathrooms. April swiftly transformed into her civilian clothes and peeked into the hallway outside. "Coast is clear," she whispered. Annie and Mayday rush into their stalls to change.
"So, I've been thinking," April spoke, "how about we say the robots attacked us? The news is saying they've attacked dozens of people. The staff will believe it."
"Too much suspicion," Mayday responds, "I mean, all that footage, and yet we're not seen anywhere?"
"Oh, come on, who will care enough to notice?"
"Sorry, April. Let's be safe and say our cat got sick and had to be taken to the vet." Mayday guessed from the silence that her sisters agreed. Shoving her suit into her backpack, she zips up her pants and throws on her jacket until noticing something on her collar. "Ahh, crud. Got blood stain on my jacket!"
"Hey, you want to say that any louder? You know, so that the whole school could hear ya?" April quipped.
Annie stuffs her suit in her backpack until she too groaned in frustration. "Urgh! That's just great! May's blood is stained on my suit. Now, we gotta use the laundromat tonight, and I'm all out of quarters."
"Okay, how am I the one not yelling at the top of their lungs?" April asks.
"Sorry," Mayday whispered. "And leave the washing to me, Annie. I got spare quarters."
"Phew, you're a lifesaver!"
"Anyway, our cover story should suffice. Mom and Dad will say they weren't home if the school calls."
Annie sighed, "And we promised them we wouldn't be late today. How will they react now, especially if they discover we withheld bad-guy tech? And god forbid Mom and Dad see this blood."
"Relax, Annie," Mayday assured, "I'll come up with something. If, and I mean, if they call, let me do the talking."
Annie nods and finishes dressing. Suddenly, a loud plop is heard from Mayday's stall. "Oy, that's smart."
"What?" Annie asked as she stepped out.
"Dropped the freaking robo-skull in the toilet."
"Huh, still not as weird as Annie hiding a Skrull in the storage closet last year," April notes.
"Hey, she tried to impersonate me in the middle of the third period. Where else was I supposed to hide her? Still can't believe she and her buddies had the nerve to argue it was a 'prank.'"
"Hey, can't blame the Skurlls for having a weird sense of humor." As Annie fixed her hair and ensured no bruises showed, the sister's spider senses tingled. April peeks out the door to see the source of the disturbance. "Shit. Ms. Pershing's coming," April whispers.
"Oy. No wonder our senses are going off. It just had to be one teacher who checks the bathrooms," Mayday said.
"Yeah, and our backpacks," Annie said in worry. "Mayday, ditch the robo-head!"
"Easier said than done," Mayday said. She knew Ms. Pershing would check every corner of this restroom for any suspicious item. She will find the skull so long as it is in this room. "Wait…in this room… that's it!" Mayday busts open her stall door; the head and nanite vial webbed together. "April, the window!" Without a word, April slid open the window. Mayday makes sure not to throw it too far, and when she does, she hears shrubbery rustling on the other side, her intended target. "Nice! Three-pointer."
A moment later, Ms. Pershing opens the door to find the Parker Sisters in the bathroom, standing at attention. Mayday tried not to show her nerves. Annie nervously smiled. April cheekily waved. "Yo, Ms. Perching," she said. "Saaaay, did you get a haircut this summer?"
The middle-aged pale woman, her dark hair tied up in a bun, pinched her brows. "Open your bags, Parkers, and empty your pockets."
The sisters do as they're told and open their bags wide open. Ms. Perching looked and found only textbooks, pencils, and paper. Unbeknownst to her, the Parker sisters have their super-suits stuffed in a secret bottom compartment. Ms. Perching searched the restrooms until she stopped and glanced at Mayday. "May Fitzgerald Parker," she sternly said, pointing at her right cheek and collar. "Is that a bruise, and why is there a blood stain on your jacket?"
'Cruuuud! I didn't check for bruises,' Mayday thought.
April stepped in. "Well, it started when our cat got super sick. Threw up everywhere."
"Y-yeah," Annie supports, "and our parents were gone, so we rushed to the nearest vet."
Ms. Perching asked, "What does that have to do with-?"
"Then suddenly I tripped!" Mayday interrupted. Ms. Perching gave her the stink eye but allowed her to continue, "Yeah, I fell straight on my face the way there. Even nosebleed a bit. Our cat turned out to have had worms, so we had to stay a bit longer. We informed our parents we'd be late. You can verify with them if you wish."
