With Gwen wanting to swing a little more before the night is over, it was decided that she would swing all the way home by herself. As such, I grabbed both our backpacks and made my way to the nearest subway station to get home myself.
What a lame method of transport. I wonder what I should make for myself to get around quickly? Sure, I already made the web slingers but if I started using those I would be called nothing but a cheap copy, plus I had nothing to do with the spider motif anyway. Maybe a grappling hook? Nah, that seems slower and would leave tiny holes in every building I stuck it into. No thanks, I'll figure out something else later.
Gwen and I stayed on a call as she swung through the emptying streets. As I was waiting for a subway in a fairly public area, I decided not to keep staring at the video shared from her mask camera. I mean, there weren't a ton of people, but still better to be safe than sorry. And at the end of the day, it was nothing new, just swinging around.
"So, what do you think my costume should look like? I'll continue working on it tonight, I think." Gwen asked, her voice clear despite the sounds of wind, people and traffic that her mic was also picking up.
"I thought you had a design already picked out? If you tell me what you have in mind, I can maybe add on to it."
"Yeah, I have some sketches made but it all looks very… plain." Gwen explained. "I went for a color scheme of mainly white and black with some pink accents. Basically, a skintight suit that would be easy to move in and could be hidden under my normal clothes. I have a cool mask made too and a hood since I like how it looks but it's all like missing something to tie it together, some texture I guess."
Oh wow, that sounds almost exactly like the Ghost Spider suit she usually wears. Gotta say it's one of my favorite suits of any spider related hero ones, and I can't wait to see it in person once she has it made.
"If you are missing some texture, why not add some webbing throughout it. After all, you now have the slingers I made for you, right? Also, maybe a symbol of some sort, like a spider, for people to associate you with."
"That could work. I did consider a spider logo but thought it might be too tacky. I'll think about it more later." Gwen said, easily agreeing. She went silent for several seconds before talking once again, this time much quieter than before. "Hey, are you able to take a look at the video share? I found some weird masked men."
Really, right now? I felt my expression tighten. Looking around, the subway station is fairly empty but I can't exactly take out my phone in the middle here to look at what she is seeing. Reluctantly, I pick up our bags and move away as far as possible from people into a darker corner before taking out my phone.
Gwen is crouching on high ground, on top of a lamp pole, maybe considering the lighting? And indeed, she had stumbled upon some strange masked men surrounding a truck labeled 'Fisk Industries'
There were six of them in total, all wearing almost pure white masks with only eyeholes cut in for vision. They were standing around the truck which was left driverless as the driver… had been dragged out of the truck and stabbed. They were all talking but it was impossible to tell through the quality of the mic Gwen was using.
"What are they saying?" I ask Gwen as she continues to sit and look down at them.
"Something about someone named the Kingpin stealing tech from their boss's partner." Gwen whispered the words as the men were interrogating the bleeding driver. "They thought that truck would be transporting the stolen tech, but it wasn't, and now they want to find out where it is. Their boss is someone named Dimitri and apparently will be really mad if he doesn't recover what was stolen from them…"
Dimitri, huh? With those plain white masks his henchmen are wearing… The Chameleon? Even ignoring the Kingpin in all of this, it looks like Gwen has already managed to discover the first member of her future rogue gallery, and on her very first day as well. Should I call it impressive?
The men are getting more violent by the second, twisting and turning the knife in the man as they are not getting the answers they were hoping for. I can tell Gwen is getting more twitchy quickly as well.
"Reo, do you think I can-" she starts but I interrupt.
"No Gwen, they will not listen to words. You can't just go down there and ask them nicely to walk away and go home." I shut down her idealist world view quickly, already knowing what she was going to try first. "You barely managed to beat two men, and now you want to fight six? I would advise you to ignore it and go home but I know you won't so at least try to not give away the advantage of striking first."
"Mmm, you know me well." Gwen says and the next thing I know she is already kicking off the pole she was crouching on into the air.
The rush of the wind was heard through her mic once again as she descended feet first into the scene of the crime. None of the men had even registered her presence before Gwen's white sneakers came crashing down on the shoulders of the first thug, slamming him face-first into the pavement with a heavy thud.
"Who-?" one of the thugs started to shout, but did not get the chance.
Gwen's momentum carried her forward and while she might not have had any experience in combat she had done years of gymnastics at a very high level which she made use of as she quickly flipped herself up with her arms instead of tumbling on the ground awkwardly. Her heels caught the second man in the temple, and he too dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the cold ground below.
That is two down in very quick succession. She was doing well.
"Get her!" One of the four standing men barked at the others.
Gwen moved with speed the men weren't ready for. In one smooth motion, she shot out a web at the chest of one man and yanked him forward with more force than she had probably intended, as he was sent stumbling face-first into the open door of the truck. He was dazed, but not out completely.
The remaining three lunged at her.
Gwen ducked at a speed that made the video I was watching look like it had motion blur turned to the extreme. She was clearly moving purely on instinct and spider-sense as she ducked a swing, twisted under a grab, and pivoted to the side before kicking off the truck and vault backward.
The men had already surrounded her, and she tried a sweeping kick, but the man, by some miracle, actually managed to hop over it. With her tempo now broken, another managed to strike her in the back of her leg, forcing Gwen to kneel down in pain.
There was no chance for recovery as another kick came in right after, hitting her in the ribs and forcing her to bend down further to protect herself.
