LOOTING DC #15. Webbed In
Jake blinked once.
Twice.
Okay... so that happened.
The guy was still twitching - sort of. Muscle memory, maybe. The brain was definitely gone. The head, too. In its place was a mess, like someone had split a watermelon with a machete and kept going out of spite.
Jake's eyes tracked upward, locking onto the figure above the body.
Female.
She stood poised like a dancer - one foot planted on the man's caved-in chest, the other heel balanced on a web-line now soaked dark red. Her frame was lean but lethal - athlete's muscle under black mesh and segmented armor. Tall. Flexible. Built for speed and precision.
And her blades - those twin curved weapons - hung low in her hands, reverse-gripped, glistening and serrated. Still dripping.
She held them loose, easy. Like she hadn't broken a sweat.
The mask sealed it: bone-white, full-face, with narrow crimson slits for eyes and a painted smile frozen mid-punchline. It looked amused. She probably was.
Jake didn't need to guess who she was.
Cheshire. Artemis' older sister.
She stood like she'd emerged from the wall itself - casual, relaxed. Like this wasn't even foreplay. Like she was waiting for him to say something clever.
Jake looked at the corpse.
Then at her.
This was bad.
People had seen him chase the guy.
If this got pinned on him… yeah. Bad press didn't even begin to cover it.
Cheshire cocked her head, eyes scanning him like she was deciding where she'd start cutting.
"You're quiet," she said, stepping off the corpse. Her voice was smooth, lazy, like a knife sliding across silk.
Jake swallowed. "Bit distracted," he said, motioning vaguely at the red smear formerly known as a person. "You know. The murder."
Cheshire laughed - low and real, like he'd just whispered a private joke into her ear.
"That wasn't murder," she said, twirling a blade with lazy grace. "That was clean-up."
Jake glanced down at the briefcase in his hand, then back at her. "Look, I don't know what this guy did to you-"
"Oh, sweetheart." Her smile widened behind the mask. "He didn't do anything to me."
Beat.
Jake's mask-eyes widened. Clueless.
And then - she was close.
His Spider-Sense didn't scream, hum, or tell him to flip backwards.
It went quiet. Still. Frozen, like a deer watching the headlights approach.
She circled him, light on her feet, a predator sizing up something not quite worth eating. Yet.
"But you," she murmured, circling tighter, "you looked like you wanted to do it."
Jake blinked, turning with her. "Do what?"
"Kill him."
He stiffened.
She was guessing. Had to be.
"I saw it," she said, voice low and close. "The way your shoulders tensed. The twitch in your fingers. You weren't thinking about justice."
She leaned in, conspiratorial. "You were thinking about the feel of it. The pop. The mess. The ending..."
"The cinematics," she whispered, savoring the word.
Jake's mouth opened.
"No witty comeback?" she teased, mock-pouting. "I thought spider-brats lived for those."
He bit back three responses. All of them would've gotten him killed faster.
Instead, he exhaled, shoulders relaxing. "He wasn't worth the trouble."
Cheshire's head tilted. "Is that so?"
She stepped closer. "I wonder if you're worth the trouble."
Steel hissed as her blades angled forward, slow and easy.
Jake shifted his stance, back foot bracing. "This about the guy?"
"No," she said flatly. "It's about getting rid of a bug before it becomes a nuisance."
Jake's brow furrowed.
Then the thought clicked.
He smiled beneath the mask. "You know, you remind me a lot of a certain... blonde I came across-"
He didn't finish.
His Spider-Sense detonated.
She lunged - feral, fast, blades flashing.
Jake barely dodged. One blade sliced past his ribs, the other sparked against the wall behind him.
"So that's what this is about?" he muttered, twisting mid-air to evade a cat-quick heel kick.
No answer - just motion. She flowed into a second kick, faster.
He ducked low, spinning under it, a breath away from being bisected.
Thwip! - web-shot mid-roll. He yanked down a hanging street sign, catching it with his heel, redirecting it mid-leap like a shield. Cheshire sliced clean through it before landing in a three-point crouch, blades dragging long, metallic sighs across the asphalt.
Jake launched backward, flipping off the wall. He came down hard - Web-Zip Tackle - slamming into her mid-guard. The impact staggered her.
He spun mid-air - Spinning Heel-Kick Disarm - but she ducked, letting the blade fly from her hand only to catch it again as it flipped. Show-off.
