Spider Gwen: Bushido Chapter7:FLYTRAP

Two days have passed since Gwen met and saved Vladislav’s cousin and she still was amazed over how someone blood related to the dangerous hitman/Lord of War could be so completely different and kind… well, besides the gambling issues. This made her think that perhaps there might be some hope for someone who has committed unspeakable things in their lives, a chance of redemption. However, for someone who lived his teen years in a warzone, witnessing and committing numerous atrocities as a soldier and continuing the life violence and death after the war was over, would be unlikely to break the cycle. As Mr Gomez said: the deeper someone digs its hole, the harder it is to get out of it. In Vlad’s case, that hole must already be halfway to China by now. As she cleared her thoughts while relaxing on top of a building near her house, she also began to plan her next move, as she never heard from Vladislav again after finishing the rescue mission. For now, it seemed that she got the short end of the deal, with no extra intel regarding The Hand vs Demon Gang war.

“Let’s see, maybe Green Muscles stumbled upon something worth investigating…” said Spider Woman to herself. Pulling out her phone and starting to dial her number. But before even unlocking it, she got a text from Jeremy’s number, stirring up her interest.

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“Spider Woman, come and meet me ASAP. I have something to show you. The abandoned projects south of Inwood Hill Park. Please hurry.”

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“This kid Jeremy is a blessing, but he is taking too many risks. After this, I will have to tell him to stop helping me. He has done more than enough.” said Spider Woman before pulling her hood back up and beginning her journey back to Manhattan, this time the northern edge of the district.

Arriving at the location as fast as she could, she found herself in what looked like a series of disused apartment buildings right next to Inwood Hill Park. It was quiet and nobody has been here for the last decade it seems, with smashed windows on several floors and grass growing from the cracks of the pavement, even among old rusty abandoned cars. It looked like an odd place for Jeremy to request to meet her, but thought he might have something extremely important to require coming to somewhere as secluded as the abandoned projects at the very edge of Manhattan Island.

“Come on, where are you? I’m getting worried…” whispered Spider Woman to herself, kicking a few rocks with her foot to pass the time. Eventually, she began hearing footsteps behind her. Her spider sense didn’t go off, a clear sign of nobody hostile near her “Jeez, what took you so long-?” she turned around only to see that it was Frederick who arrived, not Jeremy “-What are you doing here!?”

“I got a message from Jeremy, telling me to come here, something very important he wanted to show me. What ARE YOU doing here?”

“Same message…. Wait, what is going on?”

“Dunno, I’m calling him now, he better have a good explanation for this.” replied Foswell, while pulling out his phone and dialing a number “Something is not right.” Letting the phone ring, both he and the heroine began to hear a phone ringing nearby, but no answer.

“It’s coming from that alleyway around the corner.” said Spider Woman, pointing at an alleyway between two of the abandoned buildings. As they approached, they could clearly hear a phone ringing. “Jeremy? Are you there?” Seconds after entering the alleyway, they found the ringing phone on the ground… and something else: Jeremy’s dead body. He was hanged and tied by the arms to a water pipe and looked like he was severely tortured before being shot several times in the chest. His blood was dripping on the still ringing phone that was placed right at his feet.

“Ohhh no,no,no,no, NO!!!” shouted Foswell before dropping his phone and rushing towards him, desperately trying to untie his hands from the water pipe. Spider Woman on the other hand was in complete shock over seeing this, words couldn’t come from her mouth as she dropped on her knees while looking how Foswell was trying to untie Jeremy “Please, please! Don’t do this to me!” said Foswell in tears as the corpse dropped on the cold concrete. He tried to talk to him, shake him, but nothing happened. Jeremy was long dead.  At this point all he could do was to hug Jeremy, while wailing and sobbing “MOTHERF***ERS!!!”

For Spider Woman, this felt like a ton of bricks falling on the top of her head. “I-i… I told him. I told him this… this would…” grabbing her head, it felt like everything she knew and all her life just went right down the toilet. Then, at that moment after it was beginning to sink in, it hit her hard “Shit…we need to get out of here…” she then got up as fast as she could, heading towards Foswell, still sobbing while holding Jeremy’s dead body. “Fred, we need to get out of here! He wasn’t put here just for show-”

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” Foswell pushed Spider Woman hard, causing her to fall down, but got back up shortly afterwards. Right now, anger was also emerging among the extreme sorrow “You did this! You caused this! He tried to help you with your superhero shit! Now he's dead because of you! HE’S DEAD AND IT’S YOUR FAULT!!!!” His words felt like knives stabbing her heart as he unleashed all his anger on her. Deep down she knew that he was right about what he was yelling to her. It felt pretty much the same as back when she accidentally killed Peter.

“I-i know! But we need to go, this is a trap-” replied Spider Woman trying to help him get up, moments before a blinding spotlight was turned on a few stories above them.

