Silver Spider

Description
Not eyes, but black, faded, mirrored slits stare out at the world from behind a dull midnight blue face mask, hiding the features of this costumed figure above a tight sinewy bodystocking. She is female and full-figured, the entire midnight blue torso of the suit highlighted by bright red gloves and boots. Over her left breast is a large silver spider, swinging from a line across her right breast to her shoulder. Silver lines glide from her shoulders to her gloves. A simple black belt wrapped around her waist meets at a faux ruby belt buckle, above where the leggings begin. The midnight blue legs descend down into a flare of red boots at the calf. The boots and gloves of the costume are ringed with silver, highlighting the long, agile fingers.

Origin
Grandma sense me cookies from somewhere. I don't know where, but she sends them to me. They always arrive in these silver spheres at midnight, next to my bed. They desintegrate after they arrive, and it doesn't matter where my bed is. I was born seventeen years ago, about twenty years after Lydia Bannon and Tiffany Webb adopted my mother. Adoption was the best thing that ever happened to her, because she got off the streets. Lydia was Vibracobra, truth and justice and all that, and when she went off to fight the Chronarch, I wasn't even born yet. I guess the cookies are from her, but I'll never really know for sure. Mom got a letter when I was five that said she couldn't explain why, and we read it together, on the couch, in the living room. It was slow going. I wasn't too smart back then. Dad was in the army, and travelled a lot, but he always came home and gave me a peppermint candy. When I was seven, we got another letter, that said dad had been killed in action, and was receiving a purple heart posthumously. They didn't say what he was doing. I didn't want to be a superhero. I didn't want to listen to my mother. So I went back out to the streets where my mother came from, and learned the school of hard knocks, cut classes, and spent time in detention. I was stupid. Mother said Grandma was an idiot also once, but she didn't like to talk about that. I liked to talk about my grandmother, though, sometimes, because she was a famous scientist. If I had kept my mouth shut, I wouldn't be in this position. It figures.

I used to go down to the Genesis Knights base to clean it, like I always did. It's gone now, of course, and the computer core was empty. No one says what happened, but mom and I think Vibracobra took the computer with her. The science labs were still intact, and I never would have thought of going in there, except that I needed something for my science project, because I said my grandmother was a famous scientist. So I unlocked the door with my old set of keys and I go in, and I poked around with the electron microscope, looking at the old DNA samples Lydia collected. I thought no one would notice if I claimed I had found the samples wandering through the sewers, or around my house. But getting in trouble with my mother was nothing compared to failing Mrs. Abbott's biology class. I went into the lab and started looking at the samples, putting this guy Multitask's sample under the 'scope first, and leaving the rest right nearby. The electron microscope activated, and Multitask's sample exploded, blowing the door off, and sending all the samples everywhere, broken and in a million pieces. There was a lot of light, and a lot of heat, and the door was blown off it's hinges, and most of the base was melted. I still don't know why I lived. I was badly bruised, and had a sprained ankle, and I hurt all over, like someone had paddled me with a wiffle bat for weeks.

I staggered back up the stairs of the sewers, towards home, shutting the secret door and leaving what's left of the place behind me. It stank down there, worse than my fellow street gang members from a year previous. At that moment, I was in a lot of pain, and I didn't really remember things too well. I do remember a lot of bruises and tripping over a stair, and my hand stuck for a couple of moments and I couldn't pull it free. At the time, I didn't pay it any mind.

My mother always asked me if I was fighting when I came home. I said no, as usual. So with all my bruises, she grounded me. I told myself I wasn't going to go back down there while my friends in school teased me, and said I was up to no good, as usual. I was so full of myself that I went back down there. I couldn't let my friends get the better of me, and I couldn't let Lydia's stuff get the better of me, either. Who wants to be beaten up by someone else's DNA, anyway? But I had gotten smarter, and started doing my homework. My teachers all thought I was just applying myself, but I knew something had happened in that lab. So I had to go back there. Maybe I wasn't smarter, after all.

I went back down to the lab, and while I was there, cleaning up what was left of the place, I got "The Idea." At first, it started as a tiny little speck in the back of my brain, while I looked over what was left, and a couple of knocked-over file cabinets, and it grew like ragweed. This time, I dusted off the microscope plug, got a spare slide, and looked at my own DNA sample. The fact that the microscope worked should have told me that something was wrong. But when I looked, I knew for sure that something unpleasant had happened. I had been reading up on science over the month, in case I turned into Monsterwoman, or the Homegirl, or a puddle of gel. So I knew that the seven or eight different DNA types fused into my genetic code in some sort of semiunique molecular sequence was not normal at all. There were also some machines in my blood that appeared to be inert and powerless. It seemed as if when I turned the microscope on, Multitask's sample had sponaneously been hypercharged, and exploded, infusing me with the DNA of the other samples that were piled up near the microscope. I spent most of the weekend trying to figure out what was going on, and mostly failed. But I was getting smarter. Smart enough to turn my grades around and get away from gangs. I started spending more time with Grandma Tiffany, and I hid Lydia's notes under the bed by pulling a floorboard up. By the time I turned fifteen, no one recognized me as one of the homegirls anymore. I was becoming smart.

I began studying DNA that year, and stopped going to the doctor. It took me most of the month to figure out some of what was going on. It took me most of the month to figure out what's happening to me, and I mastered the basics of genetics and several other sciences. I was slowly changing, but at the time, all I could do was stick to walls. It did help me out, though, when I could stick to the underside of the bed, and my mother was looking for me because I was up too late. Things were never going to be the same.