She lunged - he backpedaled, Double Web-Yank Counter - snagging both her wrists mid-swing and yanking them wide. Her blades screeched past his shoulders, missing by inches.
She kicked. Hard.
Jake went flying, landed in a skid, flipped to his feet. That hurt.
"Okay," he muttered. "No more warm-ups."
He aimed. Fired. Not at her - at the space around her. A strange spiral of webs laced out in a double helix, stretching wide across the alley.
She paused - just long enough to wonder.
The "False Thread."
She moved to dodge.
Jake snapped the strand taut.
Like a whip with a mind of its own, the line recoiled - not toward her, but ahead of her dodge, anticipating it. The thread coiled around her neck in mid-air with a brutal snap, the tension halting her momentum instantly.
She gasped - not fear, just... surprise.
Jake was already moving - dragged forward by the same momentum, flipping over her as she clawed at the thread. He landed behind her, knees bent, arm cocked just slightly.
The web was pulled tight - his hand holding the thread like a leash. One pull, and-
"Well," he said, breathless, "guess we found your pressure point."
But Cheshire didn't freeze.
She pivoted with the tension - rolled into it, blade flicking up just enough to catch the web itself. A precise slash. The thread snapped.
Jake's eyes widened.
CLANG! Her heel nearly took off his jaw. He backflipped, instincts on fire.
He landed low, crouched, panting.
They faced each other, frozen for a beat.
"Impressive," she said, tilting her head. "You almost had me."
"Almost?" Jake rose, stretching his neck with a crack. "Guess that's not good enough."
"There it is," Cheshire replied, a smile audible beneath the mask. "That little spark."
Jake straightened, the fight still in his frame. "What does this have to do with Artemis anyway?"
That did it.
Cheshire's expression cracked behind the mask - offended, furious, like he'd spat in her drink.
"That idiot," she muttered through clenched teeth, her grip tightening on her blade.
For a moment, it looked like she'd cut him in half right there.
Jake tensed, expecting it.
But - she hesitated.
Her body stilled, eyes shifting… not at him. Past him.
The air changed.
Like the wind had left the block. No rustle. No hum.
Something was wrong.
Jake felt it in his spine. In the quiet.
Cheshire took two steps back, looking uncertain. Undecided.
Then she leapt - straight up, hitting a fire escape and vaulting to the rooftops. One fluid move. No flair. No threat.
Just... escape.
She vanished into the sun's glow without a word.
Jake stared after her, heart thudding. He wanted to do the same. His Spider-sense was telling him to. But-
Clink.
Something hit the pavement beside him.
He turned.
A round metal capsule rolled to a stop.
"…Is that a-?"
Pshhhffftt.
Smoke bomb.
🕸️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕸️
It began without warning.
One blink, the sky was clear. The next - sheets of rain, loud and heavy, hammering the Tower windows like a warning. No wind. No thunder. Just relentless water, as if the world had sprung a leak.
Raven sat curled in the corner of the common room, cloaked in her usual stillness. A book was open in her lap, unread. Her tea had long gone cold.
Starfire hovered beside the window, her hands cradling a fresh cup. She turned, orange eyes dim with quiet concern.
"Raven," she asked gently. "Is this you?"
"No," Raven said, voice low and distant. "It's not me."
Starfire descended, kneeling beside her. "Then… is it him?"
Raven closed her eyes. The sound of frying circuits and barking faded to a hush behind the steady drum of rain. The air was wrong - unnaturally still. No birds. No clouds. Just water, falling hard and straight, like the sky was sweating something out.
"I don't know," she murmured. But she didn't speak of what she felt. How the rain pelted down like a warning. How it reeked - not of sorrow, but of vengeance.
Behind them, Cyborg cursed as his breakfast attempt exploded in sparks. Beast Boy, now a tiny green dog, yelped and skittered across the floor, tail between his legs.
"Yo! My tofu!"
"Your fire hazard, you mean!"
Neither of them noticed the way Raven's hand briefly tightened around her teacup, or how her eyes flicked toward the rain.
The door hissed open.
Nightwing walked in, drenched through in less than five minutes, his hair plastered to his forehead, water pooling beneath his boots.
He stopped cold, taking in the smoke, the barking, the tension.
"…Okay," he said, blinking through the rain on his lashes. "Did I just walk into a sitcom, or an omen?"
Raven didn't look at him. Just turned a page in her book.
"Both."
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