Chapter 1
No one noticed when another young girl appeared with a tent and very few belongings in one of the quieter areas of New York City. Sheltered by a few trees, she had pitched a tent, bordering on her school field, with little more than the clothes on her back and nowhere else to go. Ashley Evangeline Carter was fifteen years old and was completely and utterly alone.
After two weeks, she had settled into something of a routine. Her alarm clock (which she hoped had a couple more months of battery life left) would sound off at seven in the morning and she would get dressed and brush her hair. She didn’t have many clothes to choose from, two pairs of jeans, a few t-shirts, a couple of hooded sweatshirts and some underwear. She only had with her whatever she could fit in her backpack. At quarter past, she walked the length of the school field and arrived at the front gates. She spent most days in school keeping her head down, helping herself to several portions of free fruit (courtesy of the school’s desperate need to keep the kids off junk food) to stave off the hunger pains, and avoiding her best – and only – friend MJ, who’s inquisitive mind was getting far too suspicious for Ashley’s liking. Thankfully, avoiding MJ was getting easier as any free time between lessons was mainly focused on her new boyfriend, Peter Parker. But Peter presented a different set of problems.
Ashley wouldn’t say she was best friends with Peter. She admired his academic genius and the four of them – Ashley, Peter, MJ and Ned – would often spend their lunch times together, but this was mostly because of MJ's new friendship with them. She certainly didn’t dislike Peter - or at least not until he started asking lots of probing questions when they got partnered up for a project together for Computer Science. They had to develop a fully-functioning app that would somehow benefit the students in the school, who would be asked to trial the different apps the class created. Ashley was good at coding and programming, so she built the app, while Peter did the research. They were building an app for the school that included maps of the campus (designed by Peter), a cloud schedule which teachers could upload assignment due dates to, which would help the teachers to plan so that the students didn’t have a dozen huge deadlines all at once. There would also be links to useful revision websites, flash cards and a messaging function for students to ask their teachers questions about school work or assignments.
“So,” Peter started one Thursday afternoon. The two of them were sat in the computer lab – Peter was sat making up some sample flash cards for the app based on the subjects he was currently studying, while Ashley was creating the cloud calendar. “What’s going on between you and MJ?” Ashley shrugged, eyes not wavering from the code she was writing on screen. “MJ says you guys don’t really talk or hang out anymore.”
“I’ve been studying,” Ashley mumbled in reply.
“It’s just that you don’t eat with us anymore and MJ’s worried about you.”
Ashley sighed, finally looking up from the screen and looking straight at Peter. “I’m fine. Just focus on the work, it’s due in two weeks.”
But Ashley was very much conscious of the fact that she was far from fine. She was living in a tent on the edge of the school field, with only a few changes of clothes, even fewer possessions and no-one and nowhere to call home.
As soon as the bell rang, she dashed out of the room, not sparing Peter a second glance. She made her way across the school field, and once she was sure no-one had followed her, she dived into the tent she had set up between the trees. She finished the homework she hadn’t been able to complete at lunch time, before gearing up for the evening.
Once night fell, Ashley changed into a pair of black jeans, t-shirt and a black hoodie. Before pulling up the hood, she fixed a tattered purple scarf round her face, covering her nose and mouth. She walked out into the city, not minding the cold chill that spiked down her back where two matching slits were cut out, framing two thin, pink scars. She turned into an empty alleyway, using the cover of darkness to spread her wings. Quite literally.
Two large black wings, each wing spanning the length of her body, grew from the scars on her back. She stretched out the large expanse of feathers, which were almost invisible against the night sky. With one soaring leap, she was up in the air, gliding across the New York skyline. There was something rather freeing about flying through the city. The night was fairly quiet, with mostly just a few dog walkers out and a handful of joggers. However, she didn’t get very far before she picked up on a disturbance.
She landed on a nearby rooftop as soon as she heard the distressed shout. Her eyes landed on a jogger that had passed by earlier – she could recognise the neon pink leg warmers anywhere. A man had a vice grip on the woman’s wrist. His face was obscured by a black scarf and a beanie hat. The whole outfit reminded Ashley of her own – they were both clearly trying to hide their identities, but her reason was not so that she could prey on innocent young women.
“NO!” The woman screamed below. “LET ME GO!”
Ashley jumped from the roof top, landing gracefully on her tip toes in front of the entrance to the dimly lit alley. Neither the woman nor her attacker had noticed her, so she made herself known, clearing her throat before speaking calmly. “I think the lady said no.”
Both of them froze, the woman's wrist still grasped firmly in the thug's grip. Ashley took that moment to strike. She focused her mind, her energy reaching out to the world around her with violet, electric tendrils, curling like smoke around her chosen target. There was a trash can lying on the floor behind the thug. Ashley took hold of it with her energy and brought it smacking into the back of the thug's head with full force. It was almost comical, the way he fell to the ground, face quickly meeting the tarmac below.
The woman screamed, and as soon as she realised the iron grip on her was gone, sprinted up the road ahead. Ashley rolled her eyes and nudged the thug on the ground with her foot, turning him over on his back. He was out cold, blood dripping from a nasty wound on the back of his head. She stared after the woman, who was still running and rolled her eyes. “You're welcome!” She called after the woman, before launching back into the sky.
