The Sensational Spider-Girl #0

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The Sensational Spider-Girl #0
Legacy

Written by Sononsj
Edited by Daniel Dyer

The burglar looks over his shoulder. No one there. He’s getting too old for this. Maybe… maybe he lost him- her- it? Maybe he was just imagining things. His footsteps make a splish-splash as he runs into a puddle and runs into an alley way. He knocks at a door.

“Mack? Mack, open up, it’s me. C’mon,” the burglar looks around, “you know me. I got… I got the.. Gaa-eeeeeeeeeeeee…rkk!”

The scum screams as I pull him up on a web line. Heh. He screams like a girl.

“Please! Don’t- don’t hurt me! I gotta wife- kids!”

“Certainly wasn‘t doing the gene pool a favor.”

“C‘mon! Just gimme a chance! I won‘t hurt no one- no more.”

He goes limp as I drop him on the rooftop behind me. The police have already been notified. They’ll pick this one up, along with the other two.

You sit on a sort of ledge on the side of a tall building. Looking at the huge city that never seems to end. So busy. Everything looks so small from up here, you notice.

Growing bored, you jump from the ledge and web swing home.

When you finally get to your house, you see a light on in your room. An ominous figure stands in your room. You can see his/her (from this distance you can’t tell) silhouette in the open window of your room.

You go into your house, using your wall-crawling power to sneak in the attic window. Leaping up to a rafter, you change into a spare set of clothes you had hidden there. You’ve never had to use them before, but they certainly came in handy this time. If the person in your room is who you think it is, you’d rather he see you as May than as Spider-Girl.

Carefully walking past your mom’s room so as to not wake her up, you slowly open the door to your room. You’ve been fearing this confrontation for weeks, but you have to get it over with. You walk into your room as your worst fears are confirmed, as you see your-

“Dad?! What are you doing in my room?”

“You know very well what, young lady. We both know what you’ve been doing late at night. I can’t believe that you’d keep something like this from me!”

“But Dad,” you protest. “I know that you wore the webs, too, at my age! Younger, even!”

“Then you know just as well I do, why I can’t let you continue. I lost everyone I ever cared about donning the webs. Everyone.. everyone except your mother.” Your dad’s voice goes all quiet. “And I can’t… I won’t lose you, too.”

“But-”

“Save it. You can be sure I’ll be telling Mary Jane. We’ll continue this discussion over breakfast.”

Arrghh! Why doesn’t my dad understand?! Why can’t he understand? Well, at least he didn’t take away my costume and web-shooters (yet, you add).

Since you won’t be able to sleep now, you decide to unwind by writing in your diary. You re-read your first entry, from your thirteenth birthday (when you got the diary as a gift from your dad, who’s never been good with presents (not that you don’t like it)). Bored, you flip through the pages, eventually coming to the entry. It’s dated a week after your 15th birthday.

(You’ve never written Dear Diary or anything in your entries).

Today at school i was walking from 4th period math to 5th period Spanish, when my legs went all tingly and i actually fell over which was so embarrassing cause I was walking with JJ and Courtney said it was since we had to run like miles on the field in gym today. Well I came home N told dad N he told mom and they started exchanging “the look” that they do when they’re think something bad that you don’t know about N the last time I saw it was when they thought mom might have cancer and wouldn‘t tell me (SO glad it turned out to be a false alarm).

(The next day)

Well if that wasn’t bad enough during gym i was climbing the rope which ive never been that good at even though I like soccer kinda and play b-ball and my arms and then my legs and then my whole body went all twitchy and I actually fell from the rope (but most of my friends are in gym with me so there was more concern than laughing).

(The day after that)

OMG! Today was worse than all the other days because I was eating dinner and dad said, “So how was school today?” Well I started to answer--

You close the book, memories flooding back. (Your dad told you the following).

And then dad says I went unconscious and he got worried and called mom. They took me to a hospital (i woke up on the car ride there) and the doctor did a complete check-up and found nothing wrong so dad took me to the Fantastic 5 (i got really excited (and yet I was still worried) cause I really admire Lyja Storm, I even used to have a poster of her).

He--

What was that about not being able to fall asleep?

*

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Oh, no! I must’ve fallen asleep! Gah, I even slept through the alarm! It’s 8:16 already! At this rate, I’ll be in school by--

Scratch that!

UHH!! Missed the bus, too?!

Looks like that talk will have to wait. Both your Mom and your Dad are out.

Your dad’s already at the police station, and your mom’s at her clothes designer job.

You’ll have to web-sling to school. After what happened last night, you feel a little guilty about it.

Stuffing your- uhh… stuff, in your backpack, you grab an apple and taking a few quick bites, leave it on the kitchen table. You walk out your house and into an alleyway a few blocks behind your house. You take off your street clothes (I think I read a quote in that newspaper article from dad saying they’re called civvies.), revealing your Spider-Girl suit underneath.

As you web-swing away, you think back to that fateful day. You remember wondering how the heck did dad know the Fantastic Five, for Pete’s sake? Boy, how things change.

How obvious that seems now. You remember that creepy robot thingy that’s supposed to be the leader of the Fantastic Four or something (a brain in a robot?! Eww!) examining you.

“Peter, after examining May and reviewing data from 30 years to the present, my conclusion is that May is suffering (from a certain point of view) from rapid muscle growth, radical changes in her brain [actually activation of an abnormal section of her brain that has apparently been there since birth], etc.”

“Of course! That explains the twitching, loss of muscle coordination, black-outs… It all makes sense! There’s nothing wrong with- D- did you just say rapid muscle growth?! It can’t be that this mean that May is a-”

“You should be elated, Peter. It could have been much worse.”

“Reed, nothing could be worse! It’s just as I feared! May has inherited my spider-powers!”

“Don’t worry, Peter,” your mom says, “May won’t be in any danger. The only reason we were constantly threatened was because you were a super-hero. We’ll see to it that May lives as normal a life as possible.”

“There is something I left out. Peter, you got your powers because you were, um… bitten by a spider.”

“It was a big spider.”

“Quite so and that-- spider-- gave you super-powers. You’ll be glad to know that May was not irradiated with radiation or anything as a side-effect. Instead, her body seems to have adapted to these powers. Peter, May is- a mutant.”

“What?!?”

“As you probably know, many mutants’ powers (like May’s) emerge during adolescence. I‘m sure you‘ll also be glad to know that the general public is much more tolerant of mutants.”

“Not that anybody will ever--”

There’s your stop! Midtown High.

*

[Spider-Man Beyond]

“Moooooommm! Daaaaaaad? Anybody home?”

Guess not, you think, the-- whoa!! Spider-sense going craz-- It’s- stopping? you think, as an ominous figure watches from outside.

The end... for now.