Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With the Light

Chapter 91: Somebody's Watching Me

It all happened too quickly for Gwen Stacy to consciously register.

Riding home on the subway with her cousin Jill Stacy and her friend Kitty Pryde, Gwen had suddenly felt her spider-senses trigger. They reacted whenever someone Gwen had marked with her pheromones was in a situation of particular interest to her, usually some sort of threat. Gwen could also voluntarily activate them to track someone who carried her pheromones.

Looking up in alarm, Gwen tried to determine what had set off her spider-senses when the subway train jumped off its tracks.

Horrified screams combined with bloodcurdling metallic screeches as the train began plowing through the station, leaving chaos in its wake.

SPIDER-WOMAN #91

SOMEBODY'S WATCHING ME

Before she realized what she was doing, Gwen had instinctively sprung up onto the wall of the train, using her wall-crawling abilities to hold herself in place. Glancing around frantically, she tried to find Kitty or Jill, hoping to catch them, but Gwen couldn't make them out in the mass of tumbling bodies all around her. Desperately, she grabbed onto anyone she could with her hands, hoping that she would be able to keep a secure grip on the wall with her feet through her boots.

The subway train ripped through the station for nearly a minute before it finally settled to a stop. For a long moment, silence filled the air, as the dust and debris from the crash finally began to settle.

Gwen had managed to keep from being flung around by the train's crash, as had the people she had managed to catch. All four of the people Gwen had caught, as well as everyone around her, were too shaken to notice Gwen come back to ground level, gently setting the people she was carrying on the ground. Examining the people she'd caught briefly to see that they were alright, Gwen came up again, her heart pounding as she looked around.

The air was filled with the screams and cries of the dying and wounded, adding to the horror of the scene around Gwen. The subway station looked like a war zone, with people wounded and dying as they lay pinned under debris or slashed by chunks of metal. Blood ran freely over the pavement, and splattered the wreckage all around them.

Her blood running cold, Gwen turned back into the subway train to look for Jill and Kitty. All she could see were wounded passengers, some of them pinned under debris. Kneeling down, Gwen used her spider-strength to wrench some of the debris away, before helping the wounded people crawl free. She repeated her actions as she crawled the length of the subway car, kicking the doors open so that the passengers could help each other get out of the car.

Gwen came across more than one corpse as she canvassed the subway car, although the fact that most of the passengers were alive was some small relief. She felt herself growing sick with worry, as she still couldn't find Kitty or Jill...

...until she found her worst fear at the front of the car.

Jill lay unconscious under a pile of debris, her right arm weirdly splayed behind her as blood oozed from her side.

Gwen had flung the debris aside in an instant, and was soon at Jill's side checking for injuries.

Screaming for help from the paramedics and emergency workers who were now treating the passengers, Gwen wasn't sure what made her feel worse, Jill's injuries or the fact that she hadn't seen Kitty yet.

When the subway train had begun to derail, Kitty Pryde had reacted without thinking. Her phasing powers had activated instinctively, carrying her through the wall of the subway train to fall back through the air before she caught herself.

Kitty lay there in the air for several seconds as she tried to get her bearings. When she did, she nearly fell over again as she found herself hovering in the air, a side effect of her phasing powers. Still not quite believing what she was doing, she took a step, and then another, before she found herself walking on air as easily as if she were on the solid ground.