"Call out to all units: They’ve taken the bait. Shoot to kill, repeat; shoot to kill!". shouted a radio call nearby her before realizing what was going on. It was an ambush and they were surrounded by five or six SWAT officers, some on the ground and snipers at the windows above them, all pointing guns at them. Acting fast, she pulled Fred and got into cover right before a hail of  bullets pierced the wall right behind where they stood.

“These aren’t regular cops! We have to get out of here and away from them!” replied Spider Woman, as a set of bullets shattered some bricks from the stack they used as cover from incoming gunfire.

Foswell on the other hand, pulled his sidearm and started to shoot at the tactical officers on the ground, forcing them to take cover “Those f**kers! They used Jeremy as a set up!” he screamed as tears were running down his face in a mix of anger and sorrow “Die! All of you! DIE!!!!”

“If we get past them, we can exit the alleyway and head towards the street overlooking the park! Even corrupt cops won’t dare shoot us in front of the public!” Spider Woman said.

“I am not going to leave him here!” Foswell yelled back at her as he proceeded to keep shooting at the attackers. She felt the same way, not wanting to leave Jeremy’s body in this dirty alley.

“I don’t want to leave him here either! But we must-” Suddenly, something dropped near her and Foswell, making her spider sense go crazy. Much to their horror, it was more proof these were corrupt SWAT officers: a frag grenade.

“MOVE!” shouted Spider Woman before grabbing him again and dived away from the grenade, just as it exploded, blasting the pile of bricks and also shattering nearby windows. Afterwards, with precision, agility and speed, she managed to avoid more incoming  gunfire while also carrying Foswell before seizing a window of opportunity and returning a flashbang thrown at her, temporarily blinding the corrupt SWAT snipers. A few seconds of ceasefire was more than enough for them to escape the dead end and flee, leaving behind Jeremy’s lifeless body, a total heartbreak for Foswell as he turned around for a moment to see him for the last time before being pulled back by Spider Woman.

Running down the alleyway and approaching the busy street, Spider Woman needed to slow down to let Frederick catch up. She was able to outrun anyone due to her enhanced speed, but she had to stick close to Foswell, as he wasn’t in the best shape due to his age and his severely damaged leg was a factor that was impeding him from running properly, not to mention him dropping his walking cane at the ambush scene.

“Hurry! We’re almost out!” said Spider Woman, waving at the career crook, he was trying his best to limp his way towards her.

“You just run! Once I catch you up I will punch your damn face!” replied back Foswell in anger. Hatred was slowly overcoming  sorrow, helping him to keep moving. But before he could reach the webslinger, he felt a sharp pain in his damaged leg before stumbling on the ground. Looking closer, the heroine could see a freshly made gunshot wound after one of the corrupt cops chasing them fired a silenced pistol, incapacitating him.

“Hold on! I’m getting you out of here!”

“No! It’s too late for me, kid! Run! Save yourself!” shouted Foswell while holding his wounded leg, groaning in pain. Behind him, several SWAT officers were approaching while on the other end, she could see the busy street where she could vanish and shake them off. With pain in her soul, Spider Woman turned around and followed his order, running towards the alleyway’s exit. But just before fleeing, one corrupt tactical officer busted through the door of an abandoned building from her right, tackling her to the ground.

“On the ground! Don’t f*cking move!” said the officer as he was fighting her on the ground, using police tactics to try and place her hands behind her back to handcuff her.

“Get the hell off me!!!”

“I got one of the targets! Notify the Serbian that we got his freak!”

Upon hearing this, Spider Woman immediately managed to roll on her back and face the cop. He was wearing his typical NYPD tactical uniform complete with mask and bulletproof helmet, but that wasn’t going to save him against her enhanced strength, as she broke off the handcuffs, then proceed to pick him up and slam him against the wall several times, letting her anger and frustration getting the best of her as she was beating the corrupt cop.

“You… Goddamn… PIG!!!” yelled Spider Woman as she was kicking the guy as often as she could. The officer couldn’t do anything against her wrath, however, a bullet passed by, grazing her head, waking her up from her rage. Seeing the group of cops shooting at her, it was clear she couldn’t spend one more second there. With no other choice left, she jumped as high as she could and swung her way to a more populated area, losing the cops. Half an hour later, she sheltered at the top of an office building, nearly collapsing in a corner as she took her mask off.

“Screwed by Vlad, nearly killed by corrupt law enforcement… again, left Fred to be caught and Jeremy dead…” she said while leaving her hood on and rubbing her eyes, wiping her tears “Jeremy… I’m sorry, kid. I’m so sorry…” She then slowly went to the edge of the building and took a peek at street level, seeing the corrupt SWAT officers dragging a handcuffed Foswell to an unmarked police Ford Explorer. It looked like the crook’s noise and struggling attracted the public’s attention, preventing the corrupt cops from killing him, so they decided to take him alive.

