Ghost Spider - Chapter 21-25 (Patreon)

Chapter 21“Barbara! Over here!”Gwen waved to her red-headed friend from the restaurant booth she was seated at. Barbara returned the wave and made her way over to the table and slid in while a waitress stopped by with a menu.The redhead quickly placed an order for a drink before returning her greeting. “Gwen. I’m surprised you wanted to meet up like this.” She said, referring to them both being out in public and not in costume.“I just needed to unwind a bit. Do something normal, y’know?” Gwen shrugged. After her encounter the other night she had reached out hoping to meet up and trade notes but she wanted to spend some time out of her mask.She liked going out as Ghost Spider but lately that seemed to be all she was doing. The only connection Gwen had left to her civilian life was occasionally answering an email from Wayne Entertainment about expansions to her game or maybe developing a new one.“...yeah, yeah I do.” Barbara sighed, slouching forward onto the table. “We haven’t made any progress on our project and it’s making everyone tense.”“Something I can help with?”Barbara instantly shook her head negatively. “Not really. We’ve basically gone over everything we have at the moment and have gotten nowhere. Dick and Tim are still looking though. Maybe they’ll get lucky? Anyways, you’ve been a great help patrolling the streets. We wouldn’t have been able to be as thorough investigating without you helping.”Gwen swallowed her bitter feelings about that and turned the conversation to lighter topics for now. While she was happy she was helping out - and she didn’t mind stopping people from getting hurt on the streets at all - she still didn’t like being treated like a second string hero. At the same time she couldn’t exactly complain and invite herself into what was essentially someone else’s home just because she wanted to know more.The waitress came back and they placed their orders, content to talk about mundane things even after their food arrived. The two girls wandered from topic to topic as they ate. A book Barbara had just finished that Gwen had read a while back, what the police were doing after the Falcone Fiasco, short term plans for the future…Eventually the topic of Gwen’s game came up and Barbara couldn’t hold back a question that had been bugging her for a bit.“Hey, Gwen. I wanted to ask...why are you trying to be a hero?”The blonde paused mid bite and raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?” She said instead of an answer.“It’s been bothering me a bit. It made sense in hindsight that you wanted to get back at the ones who targeted you dad, but after that you just kept going.” Barbara frowned. “I mean, I get wanting to help out but you almost died and went back to patrolling like it was nothing almost the very next day.”Gwen took a sip of her drink to give herself more time to think about it.A part of her was itching to use the classic ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ speech, but she felt like she would be cheapening it somehow. As she was right now, she didn’t fully believe in that mentality even if she respected it. Sure, she had the memories of someone who lived by that code and had seen other Spiders do similar but those people weren’t her.So why did Gwen keep on being Ghost Spider?The depressingly honest answer was she didn’t have much else left to do. College wouldn’t accept her back until the next term and as generous as the contract with Wayne Enterprises was, it wasn’t going to let her pay her way through for some time; and using the money she stole from the mafia was just asking to get investigated by someone. She didn’t really have many friends outside of school due to her need to keep her grades at the top of the class. And she wasn’t really able to get a job she would enjoy without a degree. Sure she could keep trying her hand as a game designer but just like any job that wouldn’t occupy her one hundred percent of the time.Despite that, Gwen didn’t want any pity so instead she decided to talk about a less honest, but still true reason she liked being a hero, “I guess it’s because I like the feeling of knowing I’m helping get the worst of the scum off the streets.”“The worst?” Barbara parroted, looking alarmed.“I don’t mean the most dangerous or anything like that.” the blonde clarified. “I mean the kind of criminals you and the others tend to pass over. The drug dealers, muggers, petty thieves...guys that slip under the radar because they are too small-time to be worth the effort.”“We go after them too.” Barbara said defensively, a bit heated too.“I never said you didn’t,” Gwen raised her hands placatingly. “But you also focus on the things the police can’t solve themselves first. I’m not saying that you would ignore something like that happening in front of you but if it’s a choice between a drug dealer and a crime family, you tend to focus on the latter first.”“Thats-!”“-not a bad thing.” She spoke over her friend. “I get it. Only so many hours in the day and even your preppy cheerleader friend can’t be everywhere. So keep doing it. Keep focusing on the big problems in the city. In the meantime I think I’ll start looking for the things you missed.”“...preppy cheerleader…” the redhead scoffed. “I think Kara would blow a gasket if you called her that to her face.”“You can tell her I said it if you get me a picture.” Gwen teased.“Don’t tempt me, but you said ‘missed’. Unless you're still talking about the stuff from the Fiasco that means you found something else…”Gwen sighed and matched Barbara’s serious mein. “Yeah, I think I might have. See, last night…” She went on to explain everything she saw at the drug deal and about the modified Venom. This wasn’t something she was going to investigate without at least warning the other heroes something was going on.By the end of it, Barbara leaned back and slowly let out a breath.“Damn - how did we miss...no, we’ve seen an uptick of Venom dens lately. They must have been flooding the streets with the old stuff to hide moving the new product in…” the Commissioner's daughter was quick to figure out what was going on. “Okay, I’ll…”Whatever she was going to say was cut off by a ringtone going off. Barbara reached into a pocket for her phone, looked at the message briefly, and scowled. Whatever she had just been told must have annoyed her.“Bad news?”