10 The New Heroes
It was an ordinary winter night in Lawndale. Quinn Morgendorffer was waiting for a date to arrive in her room. Then an unexpected news report came on. “A new vigilante, dressed as a ninja has been sighted in downtown Lawndale. She doesn’t look like SpiderGirl.”
“New Vigilante?” she asked herself. She needed to find out more. ‘But what about my date?’ she wondered. ‘Maybe I can skip out on it.’ And just as she thought that, the doorbell rang. ‘That’s probably him.’
“Joey!” Quinn said as she came down the stairs.
“Yes, Daria let me in,” Joey Black said.
“So, where are we going again?” Quinn asked, although she knew perfectly well where they were going.
“The Athenian Café,” Joey answered.
“Of course,” Quinn said.
The Athenian wasn’t that busy, but there were other couples from Lawndale High there. Quinn knew it would be some time before their meal would be ready. ‘Sorry Joey,’ she thought. “Joey. I’ll be in the bathroom,” she said.
“OK,” Joey said.
SpiderGirl squeezed out of the window from the Athenian’s Ladies Bathroom. She was lucky it was a big as it was. ‘However, I can only spend a short amount of time before Joey gets suspicious,’ she thought as she swung away.
It didn’t take long before she found the other vigilante. “SpiderGirl?” she asked in a low voice.
“You think that I wouldn’t be curious about another vigilante?”
The other girl (as SpiderGirl was sure), didn’t respond, but dashed away along the street. SpiderGirl tried, several time, to catch her in a web, but she was too agile. She eventually lost her in an alley. ‘She has to be here somewhere!’ she thought. But then she heard the court house clock chime the half hour. ‘But I have to get back to Joey.’
Indeed, Joey was relieved when Quinn reappeared at the Athenian. “Sorry I took so long,” Quinn said.
“It’s OK,” Joey responded.
The date went as well as a date with Joey went. Quinn knew that Joey still had a crush on her, but she wasn’t sure that she’d see him as more than a friend.
“So, you think, that Osborn will approve of the proposal?” Joey asked as he finished the meal.
“I think so,” Quinn answered. “He will get back to us next week.”
“I hope so.”
“Your aunt and uncle are worried.”
“They aren’t,” Joey said. “More like Robert and I are, along with his sisters.”
“I didn’t know he had sisters.”
“They’re in middle school.”
“Right.”
Joey drove her home afterwards, and she then went out again as SpiderGirl to search for the mysterious new vigilante, but that new search proved to be fruitless and she returned home exhausted, although she had proved to be a deterrent to two would-be thieves.
Lawndale Sun-Herald
Saturday January 13, 2001
Mysterious New Vigilante Not SpiderGirl
SpiderGirl read the article. It appeared that the journalists had no further information. She sighed and left the newsagency.
“SpiderGirl!” a girl called out nearby.
“Feli?” SpiderGirl asked. She turned and saw the weird blonde she was mentoring, along with two other misfit students.
“I wanted to thank you again for helping when Ben was bit by that snake!”
“Of course. I didn’t want more trouble to be caused in that situation. I’m sure he’s better now, right?”
“He has is ups and downs,” Feli answered. “I don’t think I told you about his hypochondria.”
“Probably not.”
“He has improved, a bit once he was out of the hospital.”
“That is good, isn’t it?” SpiderGirl asked.
“Yes, but he’s falling into his old habits.”
“There’s not anything I can do there.”
“I know,” Feli responded quietly.
“Anyway. What do you think of the news of a new vigilante?”
“I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“Same here,” SpiderGirl said.
After talking to Feli, SpiderGirl headed to the Mall.
It wasn’t until that night that she heard more about that new vigilante.
“The mysterious new vigilante has been sighted again in downtown Lawndale,” came a radio report.
“Right!” SpiderGirl said to herself. She had been waiting in a tree in the laneway behind the Morgendorffer’s place for such a report. She webbed the portable radio to the tree and headed towards the downtown.
It took a while but SpiderGirl found the Ninja vigilante on a rooftop on Main Street. “Hello!” she called as swung onto that roof.
“SpiderGirl! Again?”
“Yes. We’re at a disadvantage…”
“Oh! You can call me Ninja Talon!”
“Ninja Talon?” SpiderGirl asked.
“Yes. I’m a ninja and I have talons,” the other girl opened her right hand to show, that indeed, she had talons.”
“Right.”
“Anyway. I have to say that I was inspired by you to fight the crime here in Lawndale.”
SpiderGirl wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Right,” she said.
“Bye!” Ninja Talon said. She then made herself scarce. SpiderGirl tried to follow, but she vanished just as she did the night before.
SpiderGirl found that additional searching was as fruitless as the night before. But she did prevent a couple of muggings on Dega Street.
Lawndale Sun-Herald
Sunday January 14, 2001
SpiderGirl spotted with mysterious new vigilante
Quinn arrived at Stacy’s just after lunch. “What are we watching today?” she asked.
