Masked Menace Plagues City Streets!
The city streets blurred by in a kaleidoscope of neon and steel as I swung from skyscraper to skyscraper, finally feeling alive again. After months of meticulous work repairing my suit, I was back in action as the newbie spiderman, "Ghost Spider."
The past week has been a whirlwind of activity under my newly reinforced Ghost Spider mantle. With my suit fully upgraded and repaired, I took to patrolling the city streets, catching thieves, stopping accidents, even stopping gang wars by knocking on both sides, and also helping elders cross the road.
The sleek blue-black spider suit, which has been upgraded enough to be bulletproof, whose fabric I stole from Oscorp because it was expensive, and my little revenge against Osborn.
And my mask's advanced optics allowed me to scan the cityscape in multiple vision modes: thermographic, infrared, and analytical matrices analysing structural weaknesses and potential vectors of attack, which are all programmed according to the database from the SP//dr.
Most crucially, the suit's psionic resonance bafflers created a noisecrux field that rendered me undetectable to telepathic scans—the perfect counter against telepaths like Professor X.
It was my biggest invention, inspired by the mutant inhibitor collar. For the first time since awakening to my omega-level mutations, I could cut loose without fear of broadcasting my abilities. If it weren't for the database, which I accidentally got from electrocuting myself with SP//dr, I wouldn't have come this far to develop this much technology.
Thanks to the Osborn, they sponsored the enemy without even knowing the enemy. I am imagining Osborn getting blood pressure after discovering that Ghost Spider was me all along.
A police radio scanner that was attached to my mask came to life. "All units, 10-31, are in progress at the Manhattan Trust Bank on the 43rd. Suspects are armed and dangerous; exercise extreme caution."
Adjusting my trajectory, I ricocheted off the side of an office tower, snaring a rooftop antenna to swing in a wide arcing turn towards the coordinates. Through clouds of smoke, I spotted masked gunmen corralling hostages outside at gunpoint. The NYPD would be outmatched.
"Nice of you boys to set the party up," I quipped, triggering a pulse wave that staggered the gunmen back. "But I'll take it from here."
In a blur, I launched webs ensnaring two gunmen, suppression gas choking the rest as I rained down boneshaker rounds and webbing restraints. In seconds, the entire crew was neutralised.
I strode up to the wheezing leader, fists raised. "You're going to rattle off every name—buyers, handlers, money trails. All of it." I leaned in until our masks almost touched. "And if one detail is compromised...I don't have to follow rules about keeping you 'unharmed.'"
The man deflated, already defeated. "Sure, spider-freak...I'll spill everything. Just keep me away from you!"
Satisfied, I fired off ascension lines just as NYPD patrol cars screamed onto the scene. As they cuffed the downed gunmen, a thunderous command crackled over a loudspeaker.
"This is the NYPD! You in the spider costume, stand down immediately! You are under arrest for vigilante actions!"
"Well, the one in the spider costume is too long. Just call me Ghost-Spider." I just said it casually.
I landed on a rooftop as more squad cars boxed in the area, weapons trained on me. In the distance, a police helicopter's lights spun up in pursuit. So much for keeping a low profile.
"There's nowhere to run! Remove your mask and surrender peacefully, or we will use force."
Like hell, I will unmask myself; my secret identity could be exposed along with my mutant status. Thinking quickly, I activated my camouflage, rendering myself almost totally invisible.
"What the...? Where'd she go?!"
Taking advantage of the confusion, I rapidly ascended using my web-shooter. Within seconds, I was soaring high above as an indistinct shimmer, easily outpacing any potential pursuit.
Finally, I set down in a dim alley and deactivated my camouflage, reappearing in a ripple of static. My heart pounded as the adrenaline rush faded, leaving me with a hollow feeling.
So much for being an upstanding hero. To the NYPD and the world, I was just another unregistered freak in a mask that couldn't be allowed to roam free.
Well, who cares? It was the path I chose, knowing that I am now also part of the web of destiny. Now, I am back in my apartment in Midtown Manhattan. And it is not my permanent turf; I am clearly renting this apartment.
And now the question is, How the hell did I earn that much money?". Sure, I could always dip into my dwindling reserves of embezzled funds from that corporate slimeball Fiers, but those ill-gotten gains wouldn't last forever.
That's when the answer hit me with a spark of inspiration. You know, even if it's Marvel's world, there are still many similarities to my previous world, except that I may have arrived in this bizarre version of reality a full decade displaced, but that was the very key to securing a steady income stream! With my knowledge of future events and technological trajectories, I could capitalise on developing game-changing innovations before their original time.