“Bad timing,” She gave Gwen a complicated look. “The boys actually got lucky...A robbery matching the ones here was just reported by a friend of ours in Star City, someone just stole some unstable isotopes from a research lab. We have a lead on the mastermind but two of us are probably going to need to go there and one stay in the cave to coordinate everything.” She chewed her lip in frustration. “I don’t know if we can help…”“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Gwen shrugged, not letting her disappointment show. “If whoever is behind this is going after stuff like that, it isn’t going to be for something small. Definitely more important than some drug pushers. I’ll figure something out in the meantime.”“No, I can’t just leave you hanging like that. Especially when I asked for your help in the first place.” Barbara instantly denied. “We might not be able to help directly this time, but I’ll set you up with a communicator with some access to our systems. It should save you some time investigating and give you a direct line to us if you find something.”Oh! That was much more helpful than Gwen had been expecting.Honestly, when she heard that there was an issue in another city, she had been half expecting to be told there was nothing they could do and she was on her own. At least this way she had someone to contact if she started getting in over her head again.“That would be great.” She said with a relieved smile.By some unspoken agreement the two girls turned back to mundane topics for the rest of their meal, enjoying the time they had to relax before they would need to focus on the upcoming investigations.-o-Once Barbara split from Gwen, having given her a spare communicator she kept in a hidden stash for moments like this one, she made her way back to the Cave as fast as she could. The message she had gotten had been deliberately light on details but it hinted at a bigger issue.When she got there she was greeted by both Dick and Tim huddled around the main computer in plain clothes, going over some technical manual Barbara couldn’t make heads or tails of. Something to do with geo resonance.“Hey guys, what’s going on?”The two boys turned to look at her and Barbara noticed Dick seemed more stressed than the last time she saw him.“Barbara, thanks for making it back so fast. We have a problem.”“More than an unknown mind controller committing robberies across the country?” She asked.“Yes. We think we figured out what the robberies are for.” He turned around and scrolled to the top of the document. “The Markov Device. An experimental device capable of creating artificial earthquakes meant to be used for wide scale demolition work and earth flattening that was scrapped when the environmental effects were considered too damaging for real use. It was decommissioned and the main components sent to Wayne-Tech for further research. The same components that went missing in the last robberies.”Barbara let out a breath. “My god, what would anyone even use it for?”Tim snorted. “If we’re lucky? They just want a quick way to level some back-country land. If not…”“They would have a weapon that could raze a city in an afternoon.” Dick said gravely. “Which is why we’re teaming up with KF, MM, and Speedy to make sure we catch them before they can use it.”Those were really good choices for backup. Kid Flash would make sure nothing short of teleportation would let the bad guys slip away, Miss Martian would hopefully counter any mind control and was powerful enough to be a trump card against heavy hitters, and Speedy knew Star City like the back of his hand.With one person staying behind as support, that would be a pretty solid five-man team. But one thing was bothering Barbara…“The Justice League isn’t trying to take over?” It had been a big friction point between many of the ‘sidekicks’ and their mentors over the past couple years. The older heroes wanted to shield them from the bigger and more dangerous things required of the job while the younger ones wanted to take more on. It had gotten easier now that many of them were older but every once in a while it would pop up again.“No one’s available to try.” Dick said shortly. “Superman and Wonder Woman are busy with a flood that hit a town, GL is off planet, Flash is tracking down an arms dealer selling some alien tech, and the rest have their own things to look after.” It went unspoken that any of the other league members simply didn’t have the right to order them to do anything.“What about Bruce?”“He’s being super mysterious again and disappeared.” Tim muttered. “At least this time he sent us a note.”Barbara saw Dick clench his jaw and nod. “He told us he’s investigating something and needed to go dark for a bit. Which is why I’ll stay behind and keep an eye on Gotham.”The redhead nodded, realizing why Dick seemed more stressed. Batman didn’t leave Gotham to other people. At least he didn’t until now.“Hey, should we ask the spider chick to help us with this?” Tim asked suddenly. “She stood up to Supergirl for a bit. It’d be nice to have another heavy hitter with us.”“Trying to spend more time with a cute blonde?” Barbara teased, trying to ease the tension in the room. Making Tim flush scarlet was just a bonus.“No! I mean yes! I mean -- I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce her to the rest of the heroes our age.” The younger teen stammered.“Not a good idea.” Dick swiftly undercut that option. “This is too important for a meet and greet. We’ve never really worked with her and this mission is going to require perfect teamwork. If we slip up it won’t just be us paying the price.”Barbara sighed as the tense atmosphere quickly returned.“She might not have joined anyway. She has her own investigation going on right now.” She filled both of them in on what Gwen had told her. An improved version of Venom that had fewer drawbacks but didn’t last as long. And someone was going to be using them for at least one underground fight ring. Gwen was still looking into the source to see where the rest could be sent off to.“...so I gave her a spare communicator and asked her to keep us up to date.” she finished her recap of her lunch conversation.“Good work.” Dick complimented after a few seconds of silence. “I’ll try reaching out to her and figuring out how we can help.”Both Tim and Barbara had surprised expressions after that.“ ‘Good work’? Weren’t you just ranting about how she could be some kind of plant yesterday?” Tim asked incredulously.“And she still could be.” Dick shot back. “But keeping people safe is more important. And if she isn’t a plant we’re going to need to work with her. This way we at least know what she’s up to.”Barbara sighed at her friend’s continued paranoia but didn’t say anything. It would be counterproductive at the moment.She just hoped working together would mend the bridges between Dick and Gwen a bit. She was starting to tire of needing to sidestep them avoiding each other.