"Ow…. Okay." She muttered. Despite the heavy hits, it seems there was still fight in her as she staggered to her feet. Unfortunately, she didn't get far.
A strong arm hooked around her chest, lifting her cleanly from the ground before slamming her back down hard, with Gwen being able to do nothing but retaliate with a weak elbow strike. Another quickly followed up with a kick as she was already down, knocking the air out of her.
The fourth man who had earlier been knocked against the door of the van had recovered by now and came over to grab and wrench her arms behind her back, making Gwen immobile. Gwen could struggle, but with the four of them she had no out.
"Got some nerve, kid. Who the fuck are you?" one of the masked men snarled, pulling her onto her knees. I think her camera was a bit cracked now.
"I say we take her mask," another said as his hand approached the camera.
But he was stopped by the first man, the one who had been giving orders. He walked over to the wounded driver and, after crouching down, yanked the blood-covered knife from his abdomen. The action made the driver cry out in pain and Gwen wince.
Then he turned and approached Gwen once again.
"Let's see what kind of message your corpse sends." he said, pressing the knife tightly against Gwen's neck.
Gwen froze and so did I. You know. I always expected some sort of plot armor to come into play here, which is why I wasn't super worried… I mean I was worried but I thought she would be making it out alive as THE Ghost Spider wouldn't be dying to the first random thugs she came upon…
Now, however, she would be dead in a few seconds. I shut one of my eyes but kept looking with my open one. I would remember them.
The sound of blood gushing was heard a moment later.
The leader's eyes widened.
His mouth opened, but no words came out, only a weird gurgle.
Then the knife dropped from his hands with a clang as it fell on the asphalt below, and soon after his body too fell.
Something silver could be seen sticking out from between his shoulder blades, a crescent moon-shaped blade embedded in his back.
"What the-?" one of the men shouted, jerking his head upward.
I open both my eyes again and sigh a breath of relief, there's the plot armor I was expecting. From Gwen's camera, I could see a man fully clad in white armor and hood drop to the ground like death itself. On his chest, a symbol of the same crescent moon which was currently stuck in the back of the downed, bleeding man.
(image)
His cape fluttered behind him as he moved at an incredible speed that almost looked like a blur through the video feed I was watching.
The first man barely had time to raise his arms before a fist connected with his jaw. An audible crunch was picked up by the mic upon contact, and he quickly dropped to the ground unconscious, mask cracked from the hit.
The second tried to fight. He picked up the knife their leader had dropped and charged forward, but was unable to make contact as the white figure spun around and sent a lighting-quick strike at the man's knee. Yet another crunch was heard, and the victim fell to the ground screaming.
He didn't get to scream for long, as a fist soon connected with the side of his head, knocking him out.
Seeing his comrades going down, the last one opted to run, but didn't get far before he felt a grappling hook entangle around his legs and pull him down on the ground. Turning around to look up, he would only see a heel descending on his face before he too was down for the count.
In a few short moments, the entire group had been wiped up by the white caped crusader, as the news call him. Soon, however, he would be better known under the alias of Moon Knight.
He threw a glance at both the bleeding driver and Gwen, who his eyes lingered on for a few seconds longer.
Finally, he stepped forwards slowly, gaze locked on Gwen as she remained on her knees, still catching her breath and recovering from the experience of almost dying. His cloak settled behind him as he crouched down, speaking in a low voice that her mic barely picked up.
"Next time, don't pick fights you can't finish, girl." he said. "Leave the real monsters to those already damned."
He stood back up and turned around, shooting out his grappling hook onto a balcony several stories up on a nearby building.
"The moon sees everything." He muttered. "And the night is far from over."
Before Gwen could even open her mouth to respond in any way, Moon Knight grappled away, leaving only silence behind.
"That… did not… go great…" Gwen grumbled out between breaths. She did however manage to push herself up onto her feet. The first thing she did was shoot several layers of webbing onto the wounds of the man who had been stabbed to stop his bleeding. Sirens could be heard in the distance, so help would be on the way.
In an act of mercy, she also crouched down to pull out the crescent shaped blade from the back of the man who had almost killed her and webbed his wounds closed too. As she held the weapon, I was able to get a much better look at it. It had a magnificent shine under the light of the moon, despite being stained with blood.
"I suppose that was the white caped crusader the news have been talking about…" Gwen muttered, staring at the blade. Quickly though as the sirens got louder she came out of her trance and webbed up everyone who was on the ground before pulling herself into the air to swing away.
"You know, I think I might listen to you about training a bit before going out again. Don't want this to happen again." She said, her breathing still labored, but the healing factor was clearly kicking in.
"You want to go out again?" I ask, involuntarily raising my eyebrow. "After all that?"
Naturally, I hadn't expected her to stay out of vigilantism forever as almost everyone with spider powers tends to have a hard on for saving the innocents and using the power they gained for good but you would think she would be at least a little traumatized and hesitating after almost dying.
"Even more than before." She said resolutely. "Knowing there are others out there like me trying to do good and bad people who think nothing of killing and robbing for their own gain only makes me want to grow stronger faster so I could do more."
***
Author Note: You may notice I renamed the novel from "Dungeon Incursion System in Marvel" to just "Incursion System in Marvel". It's a bit shorter and sounds better in my opinion.
Also, I will share a picture of the MC in tomorrow's chapter. I realize I never described him yet. His description will be given later in something I have planned but Ill share a picture early anyway.