I quickly fired up my spare coding rig, the gears in my mind already turning. One of the first massively popular apps to truly exemplify the "casual gaming" phenomenon was Candy Crush Saga, a deceptively simple puzzle game that took the world by storm in the early 2010s. But in this timeline, it didn't even exist yet!
The gameplay mechanics were ridiculously basic, little more than a silly matching candies gimmick. Even a relative amateur like me could reverse engineer that level of code without too much difficulty. All I'd need is a fresh coat of polish on the graphics and interface, give it a snappy rebrand, and I could market the first edition as an exciting new intellectual property!
Within a matter of days, my makeshift development workspace was overflowing with notes, wireframes, and demo builds as I hammered away at the laptop's keys. It was almost comically easy to mock up the basic gameplay loop—an embarrassingly simple logic core wrapped in shiny visual trappings.
When I finally packaged the beta release as an app titled "Sugar Rush!" and feverishly started marketing it through every social media channel available, the results were staggering. Within two weeks, Sugar Rush had racked up 100K+ of downloads across every platform!
The microtransaction revenue started rolling in by the truckload, all for an innocuous casual gaming trifle that I'd created almost entirely from recycled code. And to think, this was just the proverbial tip of the iceberg—I already had an arsenal of "new" gaming ideas to rapidly develop and market!
The next day,
The classroom buzzed with eager chatter the next day as I took my usual seat towards the back, trying to keep my head down. It seemed like the previous night's encounter with the Ghost Spider was the hot topic on everyone's lips.
"Did you guys see the Bugle's headline this morning?" Flash Thompson's grating voice carried over the din as he brandished his phone. "'Masked Menace Plagues City Streets! This 'Ghost Spider' is A Threat to Us All!'"
"Classic J. Jonah Jameson hit piece," Mary Jane scoffed, rolling her eyes. "That guy just loves to rant about any mask he sees causing 'violence' on his precious streets."
"I don't know, MJ," Gwen chimed in, uncharacteristically serious. "From the eyewitness reports, this Ghost Spider sounds pretty cool. They said she took down those bank robbers single-handedly with like...crazy high-tech weapons and moves."
A hush fell over the cluster of students as they leaned in, enthralled by Gwen's dramatic retelling. Even Peter and Ned stopped their antic whispering to eavesdrop.
"One guy claimed she straight-up threatened to cripple him if he didn't rat out his crew!" "Then she just disappeared into thin air when the cops showed up to try arresting her!"
The class erupted into a dull roar of shocked mutters and exclamations at that revelation.
"As expected, there's no Spider-verse without JJ ranting about masks and tights," I muttered again under my breath, this time without a hint of humour.
I felt a growing sense of unease prickling at the back of my neck as unwanted attention suddenly swivelled in my direction.
"Well, well..." A silky, smooth voice cut through the clamour as Felicia slid up to my desk, her emerald eyes glittering mischievously. "If it isn't our very own ghost who can't seem to avoid the spotlight, huh?"
I stared back at her impassively, refusing to rise to the obvious bait. Felicia just grinned wider, clearly relishing getting a reaction out of me.
"What's the matter, strong and silent type?" She propped herself up to sit on the edge of my desk, legs crossed in a decidedly provocative manner. "No hot takes to share on this new spider-powered baddie tearing up the streets?"
A few nearby students had begun to pick up on the exchange; their interest piqued. Inwardly, I cringed—this was exactly the sort of unwanted scrutiny I'd been desperately trying to avoid.
"Just seems like another nutcase in a mask causing chaos if you ask me," I muttered, keeping my tone flat and disaffected in hopes of deflating Felicia's poorly-timed teasing.
Rather than be deterred, a playful glint entered her expression as she leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur.
"You know, there are other ways we could discuss our thoughts on this new urban legend, just you and me." One perfectly manicured fingernail slowly traced along my forearm, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. "Maybe over a drink or something? I'm just dying to pick that pretty brain of yours, Ghosty."
My face flushed hot despite myself as I adamantly shook my head, reclaiming my arm. "I told you, I'm not looking for any distractions or complications right now."
Felicia held up her hands in mock surrender, her lips twisted in a Cheshire grin. "Have it your way, then! But just remember—when you get tired of all this playing at being a boring bookworm routine, I'm right here waiting to show you the path of the deliciously wicked."
With a final, lingering look, she slid off the desk and slinked away, leaving me feeling deeply unsettled in the wake of her bold flirtations. Clearly, I was going to have to be even more careful about keeping a low profile with this Ghost Spider obsession sweeping through the student body.