Arachnoblast: I'm Fourteen This is Ridiculous

Chapter 11: Discoveries

On the Fourth of July—a few short, uneventful days after the incident with Martin and the police—Arachnoblast was on patrol once again when sirens and firetrucks caught her attention. She followed them a short distance to a flaming apartment building. A few feet from the building, a woman was crying, screaming that her baby was still inside, but the firemen couldn't let her pass back into the inferno.

"I've got it!" Arachnoblast called, swinging into the building. It was almost unbearably hot, but thankfully her mask was able to filter out the worst of the smoke.

It didn't take her long to locate the wailing infant. She gingerly picked the baby up and smoothly swung out the window down to the street, handing the child to its mother.

As the mother tearfully thanked Arachnoblast, a police officer came up from behind the superhero, grabbing her shoulder. Arachnoblast startled and turned.

"Oh, officer!" she exclaimed nervously. "Uh, can I help you?"

"I'm taking you in, Arachnoblast," the officer stated, "seeing as there's a warrant out for your arrest."

"Yeah, yeah, I've read the paper," Arachnoblast sighed. "But—"

A bloodcurdling shriek sounded from a high-up floor in the building, interrupting the conversation.

"There's someone still up there!" a man cried from the street.

The officer looked at a nearby fireman, as though to tell him to take care of it.

"We can't go in," the fireman responded. "The roof's about to collapse. Whoever's up there is a goner, unless..." The fireman trailed off, glancing at Arachnoblast, who was staring at the officer.

"Fine, go ahead," the officer sighed, releasing his grip on Arachnoblast's shoulder. "But I'll be here for you when you get back."

"Thanks, officer." Arachnoblast jumped onto a high windowsill. "But I'm not coming back!" With that, she crashed into a window, searching for the source of the scream. "Are you in here?"

Instead of answering, the scream turned into odd, high-pitched sobs.

"Hello? I'm here to help you!" Arachnoblast called, then a flaming beam fell from the ceiling right next to her. "We've gotta get out of here! This whole building is coming down!"

The sobs continued, coming from a figure wrapped in a blanket. Arachnoblast gently reached a hand toward the figure's shoulder, ready to reassure and pull the poor soul out of the fire.

With another awful shriek, the figure whirled around, revealing a man covered in green armor wearing a freakish mask. Arachnoblast gasped and stumbled backward, nearly crashing into a flaming beam in her effort to get away from the Green Goblin.

"You're pathetically predictable," the Goblin sneered, throwing the blanket aside. "All I have to do is light a little building and here you come: a moth to the flame."

Arachnoblast struggled to breathe deeply in the smoky air, her heart pounding. "You—you started this fire? What about all of the innocent people you could've hurt? The people who've lost their homes because of this?"

"What about my generous proposal?" the Goblin asked, disregarding Arachnoblast's questions. "Are you in, or are you out?"

"You're out, Gobby!" Arachnoblast yelled. "Out of your mind!"

"Wrong answer!" The Goblin cackled, throwing a pumpkin bomb.

Arachnoblast moved to cover her face, but instead of blowing up, this pumpkin split into several small, bat-shaped blades that all soared toward the young hero. Panicked, Arachnoblast jumped and twisted in order to dodge the airborne blades, but one still cut a large piece out of her ponytail and another grazed her knee.