“Let go, you dirty bastards! I know who you are working for!” shouted Frederick, still struggling, but instead received a hard blow in his stomach by one of the cops who smacked him with the butt of his rifle.

“Hey! This is not legal, asshole!” shouted a bystander as he began filming and sticking the phone in the crooked cop’s face, only to have it yanked from his hand and thrown against a wall, shattering it to pieces.

“Back down before I crack your head and take you in as well for interfering, little boy.” replied the cop, pushing him violently on the ground as the rest of them placed Foswell in the back of the car. Seconds later, the rest of the tactical team got in the second unmarked car after helping their still disoriented fellow cop who ended up with a cracked helmet from the heroine and drove off. Little they knew was Spider Woman observing what just happened, getting increasingly angry over what she saw.

“Assholes. You swore to protect and now you work for Ivanovic. You will get what you deserve, that’s a promise.” she said before taking a few steps back and began thinking options on how to track down Fred and save him. She could follow the cars, but by the time she looked around the convoy disappeared in NY traffic. “F*ck! Now what?”

Kicking a pebble out of frustration, something caught her attention: a tiny piece of cloth under her right shoe that stuck due to her wall crawling ability. Unsticking it, she was ready to throw it away, but immediately stopped before taking another look at it. Much to her surprise, it was the ID of the SWAT officer that tackled her to the ground.

“A glimpse…” said Spider Woman as she looked at the ID. This was a solid lead, as cops that work in tactical teams or undercover have these ID’s for reasons of anonymity in case some criminal might seek revenge. The only way to find the identity is to run the tag into the NYPD’s database and this she found it easy, as she could simply ask George to access the database. As Captain of the NYPD, he had the clearance needed. “Hang on Foswell. I won’t leave you at the mercy of these jerks.” She said after squeezing the tag, then placing it in her thigh pocket before rushing back home.

Back at the Stacy residence, Gwen’s hopes of a fast rescue operation have hit a brick wall. After telling her father everything that happened and about the corrupt cops, she showed George the ID tag in the hope of getting a name and possible address, but she found out things won’t be as easy as typing on a keyboard and hitting the “Enter” key.

“What do you mean you don’t have access? You’re the captain of the NYPD, for God’s sake!”

“Bureaucratic changes, Gwennie. Ever since the Outbreak, there was a lot of pressure on me due to us losing so many men and women in blue. We lacked the manpower to function properly, so the state did some decentralizing. I am still captain, but now the tactical units are a separate independent division, with its own NYPD captain.” replied George, showing Gwen the new department structure that was pinned on his home office wall.

“Ok, so who is now captain of the Special Weapons And Tactics division? Is it someone you know?”

“Sadly, is someone I know very well and certain he won’t help you at all.”

“Why?” asked Gwen, curious and a bit worried over hearing his answer.

“Because of Frank. He runs the tactical division.”

“WHAT? CASTLE??!” shouted Gwen in utter shock “That many cops in the city and Castle ends up running SWAT?”

“He passed all the requirements with flying colors and he’s good at running that unit, there is no denying that. I’m sorry sweetie, but this time, I cannot help you, I don’t have that kind of leverage to convince Frank to help you or, should I say Spider Woman, out.”

“Just my luck…” replied Gwen, lowering her head in disappointment over the situation “Where can I find him?”

“Well, it's Friday, right? If he still has his same schedule, he should be at our firing range with DeWolff. What do you have in mind?”

“To be honest, something I never thought I would ever do in my life. I will try to reason with him and beg for help.” replied Gwen before grabbing a bite of a chocolate bar she picked from the table in order to get a bit of sugar rush before going to meet the cop. She felt a massive knot in her stomach, as she will have to face the man who has a hell bent on enforcing the arrest warrant on Spider Woman for the death of Peter Parker.

Meanwhile, at the firing range at the outskirts of NYC, several police officers were beginning to pack up their bags and leave for the day. However, two cops were still inside, practicing. Like a friendly competition, Detective Frank Castle and his new partner Jean DeWolff were trying to score as high as possible for this week’s session.

“Max points for the fourth time in a row, Frank. You should play the lottery with this amount of luck.” said Jean after both ran out of bullets and decided to call it a day. Unlike Castle, she only managed to hit the maximum score only once.

“Luck has almost nothing to do, it’s all about practice and never giving up.” replied Castle after putting the gun back in his side holster and closing back his vest. “Sometimes, one miss can be the difference between going back to your family alive and not going home at all.”

“That 's cold, Frank. Even for you.”

“Cold, but it is the truth, Jean. Look at what happened during The Outbreak. We lost so many back then. All that violence...all those deaths.” replied Castle, looking at a picture of a former partner he had stored in his wallet. It was clear he didn’t take it easy losing him during that catastrophic event.

