Spider Quinn 12 Rise of the Green Goblin - Part 9

 

The Shadow parked as close as she could to the devastated Hall as she could, given the traffic of people trying to leave the vicinity. She saw a large concentration of fires in that direction as she got out of the car. “OK, SpiderGirl and Ninja Talon, backup is here.” She then opened the trunk to see that there was more gear. “Good.”

 

 

Ninja Talon urged people to run as she saw SpiderGirl try to fight the aircraft. “I have to get up there!” she said to Peterson, who was nearby.

 

“Go!”

 

 

The Moretti’s arrived on the scene after having similar trouble to the Shadow in finding a place to park. The older one looked at where Ninja Talon was scaling the wall of the Hall. “I will go over there, and discretely use a forcefield to hold the roof up. You can look out for that aircraft and try to disable it. Our powers also have a disruptive effect on electronics.”

 

“Got it!”

 

 

Ninja Talon shot her grapple gun, hoping that it wouldn’t make things worse by dislodging something. It held. She then climbed up.

 

SpiderGirl was still attempting to web up the aircraft, which was hovering nearby. ‘He’s too elusive,’ she thought. She saw Ninja Talon climbing up. ‘I’ll give her some time.’ She then attempted to web up the pilot’s helmet, but she still missed.

 

 

The older Moretti walked up to the building unnoticed. She closed her eyes and perceived the inside of the building where people were still waiting to get out. She then focused on the ceiling where it was threatening to fall in and generated a forcefield to hold it in place. She was thankful that she had found the time to continue to develop her powers in the midst of the busyness of motherhood and work.

 

 

The Shadow ran up to the scene. ‘There’s lots I can do. But what first,’ she wondered quickly. ‘Help SpiderGirl and Ninja Talon fight the aircraft? Or help with the evacuation.’ She decided to do the former.

 

 

Anna and Ben huddled in a phone booth down the street. “Are you OK?” Anna asked as she dialled home.

 

“With you here, I’m better than I could have been,” Ben answered. “It’s a good thing SpiderGirl showed up when she did.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Feli, is that you? Are you OK?” her mother asked.

 

“I’m fine, Ben and I got out quickly,” Anna Felicia answered.

 

“I’m glad to hear that, with what is happening. It looks like SpiderGirl is having the fight of her life.”

 

“That doesn’t sound good.”

 

“Ninja Talon and the Shadow are there with her.”

 

 

The Enigma (since she was on her own) found a spot beneath a tree near the devastated building and saw the situation with the other vigilantes. SpiderGirl was leaping from side to side, trying to web up the craft, with the Shadow using her clouds to try to hide her. She then started shooting energy projections at the craft.

 

 

Amanda arrived on the scene and saw that SpiderGirl, Ninja Talon and her daughter needed help. She also saw that there were energy projections being shot at the craft from somewhere nearby. ‘All of Lawndale’s protectors are here tonight. I hope it’s enough.’

 

 

The Enigma continued firing at the craft. ‘It’s has to succumb at some point,’ she thought.

 

 

SpiderGirl was running on adrenaline. She knew those energy projections were coming from the fourth vigilante, who was somewhere in the shadows.

 

 

Ninja Talon aimed a shuriken at one of the glider’s air intakes. ‘I hope this works!’ she thought. Then she concentrated as she threw it.

 

 

Amanda flew in, trying to avoid the energy protections, and fired dry ice at the pilot.

 

 

The pilot, was getting annoyed. He thought it would be easy to just take out SpiderGirl, but against multiple vigilantes he was failing. He lined up for another shot, then he noticed something. Some of the gilder’s avionics were failing. ‘It has to be those energy projections,’ he realised. He fired the last missile past SpiderGirl to into the roof and then retreated back the way he came.

 

 

By that time the Hall had been evacuated and the older Moretti (who was known in Boston as the Purple Avenger) relaxed. She opened her eyes and retreated as the last explosion caused more of the roof to cave in.

 

 

The news was about to spread across the United States.

 

“It is 8 o’clock. Breaking news; there are reports of some kind of terrorist attack in Lawndale, Pennsylvania…”

 

 

The Enigma saw the aircraft retreat. She then retreated herself, back to her mother’s car.

 

 

Amanda saw the aircraft retreat. ‘Should I follow?’ she wondered. She reconsidered. ‘Not a good idea,’ she added as she remembered one time when following a villain to their base went awry. She then headed home.

