Chapter 33: Gwen with a Bad Temper
As much as Gwen hated the Bat, she had to admit that having someone like him on your team made things easier. Complex problems could be handed off. For a brief moment, she felt that having a teammate wasn't so bad.
Of course, not a teammate like the Bat. Who knew what he was plotting? The guy clearly trusted no one.
"Alright, let's do our part now," Gwen called out to Peter B. Parker, who had just finished webbing up the last of the Okmax guards.
Peter gave her a thumbs-up, shot a web-line to the ceiling, and swung up toward the collider's main control panel.
"Okay, okay, let's see if this little thing is the real deal," he muttered, easily prying open the protective shutter covering the panel. His Spider-Sense blared a millisecond later.
"Ah. Of course." Peter sighed, already used to this script. "Just when the good guy's about to win, the villain shows up. Classic. Hey, Prowler!" He looked with weary annoyance at the purple-clad figure lunging toward him.
The Prowler had no interest in conversation. The eyes behind his mask were cold and focused. He slammed into Peter, grabbing him by the throat and hurling him away from the controls.
With Peter B. out of the way, Gwen smoothly took his place. Both she and Peter had a key. She didn't know which was real, but she had to try.
"Come on," she whispered, inserting her key into the slot. She waited, a tense hope in her eyes.
Nothing happened. The console remained dark.
The key the Bat had given her was a fake.
"Oh, you damn Bat!" Gwen snarled. She yanked the key out and crushed it in her fist. She'd suspected it might be fake, but having it confirmed still sparked a white-hot fury.
Now she had to either get the key from Peter or let him try his.
"Keep that Prowler off me. I need to get Peter over here!" Gwen's temper was fully ignited. She shot a web-line, pulling herself across the chamber at blinding speed. She delivered a spinning kick to the Prowler's back, sending the high-tech stalker flying off the ceiling.
"So yours was fake," Peter B. said, watching from a distance. That meant his key must be the real one. "Huh. Maybe the Bat's got a soft spot for me after all," he added with a grin.
Gwen shot him a look that could have melted steel. Trusting him more than another Spider-Man? She didn't punch him on the spot purely out of lingering professionalism.
Realizing his mistake, Peter B. offered an awkward smile before scrambling toward the control panel, trying to stay clear of the brewing storm.
The Prowler was already recovering, his movements fluid and predatory. "I am really not in the mood!" Gwen spat. In her frustrated mind, the purple-clad villain before her blurred, his silhouette morphing into that of a certain dark, cowled figure.
The Prowler raised his razor-sharp vibranium claws, ready to shred the white Spider in front of him. But Gwen was faster. She vanished from his sight, reappearing to deliver a punishing ballet-style kick to his kidney.
Even with her comparatively lighter strength, the kick landed with enough force to make the Prowler grunt in pain.
The other Spiders, momentarily free, watched the ceiling battle with a mix of awe and concern.
"Who lit her fuse?" Spider-Man Noir asked, noting the distinct upgrade in Gwen's ferocity.
Penny Parker, monitoring from her mech, glanced at Peter B., who was now angrily extracting a shattered key from the control panel. "Maybe the Bat," she offered.
Noir thought about the Bat's methods and nodded slowly. It made perfect sense.
Under their watchful eyes, Peter B. Parker pulled out his own key, saw it was also non-functional, and crushed it with a roar of frustration.
"Should we maybe tell the Bat he's about to be in serious trouble?" Spider-Ham suggested tentatively.
"I think you should worry about yourselves," a guttural, mechanized voice hissed behind them. A massive, chitinous figure dropped from the shadows—the Scorpion. His tail arched over his shoulder, his mechanical legs clicking on the floor. Seeing three Spider-People, he didn't look concerned. He looked thrilled.
"Looks like we didn't finish our business last time," Noir said, falling into a fighting stance.
"This time isn't about finishing business," Scorpion snarled, a vicious grin splitting his face. "This time, you die here." He launched himself forward, a blur of poison and steel.
In the center of the darkened lab, surrounded by the eerie glow of the unstable collider and the sparking ruins of his equipment, Wilson Fisk bellowed into the shadows, his voice raw with rage.
"Why don't you heroes come out and face me?! Stop hiding! Show yourselves!" His perfect plan, his last chance to reclaim his family, had been shattered by a ghost in the dark. The frustration was a physical thing, a pressure in his chest demanding release.
(End of Chapter)
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