Mara Lee is just your regular teenage girl living a double life as New York's friendly neighborhood Spider-Woman. Until one fateful day when she's thrown through a strange orange portal and everything she's ever known changes drastically. Trapped in...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
When I was around ten years old, my mom-the old hag-got obsessed with the idea of debutante balls. I think she watched some disgusting old rom-com and the stupidity of it hooked her. I don't fucking know.
Anyway, the point is, she wanted me to go to one of these balls when I was older, so she forced me to take a ballroom dance class. She swore it would be fun, saying that her and my old man did one back in the day--as if that was supposed to give it some sort of bitch-ass credibility.
Of course, it was boring as hell, and the teacher was this old dude with four strands of white hair plastered to his skull and a sweaty potbelly. He smelled like piss.
I gained nothing from the class; I'm naturally good at everything, so I didn't need a teacher to teach me how to tutu around a room, but there was one thing the old geezer said that stuck with me.
'Dancing is a union. It's a focus between two people. If that focus isn't faithfully maintained, you'll fall out of step. You must always pay attention to your partner.'
I don't care about dancing, but I will tell you one thing.
Fighting is a union too.
Fighting is all about focusing on the person in front of you.
You have to watch their every move: the step of their foot, the thrust of their fist, even down to the minute details like the curve of their brow.
Fighting is all about matching your opponent. You've gotta know who you're fighting before you can know how to beat them.
'Course, that would be a lot easier in my case if my opponent's quirk didn't allow her to sense my every move before I even thought into existence.
Once Spider-Freak got rid of her ill-placed guilt, she didn't hold back, and her punch hurt like a bitch.
It made me feel alive, the rhythm of it. The strikes and the blocks, the spins and the dodges, skin against skin, the salt of sweat mixing, and breath hot and heavy.
So far, neither of us had won, each landing hits with equal force.
I swung my fist at her face and she spun out of reach.
She kicked me square in the chest, but I held my balance.
Again and again and again.
"Getting tired yet, boom boy?" she teased, blocking a punch.
I grinned. "Fuck no. But if you are, we can take a break."
She laughed, but didn't respond, focused on trying to land a hit.
Her eyes widened slightly, and I knew she saw an opening. I braced myself, ready. She lunged forward, fist raised...
...What was that?
Suspended in movement, her skin looked almost transparent. Her blue eyes were dull and dead. As she came for me, the sound of her breath was weakening.