 

 

SpiderGirl brought Ninja Talon and the Shadow down to the ground, near where Peterson and a few on duty officers were waiting and watching the fire brigade deal with the fires. “Exhausted,” she said.

 

“You did very well,” Peterson said.

 

“I couldn’t have done it without these two,” SpiderGirl said,

 

“And the fourth,” Ninja Talon added.

 

“I saw the projections,” SpiderGirl said. “But, a villain, in Lawndale!”

 

“What did he say to you?” Peterson asked.

 

“That he had a different vision for Lawndale and that every hero has a villain.”

 

“That doesn’t sound good,” Peterson said.

 

“Definitely not. We have to be vigilant. Lawndale needs us,” SpiderGirl said, with determination.

 

“But this will take a while to recover from,” the Shadow pointed out.

 

“Lawndale is resilient, it will recover,” Peterson said.

 

“But what if it’s someone from Lawndale?” Ninja Talon asked.

 

“Then, we will need to find him as soon as possible,” SpiderGirl responded.

 

They were silent for a while as they contemplated that.

 

 

The Moretti’s returned to their car. “I’d say you did well under the circumstances,” the older one said.

 

“It still took me a while,” the younger one responded.

 

“Keep practicing, you will get better.”

 

“I will.”

 

“I know you will go out again later, but try to rest when we get home,” the older one said as she started the engine.

 

“OK.”

 

 

“Another thing,” the Shadow said as she saw SpiderGirl getting ready to leave. “The fourth is after you.”

 

“I know, she told me,” SpiderGirl said, indicating Ninja Talon.

 

“But what you may not be aware of is that she has powers, not technology,” the Shadow responded.

 

“Are you sure?” Ninja Talon asked.

 

“Quite sure.”

 

“And it was those powers that helped you win tonight,” Peterson mused. She sighed. “More unpredictability. There is going to be a very difficult time ahead.”

 

“I’ll be off,” the Shadow said.

 

 

SpiderGirl watched the Shadow leave. She turned to Ninja Talon. “We need to talk, on the bridge.”

 

“Of course,” Ninja Talon said.

 

“But first to a phone booth.”

 

“Definitely.”

 

“See you later,” Peterson said.

 

 

Daria answered the phone. “Is that you, Quinn?” she asked in concern.

 

“Daria! I got out of the Hall quickly, along with others,” Quinn answered.

 

“I’m glad to hear that. The news is coming thick and fast. It seems that SpiderGirl barely escaped.”

 

“She had others helping her. I’ll be home soon, bye.”

 

 

Ashley-Amber answered the phone. “Brittany? Are you OK?”

 

“I’m OK. I got out as soon as I could!”

 

Ashley-Amber sighed in relief. “Thank goodness. The news isn’t good. The Hall is falling down. It seems the vigilantes, including that ninja, helped the police with the evacuation.

 

“That’s good. I will be home soon.”

 

“I’ll be waiting.”

 

 

Jane arrived home and left her Shadow gear in the car. She entered the kitchen. “I know you were there,” she said to her mother.

 

“Helping a little. You, SpiderGirl and Ninja Talon did most of the work.”

 

“And the fourth,” Jane added.

 

“How so?” Trent asked.

 

“She was firing at the craft,” their mother explained.

 

“What do you make of the villain?” Jane asked.

 

“Looks like some sort of Green Goblin…” her mother mused.

 

“Green Goblin, attacks Lawndale. Ninja Talon and SpiderGirl team up yet again…” Trent murmured.

 

“That is what happened,” Jane mused. “But I think that calling him that in a song isn’t the way to go.”

 

“Like the fourth, got it,” Trent said.

 

“Exactly,” Jane said. “But what does this mean for Lawndale? He’s still out there.”

 

“It’s up to you and others to figure that out,” her mother said.

 

“That’s certainly true,” Jane said quietly.

 

 

SpiderGirl and Ninja Talon reached the spot below the bridge where they had revealed their secret identities to each other. Both of them looked around before taking off their masks.

 

“A villain in Lawndale!” Quinn exclaimed. “I didn’t expect that. But, with great power comes great responsibility.”

 

“I didn’t expect it either,” Brittany said quietly. “But we dealt with it, for now.”

 

“For now. But that pilot is still out there somewhere. And there’s something else. Officer Peterson suspects that I’m SpiderGirl.”