Chapter 22With half the heroes out of the city for the moment, Ghost Spider was half expecting there to be a huge upswing of crime that she would need to deal with. Of course since the heroes themselves didn’t exactly scream from the rooftops that they were leaving, that didn’t happen.If anything, petty crime was down for the moment now that it was clear Ghost Spider wasn’t another thief joining the long list of Rouges looking to enhance her reputation by playing in Batman’s backyard and was actually another vigilante looking to clear out Gotham’s streets.It would likely pick back up again once the more analytical criminals figured out where she liked to patrol and how long she was active.Naturally she would do her best to mix things up now and then to make sure no one could accurately track her, but the bad guys dedicated or wealthy enough could and would spare no effort if it meant they got away clean.Speaking of criminals, Ghost Spider was busy tracking down the supplier of her two friends in the alley and finding out where he got his goods.Marcus, real name Eustace Gaylord, was the manager of a small shipping company when he wasn’t moonlighting as a drug dealer. He was fairly unremarkable in just about every regard, looks, lifestyle, talent…Just about the only thing he seemed to have that wasn’t utterly average was his ambition to have everyone follow his orders. And when his lack of legitimate business talent and connections prevented him from moving up in his company, he branched out to other means.Ghost Spider was learning a lot about Eustace these days. And thanks to her little connection to the Batcomputer, so was Nightwing.The two of them weren’t quite back on talking terms, but they also weren’t avoiding each other at the moment. Though truthfully, Ghost Spider had less impersonal, professionally polite conversations with her cable service than she did with Batman’s protege. A necessary sacrifice to get access to the multitude of backdoored systems the hero team had available.Such as the city traffic cameras.Eustace hid his operations well enough for a casual inspection, but with the Batcomputer following him throughout the city Ghost Spider had the location of the heart of his drug operation in no time. A nice little office building and garage technically owned by the company he worked for but in reality was purely a front for storing his illegal product.Between him, the five permanent workers in the building, and his small horde dealers it was no wonder Eustace was able to supply a new version of Venom to underground fight rings. The man had managed to create one of the largest drug rings in the city that Nightwing was aware of and from the sound of it, he was still looking to expand.That wasn’t what Ghost Spider was here for though. As she silently slipped into Eustace’s third floor office while the man was doing something elsewhere, she pulled out a USB dongle Batgirl had given her and plugged it into the drug pusher’s computer. The little wireless device allowed the Batcave direct access to whatever it was plugged into and by extension, the many different hacking tools available there.“Ghost Spider to Batcave, I’m plugged in. Anyone there or am I on my own?” She was hoping that Nightwing had stepped out for a minute or Alfred had taken over but when she heard her estranged friend’s voice she realised she wasn’t quite that lucky.“Nightwing here, I’m pulling the files now. Should be five minutes to get the source locations if they’re on his machine.”Which meant Ghost Spider had to hang out in an office alone on an awkward phone call while she waited for the download to finish. Fantastic, this was going to be like that tech support job in highschool all over again…“So any news about what the others are up to?” she asked after a little while in an attempt to break the silence.“They have everything under control.” Nightwing said shortly, smothering the conversation before it even began.Ghost Spider felt a surge of annoyance building as, once again, Nightwing was being a Dick and refusing to actually talk to her.She waited until a slight beep from the dongle let her know Nightwing had cut the connection to the computer, he must have gotten everything he could already, and pulled the device before slipping it back into a discrete pocket.“Anything interesting?” She asked while she snuck a peek out the window. Eustace and a group of his workers were all heading towards the garage.“Give me a minute. Some of the locations match locations we’ve already taken care of. I’m cross checking those now.”When Nightwing didn’t say anything else, Ghost Spider stretched before opening the window and climbing out. “Well, while you do that I’m gonna go say hi to the owner. You mind calling the GCPD to pick them up for me? Thanks.”“Wait what--”Ghost Spider snapped the communicator closed and when it immediately began buzzing, muted it.“Alright, let's go take care of the trash…”The spider-themed hero didn’t bother with stealth at this point. In fact she boldly walked into the garage like she belonged there and made no attempt to hide herself as she walked up behind the group that entered earlier.Eustace, or perhaps it should be Marcus now that he was in his dealer persona, was handing out orders for deliveries to his smaller scale dealers. Ghost Spider listened in just in case one of those locations hadn’t been on his computer, but when it seemed like Marcus was finishing up she prepared to announce her presence -- only to be interrupted by a trilling ringtone coming from her communicator.The drug dealers all started panicking when they noticed the black and white figure behind them, but Ghost Spider calmly retrieved her communicator, flipped it open, and set it to speaker. If Nightwing was going to go through the effort of taking the device off mute, she might as well answer him.“Y’llo?”“The GCPD is on the way,” Nightwing said sourly, and all of the drug pushers close enough to hear paled. One looked like he was going to be sick. “Did you catch them all or do they need to be on the lookout for runners?”Ghost Spider was carefully watching the criminals. Most of them seemed like office types that had never run a day in their life if they could help it besides the few that looked like they had a clue when it came to a fight. Even those didn’t look thrilled at their chances. In a fight or otherwise.“Nope, I haven’t even gotten started yet.”Nightwing misunderstood and sighed in relief. “Good, just leave them for the police. If the other drug rings realise we are looking into them they’ll panic. As long as no one sees you there, we can pass it off as a police raid.”“Weeell...about that.” Ghost Spider scratched her cheek awkwardly. “You’re on speaker so now they all know…”“...Why?”“You turned on the ringer and called me when I was right behind them, what’s the point in being sneaky at that point?”“You--” “Stop standing around and get her you idiots!”Marcus finally recovered his wits at finding a superhero right behind him in the middle of his highly illegal operation and decided to order his lackeys to distract her while he tried to escape. Unfortunately for him, instead of his shout spurring them into doing what he said more than half started running for the exit along with him. The rest actually tried to attack her. Whether out of loyalty or desperation was up for debate, though…“What were you expecting? It’s not like they wouldn’t have noticed a ringtone going off anyway.” Ghost Spider chided, ducking around the haphazard punches of the drug dealers and focusing on the ones running away.“I was expecting you to have finished or stayed out of sight. How was I supposed to know you would walk right up to them?!”Most of the fleeing criminals were quickly wrapped up by Ghost Spider’s webs. The few that were lucky enough to dodge or hide behind one of the others at first were thrown into the garage walls and stuck there when Ghost Spider used considerably more force to trap them. Marcus got some special treatment after he threw one of his employees into the path of one of the webs and was wrapped up completely. Ghost Spider even webbed his mouth shut when he started screaming obscenities.