It took a year for me to tap into my bioenergy reserves, and do something more impressive than stick to a wall. I tried everything, but it was slow and agonizing. I had real superpowers, but they were slow to develop. If Lydia knew, whereever she was, that it was all Multitask's fault, she'd be furious. It was going to take a lot of practice, but I did have powers. I began to do well in school, and I passed enough tests that I might be able to go to college early. My mother told me that she was moving to Tennessee when I started going to college, but all I really cared about right then was coming up with a superhero name.

By the time six months had passed, I had figured out that most of my powers came from one of Tiffany's samples that she had given Lydia. I began to learn gympastics, and computer programming, thinking they would help me in my war on crime. I thought it was going to be hard, especially with no name. I borrowed Tiffany's gymnastics manuals, and told her it was for excercise, all the while praying that she would believe me. I still slipped out on Saturday nights to go to the local hip-hop clubs, where I get to be another person when I get up on the mike. After the months had passed, I made my first attempt at a superhero costume. It was ugly. I put a little red spider belt buckle on a silver lycra suit, and it looked like an ugly fish that had been electrocuted a few times. My second attempt was better.

The costume looked pretty when I was done, and much better than the original. It doesn't really look that much like any of Tiffanys costumes, or Vibracobras, which should help to avoid suspicion. I think it looks better. I can blast holes in walls, shoot real webbing out of my wrists (Every day, I thank whatever God is out there that it wasn't my butt), and I can break concrete blocks with my bare hands, though it takes a little squeezing. Ready to be a hero, I leapt for the exit, having largely destroyed what was left of the old base practicing..

I didn't make it out the door. I didn't really realize, at that moment, just how far I could jump. Instead, I slammed into a concrete wall, and looked really stupid. My portable holocam recorded the moment for posterity. I erased the tape and started practicing some more. I had to try and be better than my two grandmothers. It was a tradition, like that Haunt man Lydia always used to talk about before she disappeared. I practiced my skills for another month, before trying again...

I made my way out my bedroom window, and into the night for the first time. The light caught me, reflecting shards of red across my belt buckle, highlighted by streams of silver light, and it comes to me, like a dream, whispered across the ages. Silver Spider. I felt like a superhero. I had a name. I was bouncing from rooftop to rooftop. I was...dodging a lamppost. Anticlimaxes seem to plague everyone who wears a costume. I shouldn't have been surprised.

That was six years ago. I've learned a lot since then, such as how to fight htings tougher than muggers. Those lampposts don't present nearly as much of a danger as they used to. Lydia would be jealous. She always used to wrap herself around them. And Grandma Tiffany doesnt' suspect a thing. This is my last year of school, with College in the fall, and I'm still getting smarter every day. I've learned to say heroic things, at least what people think a hero should say, and my mother mails me enough money from Tennessee to keep the apartment and eat. Six months in, my life began to stink.

I was on patrol, as usual, when I saw the overturned Webb Electronics truck. Grandma Tiffany's in trouble again. It wasn't the hired goons that bothered me. I can slam a thousand of those guys and get home in time for Rabbi Ninja in the morning. The big robot-bug thing was really powerful, though. So I tried to keep it busy while remembering all the superhero rules. Don't kill anyone, life is precious. Protect the Innocent. While it's busy blasting a few lampposts, I kept the driver out of harm's way. Keep people safe. It's what it's all about. Though I can't help but feel a certain twinge of vindication at the now-burned lampposts. I manage to land a few punches on the robot, and the venom bolt hurts it, but it's not really all that bothered by my attacks. The police came, and it fled into the night, cursing my name. It didn't even get to steal anything. I make it home, not really conscious of my bruises, and sleep through half of Rabbi Ninja. Being a superhero is hard. The past few years haven’t been so good to me. I’ve fought Doctor Jackal and Mr. Hide. I fought ACE, and even though their leaders still rot in prison, I’m aching for a rematch with 3000, who broke my ribs and very nearly killed me. I’ve saved dimensions, battled conquerors, trashed shamans and beaten up faeries. I can’t get rid of the city’s vampire problem. They have rights now. I’ve made love to gods and been dumped in sewers. I’ve got a PhD from CBSU, and now I’m working on my law degree. When Bolt left and said “It’s your city now,” I wasn’t ready. The bottom’s dropped out of my world ever since. I can save the world. I can stick to walls. I can fight the best the world has to offer and come away smiling. But I can’t get a steady relationship. I can’t sleep much. And I can’t take off my mask. Want to be me, yo? I got your Silver Spider right here. It’s not as cool as it sounds.

Powers
Silver Spider has a variety of powers and spider-related abilities that are fused to her cells via nanotechnology. The nanotechnology cannot be removed from her system without killing her, and thus, transmatting her causes a great deal of pain. Silver Spider can leap great distances, create a number of web-shapes, and fire a potent bioenergy blast. She has the motion senses of a trapdoor spider, and is capable of lifting 1.6 tons. Many rumors persist in following the heroine, some true (She can generate a neurotoxin), and some false (She drinks blood). Criminals are very afraid of her, as she's more of a nighttime heroine. Rare daytime appearances have been seen, however. She can resist bullets with an odd layer of chitin under her skin, and like most spiders, finds it fairly easy to stick to walls and ceilings. Whatever other secrets are locked within the weird nanotech fusion of Silver Spider's genetic code have yet to be seen...