“I know, we were completely spread thin after that. Thank God we quickly found new recruits, at least the tactical teams are up to scratch.” said DeWolff after cleaning up her pistol, as she finished her shooting session as well.

“Although… I had some issues with the overall quality and attitude of these new recruits. I have seen more than one already slacking off and talking back like there’s not a chain of command, I had to punch one in the face to remind him what his job is.” replied Castle before grabbing his jacket and leaving the range along with Jean. However, just as they were walking through the empty parking lot in order to reach their car, a shadow appeared behind them. Turning around, both cops saw Spider Woman simply standing in front of them, in the least threatening manner.

“Castle, I-…” started Spider Woman to say, but found herself staring down the barrels of both Frank’s and Jean’s loaded pistols.

“Hands on the back of your head!” said Castle in a stern voice, pointing the gun at Spider Woman’s face, while DeWolff was reaching for her handcuffs.

“Castle! Frank! Hold your horses. I’m not here for trouble!” replied Spider Woman, raising her hands slightly on instinct, but it looked like Frank wasn’t listening.

“The way I see it, you already are in big trouble. Now, comply! Jean, get the handcuffs!”

“Frank, please! I… I need your help.”

“You want help? There is a priest in The Raft, ask him to help you out after you’re locked up.” quickly replied Frank, approaching her, but Jean began to slowly lower her pistol after looking at her right in her eyes, through her mask. Something was wrong here.

“Frank, hear her out. I don’t think she came looking for trouble.” said DeWolff, much to Castle’s increasing confusion and anger over this request. Spider Woman on the other hand is also surprised over Jean taking her side for now. “Let her speak, then if you are still not convinced, we’ll arrest her.”

“Detective DeWolff… thank you.” replied Spider Woman before laying out the entire situation. For the next two minutes, she went full on, not stopping even for a breath of air. She told the two detectives everything that happened, from finding out about the incoming gang war that will make NYC look like a battle in Fallujah all towards present day, mentioning her ambush by corrupt cops and her friend taken by them under Vladislav’s orders. Immediately, upon hearing about Ivanovic, Jean reacted by twitching and on instinct grabbing her leg where she received a severe injury back when she tried to apprehend him during the initial Murder INC crisis. She also still remembered Spider Woman’s effort in stopping the Serbian hitman, hence why she was more lenient towards Spider Woman. Despite Castle still being indifferent, Jean was beginning to go against her police code of impartiality and feel sympathetic towards her.

“… so as you see, I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t need help. But I need.” said Spider Woman in a sheepish tone. She had little to no hope for her pleas to be taken into consideration by the two detectives and by Castle’s response, it looked like her request fell on deaf ears.

“And why should we help you? How do I know you’re not tricking us into giving up information to assist your evasion?” replied Castle in a harsh tone before getting the handcuffs “Now put these on before I make you, and believe me, you won’t like how I will do it.”

“Frank… Can we talk for a second? Come with me…” said Jean, gently pulling Castle aside so she could talk to him in private “Spider, stay there.” she also said before turning her back on the heroine and beginning to talk to Frank. Spider Woman didn’t hear what they were talking but judging by Castle’s reaction, she could speculate it was about her and it wasn’t to Frank’s liking. However, after a minute, she saw him reluctantly agreeing to something and turning back towards her, this time putting the gun back in his holster.

“Give me the damn tag.” said Frank in a distant voice, much to Spider Woman’s surprise. It seemed that DeWolf managed to convince him to let this one slide, completely the opposite of his strict code and it looked like she now owed George’s former partner big time. In a matter of minutes, Castle used a PDA-like device and his login information to access the SWAT database and ID the corrupt officer “There you go: Corporal Jerry Murphy, Upper East Side precinct. Should be finishing his shift in half an hour.”

Looking at the mugshot, Spider Woman was amazed that despite Murphy wearing his tactical ski mask and helmet when he was trying to tackle her she still recognized him. The look in his eyes did make her shiver. When she fought him they made eye contact for a moment and she didn’t forget that look.

“Frank…. I- I don’t know what to say…”

“Don’t say anything to anyone. Ever. Now get the f*ck out of here before i change my mind…” quickly replied Castle, clearly irritated that he broke his code and aided a wanted fugitive. Jean on the other hand, gave Spider Woman a warm smile for a brief moment and a nod before getting in Castle’s Land Rover Discovery and driving off. For a few seconds, Spider Woman simply stood, still in shock that she managed to do the impossible before rushing towards the Upper East Side in order to find Jerry and discover where he and his friends took Fred.

To be continued…

Seventh chapter of the new story arc, created by me and https://www.deviantart.com/snarkymofo

trusting the Serbian is unhealthy for your wellbeing... or the ones around you

previous chapter https://www.patreon.com/posts/spider-gwen-kind-85340748