She spent another half hour gliding through the sky between the skyscrapers that outlined New York City. It was a Monday night and she was about ready to call it quits until the sound of shattering glass, quickly followed by a blaring alarm, reached her ears. The building she was currently perched on was one of the numerous banks in the area. Ashley quickly put two and two together and came up with an out-of-hours bank heist. She moved to the edge of the roof top, before taking a swan dive to the street below, flipping over at the last second so she landed on her feet. As her feet touched the pavement, she heard an audible gasp behind her, but she assumed it was a regular passer-by and focused on the job at hand. She followed the robbers into the bank – they yet again were dressed in all black. There were five men in total, all wearing an ensemble of jeans, t-shirts and leather jackets, like some high school biker gang. Covering their faces were black balaclavas and honestly, it all looked a bit cliché.
She decided not to make her presence known right away this time, instead taking the time to scope out the area and form some kind of plan of attack. The thieves had of course gone straight for the vault, which was highly predictable, but also left her fewer options of attack.
A twinkle caught her eye where the moonlight reflected on some of the broken glass in the entrance way. The thieves had actually left her the perfect weapon. Her energy sought out the numerous pieces of glass littering the floor, snaking around each individual fragment and lifting them into the air. She moved further into the bank until she had all of the robbers in sight, which left her exposed, although she didn’t give them chance to attack before the shattered glass was flying at them at break-neck speed. All five of them fell, clutching at their faces and necks where the glass had embedded itself. Ashley was about to grab the fire hose from the wall to tie them up with until the police could arrive, but it had seemed someone else had a better idea...
***
Peter Parker had been on a patrol of his own that night. After a quick dinner with Aunt May before she had to leave for a night shift, he pulled on his suit (courtesy of Tony Stark) and swung out the window. His night had been quite fruitful. He stopped a few muggings, rescued a cat from a tree, told an elderly Romanian lady which subway train to take to get to Brooklyn Heights and returned a stolen bike. He was about to head home to finish his homework when he heard the shattering glass a couple of streets over.
Peter launched into the air, swinging between the buildings before stopping in front of the First Capital Bank. He was perched on the side of the building opposite and watched as five criminals, all decked out in the same black garb (Come on guys, really? It's like you're not even trying!) entered the bank, the glass shards crunching under steel toecap-clad feet. He was about to swing head first into the bank and take out all five of them when his ‘spidey sense’ tingled at the base of his neck, followed by a rush of wind. In front of him, he witnessed someone seemingly fall out of the sky, flipping themselves over in mid air before silently landing on their feet. He gasped when he made out a pair of huge dark wings – each wing was probably wider than the girl wearing them. She was also dressed in black, apart from a tattered purple scarf, edges fraying and holes developing in the material, around her face. When the moonlight bounced off the wings, they looked as though they were embedded with thousands of tiny crystals and if it weren't for Peter's impeccably good eyesight, those shining crystals would be the only give away the wings were even there.
Peter decided to watch from his perch as she entered the bank after the robbers. She wasn't sneaking necessarily, but Peter could not hear the sound of her boots, which were also looking a bit worn (there were several small tears in the cheap leather and the trim was starting to come away at the back), as they carefully stepped over the shattered glass walkway. He jumped across the street, landing above the doorway for the bank. He climbed over the entrance into the bank, crawling over the ceiling to keep a low profile.
The girl seemed to falter for a moment, quickly looking around the area with a calculated gaze. Her gaze caught on something underneath Peter who had pressed himself flat against the high ceiling. After a moment, purple smoke left her outstretched fingers, crackling with electricity. The smoke reached out to the glass shards that had previously formed the large double doors and they lifted into the air, moving towards their puppeteer. With a quick flick of her wrist, the glass shards were flying towards the robbers – or evil T-Birds, as Peter was now referring to them.
All five men fell to their knees as the tiny shards embedded themselves into their skin, like crystal barbs. One guy was covering his left eye, blood dripping from the small gaps between his fingers. Peter winced slightly at that one. Realising that she had completely incapacitated them, she moved towards a fire hose, with every purpose of using it to tie the robbers up for the police when they finally arrived. Peter chose that as his moment to intervene. He swung across to a nearby pillar and took aim, shooting a web grenade at the group huddled on the floor. The web covered them all, eliciting more groans of discomfort and pain as they tried to fight against the inexplicably strong webbing that was now trapping them from making a hasty retreat.
The girl stared at Peter for the longest moment, eyes narrowed in a calculating gaze. For a brief moment Peter wondered if she might hurt him, but that was quickly gone when she turned around and ran for the exit. Peter followed, using his webs to get there before her and effectively blocking her way out.
“Hey, wait a second! That was so cool what you did back there!” The words left his mouth before he had even formed a proper thought. “I'm Spider-Man, by the way.” He held out a hand for the girl to shake, but she just stared at the red, spandex-covered appendage like it had somehow offended her.
“I know,” was the only comment she offered. She tried to push Peter out of her way, but he was like a stone wall and was not going to budge.
“What's your name? Where did you get your powers? Are you from Queens too? Maybe we could work together!” Peter heard how he sounded in his head, and he couldn’t blame the girl for getting angry at him as she desperately tried to leave the building. Sirens were growing louder in the distance, which meant the police would be there very soon.
“Will you get out of the freaking way?” Peter took a step back when she threw her arms up in the air in exasperation. “The cops are on their way and I for one am not spending the night in a jail cell, and I know for a fact that you're already on their shit-list. So, for the love of God, just move!”
Peter stepped to the side and just watched in amazement as she took off into the sky without another word. Within seconds, she was lost to the dark sky, her wings creating a camouflage against the night. Peter took off himself, swinging dazedly back to his apartment. He couldn't wait to tell Aunt May about the evening's adventure.