“That’s not the important part! You should have realised I was busy when I muted the line, not blasted noise to anyone nearby!”The few people left uncaptured had practically given up fighting her properly. When every punch kick or thrown object was easily dodged, one of them desperately tried to tackle Ghost Spider. However, she simply jumped over his attempt and kicked off his shoulder in the process, sending the man face first into the floor.“Anyways, I’m going to finish up. I’ll give you a call when I’m done so we can discuss your highly unprofessional attitude.””You’re calli--” Ghost Spider interrupted him again by closing the communicator and turned to the last three people standing.“So now that you have my full attention, you guys ready to begin?” She asked, raising her fists.Two of them looked at eachother and by some unspoken signal, charged. One going low, the second going high in a last ditch effort to overpower the metahuman.Ghost Spider wasn’t really feeling interested in a wrestling match though, so she lowered one fist and shot a blob of webbing onto the first man’s foot, tripping both him and the man behind him. Once both of them were tangled together on the floor, Ghost Spider simply webbed both of them and looked at the last one remaining.She couldn’t help but feel a little bored at this whole bust, but that was what she got by expecting anything from office jockeys. The last man was even the stereotypical balding fat guy that seemed to be in every office. And considering how much he was shaking, he wasn’t secretly some kind of secret weapon.“I don’t want to go to jail…” He cried even as he sank to his knees and raised his hands.“And I don’t want people selling dangerous drugs to kids.” Ghost Spider snarked back. “Guess we both are disappointed tonight.”-o-The police eventually arrived and took all the drug pushers away.As the last of them was pushed into the back of a van, Ghost Spider gave all the officers a cheerful wave and took off, even the one officer that looked like he would rather arrest her than deal with the drug dealers.Too bad that meant she no longer had a reason to delay calling Nightwing back again. So even though she wasn’t really willing, Ghost Spider pulled out her communicator one more time and called the Batcave.“Finally finished then?”Ghost Spider smirked over Nightwing’s pouting tone, even if he tried to hide it.“Yup, one major drug distribution circle dealt with. And with plenty of info to start scoping out some more.”“For all the good it will do us. You realise most of his suppliers are just going to stop working out of the locations we found once they hear about this right?”“But it will force them to stop shipping to other dealers for a while.” Ghost Spider argued. “Plus it’s not like you aren't setting up monitoring on them right now to see where they run off to.”Nightwing growled but didn’t refute that he was spying on the locations he could.“You’re being reckless. If you had just waited we could have set it up so the GCPD could have helped us secure all the sites at once.”“With what people? Most of the ones the Commissioner can trust are still out on injury. I think it’s better to throw a wrench into their operations and track them down later than wait till you get a perfect scenario.”“You think they have a bigger plan in the works?” Nightwing must have picked up on her concerns.“Yeah, I don’t like that the first we’re hearing about a ‘new and improved’ Venom is through street level dealers.” Ghost Spider sighed. “I think this is either a distraction or a setup for something big we weren’t supposed to figure out yet.”“Because we focus on bigger criminals than drug dealers…” Nightwing muttered, thinking out loud.“Talked to Batgirl about that recently?”Ghost Spider hoped he didn’t take it the wrong way. She genuinely understood that the Batfamily had to prioritise. Cleaning up the city streets didn’t matter too much when every public official would let them walk because they could be bought/bribed/blackmailed or some other reason they were little better than the criminals that were caught.“We talked…” Nightwing admitted. “...fine. If this is how you want to play it, go ahead, I’ll back you up when I can. Do you plan on going to another location tonight? I can give the police a heads up so they aren’t surprised.”“Nah, I’ve got other plans for the rest of the night. They should be able to handle a few of Mr. Gaylord’s friends on their own.” Ghost Spider was inwardly relieved that Nightwing was at least starting to talk to her like a friend again and not a subject to be interrogated or holding her at an emotional distance. Maybe by the time Batgirl was done with whatever she was up to all three of them would be able to talk again without things getting awkward for once.Somehow she doubted it would be that simple, but hope springs eternal and all that jazz.Pushing those thoughts out of her mind for the moment, Ghost Spider started swinging back into the city. She had a patrol to finish and a tub of chocolate ice cream with her name on it waiting at home…

Chapter 23The problem with Gotham weather was that rain came in two flavors.A dreary light mist that was tolerable as long as you didn’t mind everything being damp, and a downpour that a fish would find fairly comfortable if they found themselves out of the river for whatever reason.A sudden storm that would cause any sane person to seek shelter rolled in practically overnight and, unfortunately, rain-checks for bad weather didn’t often apply to superhero work. So Ghost Spider was stuck on a roof overlooking an old brick factory that had supposedly been shut down for over three years doing her best to not drown on land. Thankfully her symbiote suit could shift to be completely water repellant so she wasn’t as miserable as she could be.She was still miserable, of course. But now she was only a seven out of ten on the scale rather than a full ten.The spider-themed metahuman wasn’t about to leave though.The factory had been one of the few places that had not been frantically abandoned after the police swung by to pick up Mr. Gaylord and his friends. Unlike the others, it stayed active even after the GCPD visited three times. Nightwing had kept her updated on each site as an apology for the ring tone incident - it turns out the shortcut to activate the speaker is one key off from just making it vibrate - and had fed her that information when it was clear something fishy was going on.So now Ghost Spider was staking out the place waiting for the person Nightwing assumed was in charge to show. But after another hour of getting rained on, her patience was at an end.“Alright that’s it. If no one shows in ten minutes I’m busting the place anyway.” She declared to the world. Not even five minutes later a sleek black car pulled up and a man rushed into the building.Ghost Spider simply blinked at the sudden development and cocked an eye skyward. “Huh, any chance of the rain letting up?” She asked rhetorically. If anything the rain picked up for a second and a sudden wind pushed a sheet of water directly into her face.“Yeah, didn’t think so.” She sputtered before making a leap off the roof towards the factory.-o-Getting inside unnoticed took a bit of finesse to avoid leaving a massive puddle of water but she managed it.The last thing she wanted was these people scattering into the city. It would be hard to round them all up on a normal night, nevermind the current downpour.The rain wasn’t all bad news though. The constant dull roar of water falling on the roof masked any sounds made by the rusting catwalks overhead as Ghost Spider moved invisibly to observe the main floor.A dozen men in protective gear were carefully mixing vats of chemicals or operating machines that spit out lines of injectors filled with a nearly glowing green liquid or loading boxes with the stuff. Clearly this was a major Venom production plant and the owner had someone deep in their pocket if they could keep operating this openly even after a major drug ring was busted and in the process of getting cleaned up. She made a note to let Nightwing know when she talked to him next. This might be the loose thread that let them take out another corrupt official.Actually, why wait?Ghost Spider pulled out her communicator and sent the original Boy Wonder a message letting him know about the factory along with several pictures. That should be enough to force the police to act even with whatever backer this group was hiding behind.So she was a little surprised when Nightwing called her, thankfully without a ringtone, almost immediately after.