Ghost Spider - Chapter 40 (Patreon)

The explosive was more ‘flash’ than ‘bang’ so even getting caught by surprise Ghost Spider wasn’t super bothered by it once she had a moment to shake her head and refocus.

The bigger issue was that her opponent was on her with hardly any delay and was not giving her the time or space she needed to make a break for it.

“You know, I can’t help but feel we got off on the wrong foot,” She bantered as she ducked a clawed strike going for her head. “Can’t we just have a friendly–!”

She cut herself off as something metallic glinted off a light and threw herself into a split.

What Ghost Spider had already mentally decided to call a ‘catarang’ based on the shape tore through the top of her hood. If she had dodged any other way…

“Okay, guess not if you’re playing for keeps.” Ghost Spider grumbled as she swept her attacker’s legs out from under him.

He went down hard, but was already moving to recover the instant he hit the ground that suggested a lot of experience in fights.

Ghost Spider tried to end things quickly by webbing him up before he got his feet under him, but her assailant dove off to the side to avoid it. And then used that to kick off a nearby wall and  vaulted over the table right back towards her!

He was quick!

She ducked and weaved around several clawed strikes and punches before falling for a feint and catching a kick to the ribs. Nothing too damaging, but it did send her sprawling. That was fine by her though! It finally gave her some room to move.

“Sorry, pal, but if you’re just looking to play rough, I’m gonna split. No point sticking around since what I’m after isn’t here. Later!” Ghost Spider lightly bantered, and then sprinted towards the door.

The second she made it through though, her spider-sense blared and she leaned back into a kneeling slide as a massive clawed paw passed over her with barely inches to spare.

Ghost Spider kept moving but glanced back in time to see a white furred tiger taking another swipe at her. Apparently her new friend brought some friends of his own, but how did he manage to sneak a tiger through the streets of Philadelphia?

“Sorry kittycat, but this Spider isn’t a scratching post. Why don’t you hang here for a while?” Ghost Spider quipped as she caught the big cat mid leap with several bursts of webbing - essentially putting the tiger in air jail for a timeout. That way even if Batman’s cat-themed knockoff tried cutting it down quickly, it would still end up tangled in the strands. The only way that tiger was getting down was if someone slowly cut it out or if the webbing dissolved first.

The fact that it also blocked a good amount of the doorway was just a bit of good luck that Ghost Spider had been missing this whole trip, as she saw her initial attacker pause at the exit and carefully look over his tangled up companion for the best move to make next.

Not that she was sticking around that long.

Now that she had a second to breathe Ghost Spider sprinted towards a nearby window, only taking a moment to force it open and give her attacker a cheery wave – not that he seemed to appreciate it going by the scowl on his face – before diving out into the open air and web swinging away.

Black Spider’s backers might know that she was after them, but they clearly hadn’t known for long. She didn’t have time to tangle with some dollar-store knockoff mercenary when they could be scurrying towards whatever escape route they had set up!

The only question now was, if she was a middle-aged jackass with more money than morals in a city where it was easier to rent a room from the local mob than use something more secure – where would she try to hide?

She almost froze as the answer popped into her head.

Simply put, she wouldn’t. She would try and run somewhere she had more control. And Philadelphia just so happened to have a major airport just over there…

“Well, worst case scenario they give me the slip for a little while.” Ghost Spider muttered to herself as she angled her swinging towards her new destination.

-o-

Walking into the Batcave, Barbara was unsurprised to see Dick pouring over different computer reports just like he had been since that morning. What was a little more noteworthy was that Tim was still nearby, clearly bored going by how he was idly spinning on a chair but not going anywhere despite that.

“Any sign of her yet?” Barbara asked for maybe the tenth time that day. Because Gwen hadn’t gone back home at all last night.

There hadn’t been any signs of her going back all day either, and no sightings of Ghost Spider to suggest she was active somewhere else in the city.

The sudden break in a mostly reliable pattern had been enough for Barbara and Dick to put off contacting anyone else about the Klyntar issue until they could figure out where their friend had disappeared to.

Normally, she would call behaviour like this overly clingy at best, criminally stalkerish at worst. But normally she didn’t have to worry about an alien parasite possibly wearing her friend like a skinsuit or eating her brain!

Barbara just knew she should’ve just reached out to more of the other heroes when she found out Dick was dragging his feet.

“Still nothing.” Dick mutters, still rapidly switching between different programs on the Batcomputer. “And nothing pointing to whether that's because there’s just nothing to find or if it’s because she’s in trouble.”

“I keep telling him to expand the search radius and loosen the criteria a bit.” Tim commented as he slowly made another rotation. “If we’re sure she’s out doing some vigilante thing and not just hanging out somewhere in civies, could be that she left Gotham for a bit.”

“Without telling us?” Barbara asked.

Tim shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like she has to inform everyone in her life when she goes somewhere.”

Barbara bit her lip. That wasn’t wrong.

“Doesn’t matter.” Dick added. “I already adjusted the criteria and we still didn’t get any hits.”

“Then there you go, she isn’t out doing any vigilante things.”

Or no one had thought to report about a Spider-themed superhero doing things somewhere the Batcomputer’s trawling algorithm was able to look. Barbara was fully aware that despite everyone being capable of being online 24/7 that didn’t always translate to posting about it.

“Can you look one more time?”

“Sure. But at this point we might have to start–” Dick paused and then leaned forward towards the screen. “Nevermind, I’ve got a potential hit. A metahuman was reported jumping out the twenty fifth floor window of a building in Philadelphia and swinging away on ropes. Police found and confronted Cat– Catman? What was he doing–”

“Dick.” Barbara prodded him to focus.

“Right, police found Catman on the same floor reported earlier with one of his tigers suspended by what looked like massive amounts of silk.”

That certainly sounded like Gwen.

“What was she doing in Philadelphia?”

“Oh, maybe she finally got a lead on those mafia bosses she was looking into.” Tim offered. “Or maybe she just really wanted an authentic cheesesteak.”

Both Barbara and Dick quickly looked over at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, a cheesesteak is a sandwich that usually has ground or thinly sliced meat covered in–”

“Tim!”

“You guys are no fun. Fine, when we started digging into her search history I noticed she looked up a bunch of buildings owned by people suspected to have mob connections even if no one ever proved it. No alarms ever went off at those places and the police were never called about a break-in or robbery, but if she was good enough to impress Selina I’d bet she was good enough to get in and out without getting caught too.”

Barbara started to feel a headache coming on. “You started digging through her search history?”

“No. We didn’t.” Dick stated clearly, looking at Tim who just shrugged again.

“Hey, it was the easiest way to check that she hadn’t just picked up tickets to Disneyworld or something like that.”

“Okay, but why Philadelphia?”

“No real way to tell without whatever info she managed to dig up to compare,” Tim said, “but the good news is we found your friend! Who’s up for ice cream?”

“No time for jokes.” Dick said, standing up and heading for his uniform. “We still don’t know what that suit of hers is doing to her and I don’t want her doing something she can’t take back if she loses control or it tries to take over.”

“I’m also worried she might be walking into a trap.” Barbara added. “Black Spider was working for those mafia bosses which means the League of Shadows is involved in some way. Catman being involved is also weird since he’s usually more about robberies than directly fighting. The building he fought Gwen in didn’t have anything he’d usually be after though so something is up there too.”

“Killjoys. But we are so picking up ice cream on the way back.”

AN: I freaking HATED this chapter. It just flat out refused to be written for nearly a YEAR. I couldn't even just pivot the direction it was going because I ended the previous one in the middle of a fight -- only for my muse to immediately murder any interest I had in Catman as an idea let alone a thing to write about.