 

“She does?”

 

“Yes, But I don’t think she suspects you as Ninja Talon,” Quinn said.

 

“Good, but what are you going to do about it?”

 

“Other than being more careful around her, I’m not sure. What I haven’t told you is that she was there when Daddy died.”

 

“Oh,” Brittany said quietly.

 

“’With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’ were his last words,” Quinn confessed with tears in her eyes.

 

Brittany hugged Quinn. “You’re not alone.”

 

“Thanks,” Quinn responded. “And so, she must have overheard.”

 

They sat their quietly, hugging each other for another minute.

 

 

“We need to get home,” Quinn said, wiping another tear from her eyes.

 

“Yes, Ashley-Amber and Daria are expecting us after those calls,” Brittany said.

 

“Maybe, you can talk with Peterson from now on,” Quinn suggested.

 

“That would probably just make her more suspicious.”

 

“I know, I was just thinking out loud. I’ll see you tomorrow, when I finish at the Historia.”

 

“OK, have a good night, Quinn.”

 

 

SpiderGirl headed home, as Ninja Talon also did.

 

 

Xanthe arrived home. She closed the door and said; “you can trust me, Quinn. If you are SpiderGirl, your secret is safe with me.”

 

 

At SHIELD headquarters, Nick Fury arrived back at his office. The news from Lawndale wasn’t good. He called up the information that SHIELD had gathered so far.

 

Attacker: Unknown

Craft profile matches an Oscorp Industries prototype.

 

Fury had his suspicions. But rumors of Osborn’s mental instability were unsubstantiated. He clicked to another screen and satellite footage of the devastated Lawndale Center Hall was shown. He tried rewinding it, but there were no SHIELD satellites looking at Lawndale during the attack. He sighed and clicked on another screen.

 

SpiderGirl: Identity Uknown

 

Ninja Talon: Identity Unknown

 

The Shadow: Identity Uknown

Suspected Identities:

Lane, Summer

Lane, Penelope

Lane, Jane

Lane, Courtney

 

Rumored Fourth Vigilante: Identity Uknown

 

‘We are getting somewhere,’ Fury thought as he clicked on the information related to the Shadow.

 

The Alternative Defender sighted fighting the attacker alongside SpiderGirl, Ninja Talon and the Shadow. Energy Projections similar to those used by the Purple Avenger in Boston in the late 1970s, early 1980s were also observed.

 

Alternative Defender: Lane, Amanda Hannah

 

‘Purple Avenger?’ Fury asked himself.

 

Purple Avenger: Griffin (nee Moretti), Linda Antiope

Current residence: Lawndale, PA

 

‘Children?’ he asked himself.

 

Griffin, Cassandra Aphrodite         age: 16

Griffin, Samuel Alexander              age: 12

Griffin, Christopher Odysseus      age: 10

He then updated the information on the Rumored Fourth Vigilante

 

Rumored Fourth Vigilante: Identity Unknown

Suspected Identities:

Griffin (nee Moretti), Linda Antiope

Griffin, Cassandra Aphrodite

 

He then tried to get more information from on the ground in Lawndale.

 

 

Back in Lawndale, SpiderGirl arrived home, entering through the basement. She grabbed some spare clothes from the laundry basket. ‘Maybe that’s what I could use part of the hidden space for, extra closet space, to hide the superheroism part,’ she considered. She then went up to the kitchen.

 

 

Daria saw that Quinn looked tired. “Did you run all the way?” she asked.

 

“Not all the way,” she answered.

 

“I’m just happy that you got away,” Daria said as she hugged her sister. “To think that terrorists would attack here.”

 

“They would attack anywhere, I suppose.”

 

“I guess so, It’s just that Lawndale is out of the way.”

 

“True,” Quinn said.

 

Their mother then came into the kitchen. “Thank goodness you’re alright.”

 

“I got away quickly.”

 

 

Ashley-Amber saw Brittany enter the lounge room. “Did you run all the way here, honey?”

 

“Some of the way,” Brittany answered.

 

“It must have been quite scary! It certainly looked that way on the TV.”

 

“It was, but I got out quicky.”

 

“That’s good,” Ashley-Amber said. “I’ll make you some cocoa.”

 

“You don’t have to,” Brittany said with a yawn.

 

“I don’t want you to have nightmares.”

 

“I think that might happen anyway.”