“Hey Nightwing, kinda in the middle of something. Can we talk later?” She asked in a whisper.“This won’t take long. I’d send a message but you need to hear this.” He replied grimly. That probably meant nothing good.“This have something to do with what the others left to deal with?”“It does. They left to help track down something called the Markov device. It’s a-”“An experimental device that operates on some really advanced principles of geo-resonance, originally meant to assist in land development. There were some really interesting articles about it when they released the idea, but I was more interested in the vibrational insulation they used to stop the thing from shaking itself apart. Those dampeners were some of the most - not the point. I thought it was shut down?” Ghost Spider caught herself before she continued to give a speech about the mechanics involved. She couldn’t help it though! Technology had always been a passion for her.“...” Nightwing was silent for a few seconds before sighing. “Right, forgot who I was talking to. Of course you would know about something like that. Only you would read those articles for fun.”“I resent the implication.” Ghost Spider sniffed, then grew serious. “But I doubt you decided to bring up a scrapped experiment for no reason. Someone stole the tech to make one?”“You’re right, I’m not. The mastermind behind the thefts was Gorilla Grodd. He wanted to use the device to systematically level the biggest cities in America but we managed to catch him before he could get it running.” Well that was the good news, Ghost Spider was willing to bet there was a complication though because Nightwing didn’t sound like everything had been wrapped up. “The problem is Grodd wasn’t the one to build the device. That we discovered was Malcolm Merlyn; former CEO and partner of Brion Markov. He agreed to build Grodd’s device as long as he was able to keep the prototype for himself… So he could get revenge on the people who ruined his life.”’And there it was.’“So there’s another device out there? Sounds bad, but what’s that got to do with me?”“Merlyn listed three cities he wanted left alone. New York, Metropolis, and Gotham. We think he wanted to hit those cities personally so we put the word out to all heroes we’re in contact with. You have a habit of digging up information so I wanted you to know in case you managed to stumble onto it.”“Nightwing, I appreciate the sudden confidence. I really do. But this needs more than a handful of people looking for it. Please tell me we aren’t the only ones looking!” Ghost Spider hissed into the communicator.At the same time, the man she saw earlier walked into the main floor having an argument with someone over the phone. Ghost Spider had intended to catch him alone if possible, but a city-destroying earthquake generator was a tiny bit more important.“We have the GCPD looking everywhere they can.” Nightwing assured her. “We won’t have to sweep the city by ourselves. That also means the most they will be able to do about your drug factory is send a wagon for pickup.”“That's fine. All I needed really. I’ll let you know when they are all wrapped up and ready for a ride.” The wall-crawler joked half-heartedly.The call ended and she looked down at the floor again.Most of the men had stopped what they were doing to listen in on their boss yelling into his own phone, though it looked like whatever conversation he was having was winding down.He spat one final insult into his phone before snapping it closed and glaring at it like he was considering throwing it into a wall. A second later he almost regretfully put it into a pocket instead and waved to those watching to stop whatever they were doing.“Alright boys, if you couldn’t guess that was our customer. He’s not going to cough up extra to cover transport costs since Marcus got pinched and he still wants his stock on the same date. Fuck him though, I’m burning favors like crazy keeping the cops from stopping by and the money promised isn’t worth it. Finish up the last batch then pack it up. We’ll sit on what we have until another buyer lines up.”Huh, another business type boss. Ghost Spider had been running into quite a few of them lately. She had been expecting crazier since, ya know, Gotham but she was fine taking down assholes that were fine with ruining people’s lives for a buck.So with the grace an olympic gymnast would be jealous of, Ghost Spider jumped off the catwalk, twisting as…*Thwip!**Thwip!**Thwip!**Thwip!**Thwip!**Thwip!**Thwip-itty!**Thwip!*…she spun fast enough to web each man on the way down before landing in a crouch on top of one of the machines.“Points for realizing making drugs for a jackass boss is a bad idea. Minus points for making the drugs in the first place, assholes. Now why don’t you all just relax while we wait for some nice men and women from the GCPD to come give you some nice new bracelets to try on?”“Dammit! Fucking asshole said he was keeping attention off us!” the boss complained. “No way we should be getting attention from Masks…”Ghost Spider shrugged. “Maybe he was. The problem with that is I had the original list. Doesn’t take a genius to see no one stopping by and figure something isn’t right. But if you give me a name, I’ll see if I can swing it so that he gets the cell right next to yours so you can complain in person.” She offered.“Heh, swing it. Cause you swing from webs.” One of the others laughed.“See, he gets it.” Ghost Spider pointed at the man with an eye-smile, but internally she was getting cautious.None of the men seemed to be panicked about suddenly being covered in sticky white silk. That meant they were either too stupid to realise they were in trouble, or they were confident they could deal with is anyway. One person being that stupid was acceptable. Everyone here, including the boss who just backed out of a job he decided wasn’t worth the heat? Much less likely.“Jacob? Shut up.” Said boss snapped. “And you, girlie, I’ll give you one chance to leave and forget you saw this or we dump you in a back alley. I’m not in the mood to play with some vigilante.”“You’re pretty confident for guys that are already tied up.”“Whatever, I gave you a chance.” the boss sighed. “Boys, take her down.”Ghost Spider frowned at the seemingly delusional command before she heard a slight hissing sound coming from the closest henchman. It sounded kinda familiar…almost like…She didn’t finish that thought as every single one of them bulked up like someone had injected helium into a balloon and easily tore out of the silk strands holding them.One winced uncomfortably and yanked something away from his collar. It was a tiny automatic injector with something green dripping from the tip.“Oh.”If you were worried about people taking you to jail and had access to a super steroid, it made sense they would have it prepared as a last resort. And now Ghost Spider was surrounded by a dozen enhanced goons with superstrength. And unlike her friend from the alley, it was clear these guys were used to the effects and knew how to fight.“Well then…”