Perching raised her eyebrow, "Did Mr. Smith see you walk up the gate?"
"He was asleep, like always," April answered.
sighed, "Course he was. Then why were you three in the bathroom and not in class?"
The sisters gulped. Not having thought that far ahead, they're forced to improvise. An idea pops into Mayday's head; left with no choice, she steps forward and forces a nervous blush. "I…because of…my…p-period."
April barely stopped herself from snickering. Annie stepped forward, backing her sister up by pulling out her tampons. "Y-yeah, but she forgot hers. Good thing April and I were here, right? Haha, phew!" April fought the toughest fight by both not slapping her forehead and not bursting out in laughter.
Perching squints at the three, a doubtful look in her eyes before finally relenting. "You know what I just heard, Parkers? Excuses!" The sisters step back, not wanting to irritate her further. "They might be valid excuses, but still excuses! I swear, ever since you three enrolled, there's at least one instance every week where one of you is late or scrambling for stuff like you were hiding something. It's a mystery to me how I haven't found any drugs on you yet or caught you committing some crime. Especially you, April."
"Ehh, that's fair," April shrugged.
Despite being irritated by the false accusation, Mayday spoke calmly, "We're sorry, Ms. Perching. Guess it's just the old Parker luck, as our family always say." A bell rings across the school's sound system, a sign of relief and disappointment for the sisters.
"Looks like that 'luck' just lost you 1st period," Perching said, pointing at the door, "To class, now."
"Uhh…but," Mayday stutters, thinking of the robo-head outside.
"Now!" Seeing her wits officially ended, the sisters walked into the halls just as kids crowded it. Ms. Perching returned to her professional attitude and spoke, "Have a pleasant rest of your day, Parkers. Remember, I'm always watching." She points at them before disappearing amidst the crowd of students and faculty.
"Yeeesh! Always watching? Lady needs a life," April said.
"Hate when she accuses you like that," Annie muttered.
"Hey, more heat on me means less heat on you."
Mayday is the first to step away, whispering, "I'll get the parts. We'll meet during lunch. See you later, April, Annie."
Annie waves goodbye, steadying her nerves, "Okay, switching to student mode. Good luck in class, April."
"Show them what you're made of, Annie!"
The Parker sisters split off. Each is about to face new and old challenges this semester in a place almost as tough as crime-fighting itself: high school.
[Meanwhile...]
Amid the busy streets where a battle has recently occurred, two figures disguised in civilian clothing look over the icy remains of a once functional battle robot.
"Look like that gearhead's little toy went haywire," one of the mysterious figures spoke.
"Those cursed Spider-Girls didn't help either," the other cloaked figure hisses angrily. "So what now?"
"The plan remains the same. The most crucial pieces are already in place. Besides, I can do a better job distracting than these toys."
"Whatever. So long I see some action, I'm ready for any surprises," she smirks eagerly, a spark rippling from her eyes.
The sound of web-slinging above causes the two to move behind the cover. Above, they see the Ultimate Spider-Man inspecting the scene below. One of the figures sees the other clench their fist before calming her. "In due time," they say, pulling her further into the shadows, "they will all pay in due time..."
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this action-pack battle in the skies and below! It was fun trying to make this dynamic, giving each Parker sister a moment to shine. Annie is the most analytical and reliant on tech. April is the powerhouse, using her unique physiology to overpower foes. Mayday is a balance of both, having the training and leadership skills to get the three to work effectively together. Then, culminating in their physically supporting one another to save people was a fun writing moment for me. That's also something I highlighted, them making sure people are protected. It's too familiar, at least for a while with movies, that the heroes only do a few people saving. I also made it to balance them having fun tech while still relying on traditional spidey gear and tactics. Also, I don't know if the Parker sisters are mutants. That's a bit of debate, so I'd like your thoughts about the subject and this chapter.
With all that said...who are these mysterious figures lurking in the shadows? What clues can the Spider-Girls find in the ruined remains of these robots? What awaits our dynamic trio on their first day of high school?
Find out next time in Issue #3 of THE MARVELOUS SPIDER-GIRLS!