 

“We can talk about other stuff,” Ashley-Amber suggested.

 

“Sure.”

 

 

After talking to her mother and Daria, Quinn went up to her room. She then wrote down everything in her diary, including the low tingle, Peterson’s suspicion of her identity, the attack itself and her chat with Brittany. It was good to get it down on paper.

 

She then looked at the time. ‘9:23,’ she thought. There was time to do more designing. ‘I need a more resilient suit.’ The one she had worn that day had gotten torn from the fight. It was just as well she had made spares.

 

‘More resilient suit. Tougher fabric that will hold up in a fight against that green goblin of a pilot,’ she thought as she wrote that down.

 

She brainstormed on various fabrics for a while before going to bed.

 

 

Harry came down at 10:30 to find his father sleeping on the couch. ‘Not again,’ he thought. He noticed something. A leaflet. “Oscorp Industries Glider Prototype Blueprints?” he asked himself. Why did his father have it at home? But there were many things his father didn’t talk to him about. ‘Where was he earlier?’ he wondered. He had wanted to talk to him about the situation at the Lawndale Center and Bernard had been quiet about it. ‘Maybe in the morning.’

 

 

At midnight, the Enigma left the Griffin’s place via the laneway. She hadn’t had much sleep, the gravity of the earlier events and her mother’s revelation that she had been a superhero in Boston were heavily on her mind. ‘I suppose I could look up ‘Boston superheroes’ and find out her hero name that way,’ she considered. She shook her head as she came to a cross street. ‘Not yet, another time. I’ll focus on finding my way as I help Lawndale through this crisis and be SpiderGirl’s rival.’ For she was certain that was what her confronting SpiderGirl would lead to, a rivalry between them.

 

 

Half an hour later, she stood on the top of the Historia, looking towards where the devastated Lawndale Center was. ‘I will find who’s responsible for what happened tonight,’ she decided. Lawndale was owed that much.

 

 

SpiderGirl hadn’t slept much either. She was still restless when she crawled out on the roof at the usual time and started listening to the town. ‘It was the calm before the storm last night,’ she considered. ‘Now it’s more discordant than when the Enigma first appeared.’

 

 

Lawndale Sun-Herald

Saturday February 3, 2001

Lawndale Center Devastated in Terrorist Attack in the Midst of Groundhog Day Celebrations

SpiderGirl, Ninja Talon and the Shadow assist in Evacuations and confront the attacker

Police Chief and Mayor Lawson vow to find the attacker

 

SpiderGirl read through the paper. There wasn’t much she didn’t know already. ‘It’s still very early.’ She thought. She then headed towards the Historia, to start her shift.

 

 

Mayor Lawson was at work early. The consequences of the previous night’s events were severe. The Lawndale Center looked like it was a write off.

 

“Norman Osborn to see you, sir.”

 

He sighed. “Stall him.”

 

“I’ll try, sir.”

 

 

Osborn was annoyed. “Tell the Mayor, that I won’t leave until I talk to him.”

 

“He is very busy, sir, dealing with the fallout of last night’s events.”

 

“I know that! Oscorp can help Lawndale recover! Tell him that!”

 

 

“I don’t doubt that Oscorp can help us recover! But I don’t want to see him right now!”

 

“He is insistent, sir.”

 

Lawson sighed. “Send him in.”

 

 

“I know what you’re going to say,” Lawson said. “That you want access to the CCTV in return for helping the Council rebuild the Lawndale Center.”

 

“Exactly, and it will be better than before.”

 

“I’m tempted to resign and stymie you that way, but Lawndale doesn’t need a special election right now.”

 

“And if it comes out that the Mayor is stonewalling my efforts to help Lawndale recover?” Osborn asked.

 

“That can work both ways.”

 

“I know you don’t want the bad publicity, and Oscorp has one of the best public relations departments in the country.”

 

“It comes down to the fact that you’re blackmailing me and I could potentially expose some of the corruption in Oscorp,” Lawson said.

 

Osborn threw a business card down.

 

Lawson picked it up. “You have hired Jim Vitale?”

 

“Yes, I know the reputation he has and I’m sure you do too.”

 

“You still won’t get away with this,” Lawson said. “Future historians will find out.”

 

“History is written by the victors.”

 

Lawson grabbed a piece of paper and signed it. “There! Oscorp has access.”

 

“Very good,” Osborn responded.