Chapter 24Surrounded by knock-off Bane wannabes and all alone, there was one thing Ghost Spider had to ask…“So does ripping out of your clothes like that hurt? Don’t they reinforce the seams so they specifically don’t do that?”One of the men scowled. “Yeah, pinches like crazy for a few seconds and then the outfit is scrap afterwards.”“Ouch, do your bosses at least pay for those?”“Nope. In fact-”“Jacob. SHUT. UP.” The boss cut in. “Talk on your own time. I want to be out of here ASAP.”“Yeah, yeah.”Ghost Spider’s spider sense blared a warning and she jumped off the machine she was perched on to avoid a pipe one of the men had thrown at her. The jerk had used the rain and his buddy’s voice to cover up his movement to try and get a free hit in.“Hey, rude!”“Not in this business because I’m polite. And don’t really care about the opinion of a dead girl.” came the growled reply.“Just get her already!”Two guys charged her from seperate directions and Ghost Spider decided the best way to handle that for now was to backflip over a punch and land in a handstand on the other guy’s shoulders. A quick kick to the back sent the second guy crashing forward into the first.They went down in an awkward crash of limbs before she webbed them together. They might be strong enough to break the webs but it would slow them down, especially if they wound up working against each other.That did, unfortunately, put Ghost Spider in the middle of the rest of the goons.They didn’t hesitate to rush her all at once.The heroine ducked under, around, over, and just about every other direction to avoid getting punched, kicked, or grabbed but she made sure the other guys were feeling it when she had an opportunity with punches and kicks of her own.She also made sure to web them in the face every once in a while. Sudden blindness was good for distracting people.The main problem was, she had no idea how hard she could punch these people before she did some major damage. So she was slowly hitting harder and harder but in the meantime she wasn’t exactly putting the Bane imitators out of the fight for more than a few seconds to shake themselves off.“She’s one girl! How is this taking so long?”“Maybe I’m just that good? That, or that Venom stuff isn’t as good as you think. One of the two.” Ghost Spider taunted.Then she got caught in a feint that let one of the goons plant his fit in her jaw and sent her flying through the air and towards another goon that kicked her in another direction.When she stopped bouncing over the concrete floor and seeing stars, she shot a webline at one of the support columns holding the roof up and pulled herself towards it.“Or maybe you’re just lucky!” One of the men called after her.“I have yet to begin to fight, random goon number 3!” Ghost Spider retorted, trying to ignore the aches in her jaw and ribs. The hits didn’t seem to do much damage, but they really hurt!And unfortunately for the goons Ghost Spider had mostly figured out how much the steroid had boosted them…and how hard she could hit them.“Right, sorry boys, this is going to hurt!”Two weblines shot out and attached themselves to the chests of two separate goons, both of whom looked at the lines of silk and laughed.“What’s the matter spider girl, running out of webs? You didn’t even get our arms this time.” they jeered.Ghost Spider’s eyes narrowed and curved in malicious glee. “Nope, just going to do this instead!”The heroine jumped straight out over the group of men she had been fighting with…and pulled her webs upward.The two men she webbed screamed as they were suddenly yanked into the air and Ghost Spider used her newfound momentum to dropkick a third. She flipped midair to land on her feet and pulled on the webs again, this time yanking them so the airborne men slammed into the ground around where the one she kicked landed.This time the men didn’t get up after getting hit. They were solidly unconscious.Ghost Spider turned back to the now significantly more wary thugs.“So. Who’s next?”-o-The goons didn’t last long after that.Punches were delivered. Kicks were had. And all of them got a generous amount of webbing donated to their own personal silk cocoons.“Well, that's that.” Ghost Spider mused, dusting her hands off. “Now all that’s left is the…oh, goddamnit.”At some point during the time Ghost Spider had been making the thugs regret their life choices, their boss had decided running was the smart idea and booked it.She turned to the groaning mass of men. “Looks like your boss ditched you, so I’m gonna go after him real quick. You boys just hang around. I’m sure the cops will be here to cut you out…at some point anyway.”Another webline let her ascend to the skylights and out onto the roof, where she was immediately drenched again by the ongoing storm.“Hey Nightwing, the factory is handled but the boss pulled a runner. I’m chasing him down now but you think you can have the GCPD send someone over?” She sent through the communicator while she scanned the surroundings, on the lookout for where the boss had run off to.“That took a while, any problems?” Nightwing sounded distracted. He was probably multitasking.“They used that new Venom formula. It took some time to stop them from getting up.” She replied. “Just give them some time for it to wear off and it should be an easy pickup.”“I’ll let them know.”“Cool, I’ve got to see a man about a drug problem.”The sound of squealing tires rose above the constant sounds of rainfall. Ghost Spider looked down into the parking lot where she saw a car fishtailing out onto the street. She ended the call and started swinging after it. Not the most enjoyable experience between the rain reducing her visibility and the drops themselves stinging like hornets.The car pulled a sharp right turn and started to head towards the city. If it got lost in traffic or the boss bailed out in a building somewhere Ghost Spider was likely to lose him.So it was a merry chase through terrible conditions as Ghost Spider lept, swung, and launched herself through the air to follow the car that must have caught sight of her in the rearview mirror or wasn’t slowing down until he was sure he had lost her.It took a bit, but she was eventually able to get close enough that she could get a webline on the car and reel herself in. That’s when the car’s driver knew for certain she was on his tail and decided to go absolutely nuts.Ghost Spider clung to the frame of the car for dear life as the driver did his best to kill them both by trying to navigate through the streets with his foot trying to push through the floor and janking the wheel all over the place trying to throw her off. Thankfully the rain had driven everyone else off the road already or they would have crashed into someone by now.“Look pal, you're just going to crash going like this! Just pull over already!” Ghost Spider yelled, smacking the car’s roof. Only to nearly fling herself off the vehicle when the driver pulled a handgun and started firing blindly back at her.Suddenly, Ghost Spider felt the car start drifting to the side and looked up to see a wall coming straight for her. Her eyes widened as she realized what was about to happen. The crazy bastard was going to try bumping the side of the car into a building to either crush her or knock her off! Unfortunately that was the moment the tires lost their grip on the wet road and started hydroplaning. The car was now going fast enough there was no chance they weren’t going straight into -and maybe even through- that wall.She had just enough time to brace and then the car hit…-o-“Gah, and that’s the ribs again…” Ghost Spider groaned as she picked herself up off the floor. It felt like Supergirl had used her ribcage as a punching bag.“Ghost Spider?”She looked up to see not only Batgirl standing nearby, but also a group of what looked like mercenaries, Robin, and a gray-skinned man easily over six and a half feet tall in a ratty suit all standing around the room like they had been in the middle of a fight.“Oh, hey there. What are you guys up to?” Ghost Spider looked back at the driver she had been pursuing. Sure enough it was the boss that had run off. It also looked like the crash had knocked him out. A generous amount of webbing ensured he wouldn’t be running anywhere else anytime soon. “I was just catching up with some local businessmen, but it looks like you guys were having a party.”Suddenly a large scaly green figure exploded out from a ruined pile of furniture that had hidden it from view.Looks like Killer Croc was here in addition to Solomon Grundy.“And you even have a petting zoo.” Ghost Spider quipped. “So what kinda party did I crash?”

