Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With the Light

Chapter 57: Lights Out

Ever since he'd gotten back from serving his country in the Korean War, Mr. Perkins had lived in New York. He knew the dangers of living in the city, particularly in the last ten years since people with superpowers had become commonplace all over the world but especially in New York. Despite it all, he still enjoyed his walks through Central Park during the day. He and his dearly departed wife had always bickered over the danger, but Mr. Perkins had been adamant about taking his walks. As he put it, he had refused to knuckle under to the Communists, so why should he knuckle under to the thugs who tried to prevent him from enjoying his freedoms?

For over fifty years, Mr. Perkins had somehow managed to avoid being mugged or caught up in some other criminal activity during his walks. Unfortunately, there was a first time for everything, and Mr. Perkins now found himself surrounded by a gang of four young hoods. Three of them wielded switchblades and the fourth carried a baseball bat, and they all had distinctly threatening looks on their faces.

"Cough it up, old timer," one of the thugs, the one wielding the bat, demanded as he held out his hand, swinging his bat menacingly with the other. The four thugs moved to surround Mr. Perkins, cutting off any escape he might have had.

"Cough what up?" Mr. Perkins replied calmly, not missing a beat. "I'll admit I've coughed some scary stuff up over the years. Is that what you had in mind?"

"You senile, or just deaf?" another one of the thugs demanded. "Cough up your wallet, pops!"

"…Pops?" Mr. Perkins frowned. "Young people these days…" he sighed, shaking his head sadly. "Didn't your mothers ever teach you any manners? I suppose not…"

"That's it, grandpa," the bat-wielding thug sneered, both hands on his bat now. "Either we get your Social Security bling, or you get this right between-"

"Wow, talk about desperate!" Mr. Perkins and the thugs heard a lilting feminine voice interrupt the thug. Looking around to see where the voice was coming from, they saw that it belonged to a young woman sitting on top of a lamppost. Both Mr. Perkins and his would-be muggers were caught off guard by her gorgeous figure, beautiful face and long black hair, but what truly caught them by surprise was the bright red and gold costume she was wearing. It took them a moment to recognize her as the spectacular Spider-Woman, and the thugs immediately flinched as they did so. They recalled what she was capable of, and all of the dangerous supervillains she'd fought and defeated, and weren't sure whether to attack or flee.

"As I was saying," Spider-Woman continued, a disgusted look on her face, "I'm frankly amazed at how desperate you losers are. Imagine, mugging an old man just so you can get some money in a pathetic attempt to score!"

"The hell you talking about, bitch?" the bat-wielding thug demanded. "We wanna score his money!"

"And I'm sure I know why," Spider-Woman frowned. "It's all part of your guys' pathetic, desperate attempt to pay a woman to do it with you. I mean, look at you guys-none of you are man enough to be able to get a woman on your own, so you're reduced to mugging someone for money to pay for a woman. Or are you trying to go for the 'dangerous bad boy' image? News flash, boys-women only go for that if the man is actually confident in his manhood. They don't go for whiny little boys that try to compensate for what they don't have downstairs."

"Come down here and say that, you bi-" the thug standing behind Mr. Perkins said, as Spider-Woman did just that. As she leapt down to the path, she fired a blast of energy from her right hand. The energy blast caught the thug square in the chest, knocking him out cold flat on his back. With her left hand, Spider-Woman released a thick strand of webbing that quickly entangled the other three thugs. In a few moments, she had dragged the fourth thug to join them and had them all entangled in a net of webbing.