FIREWEAVER | A Spiderverse Fanfic

Chapter Thirty-One

Lungs pierced by icy air. Snow swirling across her vision in a foggy street. The warm hum of street lamps filtered to her ears, cutting through the fog in red beams.

The ground shook beneath Esme's feet, a familiar throb in her head alerting her before she heard a screech of metal. She lunged to the left, hands colliding with the concrete first before rolling into a low stance. A large hand crashed into where she had been standing, indenting the ground with a mighty rumble.

She exhaled and saw her breath float by, every bit of her nerves on fire. Her visors glistened as she looked up at the towering figure of metal, a robot destroyer from a decade long ago. Warnings crowded her vision, blaring red and orange spray painted onto her target that felt more like her assailant.

She can hear her heart beating above the alarms, her vitals telling her what her pulse already knows. The pain in her leg fluctuates for a moment before it numbs, her foot wiping a streak of snow as she readies.

Esme tenses, but Weaver's eyes lock with the green streak across its face slowly powering up. Her overlay follows her retina, swiping to her volume output and adjusting it to max.

She takes a deep breath, bundling up the silk in her hands as she hears the electric hum emit louder from the Sentinels chest.

"It's almost powered up Esme!" Lyla's voice chimes in her ear com, but she stays still.

Just one more moment. One more...

Electricity spikes in the back of her skull and she throws her web with all the force she has. It hits the sentinels visor with a whoosh the same second it fires. She dashes for cover as it ignites in an explosion, quickly patting down her gloves as it sizzles from her residue.

"Good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?" Light materialized next to her head, Lyla leaning forward with her white fur coat falling from her shoulders.

Esme groans, leaning her head back against brick of what must have been a former wall. "Bad news."

"Bad news is, the Sentinel is still up and running." Lyla's voice is apologetic but Esme could hear the smile a mile away.

"And the good news?" Esme willed herself to look around the corner, cursing to herself as she saw the thing slowly stand up through the flurry of snow.

"Good news, you've damaged it by thirty percent."

Esme yelled as she felt the ground rumble beneath her, leaping out of the way as a ray of red incinerated through the wall.

"May I suggest a different training exercise?" Lyla followed her through the air as she swung.

"Are you saying I can't handle this?" Esme grit her teeth as she landed on the side of what used to be a shopping center advertisement, the girls smile more ominous than inviting.

"No, but I will note that this enemy was usually handled by a team of heroes from the heroic age. It wasn't recommended to fight it one on one."

Esme rolled her eyes and fired another web, wall-running until she arrived to the edge of a rooftop and evaded another small beam from the sentinel.

"What can I say, I needed the challenge after being under house arrest for so long."

Her eyes met with its metallic face once again, Ruby red turning to emerald green.

"What, you weren't satisfied with beating up street thugs?" Lyla folded her arms, momentarily moving in front of her view of the robot to give her a smug look.

She pixilated just as a ray of green sliced through the air towards her, time slowing down as she web-zipped away.

"Have you been spying on me?!" Esme hissed, slamming her shoulder against the wall as her fingers quickly attached.