Chapter 25Batgirl was the first to snap out of the shock of a car barreling through a wall and into their fight.“Dr. Merlyn has three copies of the Markov prototype spread out across the city all synced to trigger from a signal from that machine,” she pointed at the device in question. “I need time to send the shutdown code to all of them or Gotham is going to look a lot more like a parking lot!”Oh, this was serious then.“Why didn’t Nightwing tell me about this?” Ghost Spider wondered while moving to cut off Croc from going after Batgirl.“He doesn’t know, Merlyn uploaded a virus into the city power grid as a distraction and jammed our comms.” Robin helpfully informed her as he flipped around Solomon Grundy. Unfortunately for him, the zombie didn’t seem all that phased by the teenager’s attacks. He was too slow to actually catch the Boy Wonder though, so Ghost Spider felt safe leaving them be for a while and focus on the other supervillain in the mix.Killer Croc was a weird mix of foriegn and familiar for Ghost Spider. Dodging a large bipedal creature covered in scales was nothing new. The Lizard, both versions, had desensitized Ghost Spider to that even though technically this was the first time she was dealing with it…“Hey, question. Your name isn’t Peter by any chance is it?” She asked, dodging a clawed hand at the same time.Croc snarled. “It's not, now get back here!”He lunged but Ghost Spider sidestepped enough to grab him by the ankle and throw him into Grundy a short distance away.…and that's why it felt foreign. That move wouldn’t have worked on the Lizard without her getting a tail to the face unless she got very lucky. It was also good to confirm she was probably facing Waylon Jones and not an ironic multiversal copy of one of her friends.That was a sentence she never thought she would mean seriously.Croc crashed to the floor in a heap and Robin took advantage of that, dropkicking Grundy in the face and causing the zombie to trip over the other villain.“Nice kick.” Ghost Spider complimented the younger hero and held a hand up for a high-five.Robin smirked and returned the gesture before turning back to the two thrashing villains. “Thanks, but that isn’t going to keep them down long. You think your webs can hold them?”“If I wrap them with enough of it, probably. But unless we wear them down some more, they’ll probably tear right out of it.”Robin grimaced. “Well crap, Grundy doesn’t get tired.”“How do you normally beat him?”“Get someone on the magical side of things to restrain him or break something important. Other than that, and if he’s weak enough that time around, pin him with something heavy.”Ghost Spider side eyed Robin, one eye going wide in an imitation of a raised eyebrow. “That time around?”“Yeah, sometimes he comes back strong enough to give multiple Leaguers trouble. Thankfully it’s usually out of major areas when that happens. Doesn’t seem like he’s that strong this time either.”Ghost Spider looked back at the two villains just in time to see Croc manage to push Grundy off of him and clamber back to his feet. The saurian looking villain looked rapidly around the room before fixing her with a death glare. Grundy rose to his feet much more slowly and rather than looking at the two heroes, looked back to where Batgirl had dismantled six mercenaries and left them unconscious and tied up and was now frantically typing away at the console responsible for activating the Markov devices.“Grundy told to keep people away from box. Grundy smash bat person.” The zombie moaned, heading her way.“Looks like he came back short in the smarts department too.” Ghost Spider commented.“That happens. The range tends to be from ‘stupid’ to ‘slightly smarter than a rock’ though, so this is pretty normal.”“So we have to stop a super-powered zombie too dumb to quit. Yay.”Robin shrugged. “Someone’s gotta.”The two heroes were interrupted by a snarling Croc pouncing at them. Robin lept away and headed towards Grundy while Ghost Spider tangled with Killer Croc.“You know,” She started, punching Croc in the jaw and dodging a claw swipe. “I get the Doctor and even Grundy. Guy with a grudge and zombie too stupid to do anything but follow orders. What’s your deal, Schnappi?”The sudden nickname froze Croc long enough for Ghost Spider to plant a foot in his ribs, launching him through the air and giving her enough time to try tangling Grundy’s feet with her webs while Robin knocked him over with some exploding birdarangs. Unfortunately that was little more than an annoyance for the zombie who easily tore the webbing off his feet and rose back to his feet. He did stop heading towards Batgirl in favor of trying to attack Robin though, so progress.“What did you call me?!” A visibly angry Croc growled, “What’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t seem incredibly invested in the answer as he started hurling boxes and debris at the wall-crawler since being up close wasn’t working out for him.“Not very cultured are you? I just called you a cute little alligator. No need to blow a gasket.” Ghost Spider snarked as she ducked under a box, webbed it as it went by, and returned to sender.Too bad for her the wooden crate was empty and easily smashed to sawdust by her opponent.“Hard to get all ‘cultured’ when everyone is gawking at you for looking like this.” Croc said bitterly, making Ghost Spider feel a bit bad for the comment. “So when I got the chance to put all those bastards on the streets like me and make some huge stacks doing it? You bet I signed up for that.” And bad feelings gone just like that.So she webbed him in the face.While Croc was temporarily blind and cursing up a storm, Ghost Spider yanked herself back towards Grundy. Robin was doing a good job being annoying but at the end of the day he was still a teenager that weighed at most a hundred and fifteen pounds going up against a super zombie somewhere around five times his weight.“Robin, go for his knee!”The Boy Wonder had been enhancing his hits with a metal Bo staff and wasted no time slamming the pole into Grundy’s knee. Even his best hit barely staggered him, but it knocked Grundy off balance enough that when Ghost Spider slammed into his chest like a web guided missile she flattened the giant zombie.“Nice hit, you okay though?” Robin asked. It didn’t look like Ghost Spider had gotten hit anywhere but when she landed, she had clutched her side painfully.“Yeah… just feeling a bit sore from the car crash.”“You’re going to be feeling more than that in a second!” Croc announced his return to the fight by backhanding Robin out of the way and shoulder checking Ghost Spider. Clawed hands pinned her until Croc slammed both of them into one of the machines nearby. Ghost Spider felt something crack but didn’t have time to give it attention. She was too busy focusing on stopping Croc from taking a bite out of her even as he tried crushing her between his arms and the machine.“Gah -- Personal space, scaly!”Croc’s response was to squeeze harder and go for another bite. And between her battered ribs, the lack of air, and the pain in her torso Ghost Spider’s arms were actually starting to give ground and Croc was ignoring her repeated knees to the chest pretty well.His teeth were only a few centimeters from her collarbone when a whistling object flew through the air, slammed into Croc’s head, and exploded.Both of them flinched at the boom and turned to where the object had come from. Batgirl had either finished or stopped working at the terminal for a second to help Ghost Spider out and had already thrown another object. A small metal canister landed almost perfectly in Croc’s open mouth and when he reflexively bit down, sprayed a green colored gas directly into his face.“Guuuhhh…”Whatever was in that canister worked fast. Croc went from murderous to knocked out in a few seconds. The saurian villain’s eyes rolled back and he fell over, releasing Ghost Spider in the process.The heroine stumbled as her feet hit the ground and leaned back into the machine she had been getting crushed into for support before looking over to her friend.“Nice throw, thanks for the help. Thought I might gag from his breath.” She joked, weakly giving Batgirl a thumbs up.“I saw. Good thing I had a breath mint. You okay?”“Ribs are going to be feeling tonight for a couple days but I’m good. I’m guessing you stopped the signal?”Batgirl nodded. “Stopped and put all the devices into lockdown. They aren’t going to go off without a full system reset and recalibration. Should give us enough time to find and secure them without someone trying to set them off manually.”“That's good. Then the only thing left is –”“Hey guys! A little help!?”Right, the only thing left was Grundy.Now that they had handled the city destroying plot and knocked out the rest of the bad guys they could afford to take their time a bit, but Grundy was still very dangerous and needed to be handled carefully.“Any ideas on how to bring him down? I'm guessing that gas won’t work and he looks fine even though I hit him pretty hard earlier.” Ghost Spider could probably shatter his spine or tear off a limb if she needed to…but she didn’t exactly want to start tearing sentient creatures limb from limb even if they would recover if she didn’t have to. That went waaay past her comfort zone for acceptable violence.Batgirl looked around the warehouse, eyes flickering to the crashed car, the machines around them, and the spot where Robin was keeping Grundy occupied.“I think I have an idea…”-o-’I don’t think I like this plan.’ “Hey Grundy! Look, I’m touching the console!” Ghost Spider yelled, patting the top of the machine.“Whuh?” Grundy stopped chasing Robin to look back towards her. Sure enough, the sight of someone touching the thing he was supposed to be protecting was enough to get the Zombie’s full attention for the time being. “Grrr, Grundy smash bug person!”“I’m an arachnid!”“Grundy not care!”It was really hard to just stand there as a five hundred pound zombie came running at you. But that was the plan, and Ghost Spider had to deal with it. As she dodged the first overhand blow she idly noticed Robin had made his way over to Batgirl to get caught up on the plan but then she was too busy trying to guide Grundy into position to pay attention to them.Really the hard part was making sure he stayed in one spot without going into a rage and charging off somewhere. That meant intentionally dodging narrowly and staying close even when moving away and just repeatedly blinding him with webs might have worked better.Ghost Spider didn’t just dodge though. She landed some heavy punches and kicks that had rattled the undead’s bones, they just didn’t slow him down any.After what felt like an eternity of intense focus and careful attacks, Ghost Spider heard an engine roar to life and tires squeal as they burned out. Batgirl had managed to hotwire the drug dealer’s car back to life despite it going through a wall. It wasn’t going to run much longer by the look of it, but it was fine for one more drive. A drive straight for Grundy for a matter of fact.Ghost Spider stopped pretending to have issues getting away from the Zombie and did her best to glue him to the floor with as many webs as possible. That distracted Grundy long enough to let her web away up to the ceiling and get in position for the next step.Bracing herself on the thick steel beams supporting the roof, she watched as Batgirl jumped out of the car a few feet from Solomon Grundy, attached a webline to the grill, and pulled up. The beaten up car lifted off it’s front tires and hit Grundy in the chest at somewhere around forty-five miles an hour. Spread out over a much larger area and with more weight than one superpowered spider person the car did…significant damage to the zombie, but even that wasn’t enough to knock the fight out of him.That was fine.The car had only been the first step in Batgirl’s plan. With Grundy wounded and knocked even closer to the large racks of machines near the console he didn’t even notice Robin straining to tip one of them over until it was falling on him.Batgirl, Robin, and Ghost Spider watched carefully as the dust settled. Grundy had been pinned by the machine but he was still technically in the fight. Once their view cleared, they saw the gray-skinned zombie half buried in metal and circuits but beyond some groaning he made no effort to escape.“Woo! City saved and bad guys caught, who’s up for pizza?” Robin cheered.“As long as you’re buying.” Ghost Spider chuckled. Now that the fight was over her ribs were making their displeasure known.“We still need to secure the Markov prototypes,” Batgirl said. “But yeah pizza sounds good.”Despite the joking comments, all the heroes went about securing their defeated foes first.No need to ruin pizza time by having one of them escape, right?