“Something from the early 80’s,” Stacy answered.
“Sounds cool,” Quinn said.
“Although, it is a remake of something from the 60’s. It’s about a superhero robot, but the first several episodes are his origin story,” Stacy explained.
“So, what is it called?”
“Astro Boy.”
“Astro Boy?” Quinn considered. “I may have heard of it.”
As they watched the first few episodes of the 1980 Astro Boy they talked about recent events, including the new vigilante that had been spotted. “Like SpiderGirl was spotted with her last night,” Stacy said.
“I don’t think they’re working together.”
“Really?”
“Like they would have appeared together the first night,” Quinn said.
“Maybe.”
That night, SpiderGirl waited again. The news came later than the previous two nights. ‘I’m on it!’ she thought as swung away again.
“Ninja Talon!” SpiderGirl called out.
“SpiderGirl!” the ninja responded.
“We need to talk.”
“Not tonight!”
“Why not?” SpiderGirl asked.
Ninja Talon didn’t answer, but merely leapt to the next building.
A chase ensued similarly to the previous two nights.
‘She’s enjoying this!’ SpiderGirl thought as Ninja Talon continued leaping down the street.
Again, SpiderGirl lost Ninja Talon as she went into an allyway. “This is ridiculous,” she groused.
She spent a half an hour looking for her again, before just doing her usual patrol.
Lawndale Sun-Herald
Monday January 15, 2001
New Vigilante rescues cat from tree.
SpiderGirl put the newspaper aside. Of course they would run articles like that. ‘I not jealous,’ she thought. But she still needed to know more about her. ‘Time to get to school.’
The school was as usual for a January morning. Quinn looked at each fellow female student in turn, wondering if any one of them was Ninja Talon. ‘Of course, I’m not just going to ask them. I need to find out the way I have been trying. I only know it’s not Daria.’ And that was because she knew Daria was home when two of the news reports came in.
“Quinn!”
Quinn turned and saw that it was Anna, one of the three students she was mentoring. “Anna?”
“Ben’s back at school!”
“That’s good!”
“And so, we’ll be available if you want a session today,” Anna said.
“I’ll get back to you on that,” Quinn said. “If I run into Gerald, I’ll tell him that we’re re-starting.”
“Sure.”
Indeed, Quinn ran into Gerald in between classes. “Gerald!”
“Yes?” he asked.
“Ben is back at school.”
“Oh! That means you want me to join in again, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Quinn answered. “Some place, same time.”
“The Library, after school,” Gerald stated. “I’ll be there.”
“Thanks! Now I’ll have to get back to Anna and Ben.”
“Right. I’ll see you after school.”
Quinn caught up with Anna and Ben at Lunch. “Hi, Anna, Ben,” she said.
“Did you see Gerald?” Anna asked.
Quinn nodded. “We’re meeting at the Library as usual.”
“Good,” Ben said.
“How are you?” Quinn asked.
“The venom is out of my system,” Ben answered. “But I will still take a while to recover.”
“Is that your opinion?” Quinn asked.
“Yes, but Doctor Philips also said that.”
“OK.”
She joined the two for lunch, as Stacy, Tiffany and Tori hadn’t come yet.
Gerald was waiting as Quinn arrived. She saw that he was reading a book on biochemistry. ‘I see, she thought,’ as she said.
“They won’t be long?” he asked.
“They should be here in a few minutes.”
Anna and Ben didn’t take even that long. “We’re here,” Anna said as she came up to the table.
“Cool,” Quinn said. “Anyway, you know what we were doing before that field trip.”
“Yes,” Anna answered. “Connecting over what we’re interested in.”
“Exactly. We’ll do the same thing, go and get books related to what we’re interested in,” Quinn said.
Quinn had got a book on graphic design. ‘It is interesting,’ she thought.
Anna had a book on the Appalachian folklore.
Ben had got another book on forensic medicine.
“So, we’ll talk about what makes each thing interesting,” Quinn said.
“Sure,” Anna said. “Appalachian folklore in particular?”
“It can be that,” Quinn answered.
“Cool,” Anna said.
“But we’ll each prepare a short speech on our topic for Friday.”
“Isn’t that like an essay?” Ben asked. “Like in Language Arts.”
“I suppose so,” Quinn said. “But I’m setting it for myself as well, and there’s no minimum word limit.”
“I see,” Gerald said. “I’m not good at that.”
“This is part of what Ms. Li has asked me to do,” Quinn said in an encouraging tone.
“So, she is allowing this after what happened?” Gerald asked.
“Of course. You can even ask her tomorrow.”
Gerald sighed.
SpiderGirl left the school after the mentoring session, but she found that Anna, or rather, Feli was at the strip mall again.
Feli saw SpiderGirl hang from the awning of the strip mall upside down. “You’re not light headed?” she asked.
“No,” SpiderGirl answered. “I suppose it’s part of my powers,” she added as she tapped her chin. “You want to go somewhere today?”
“Yes,” Feli answered. “But I was getting something here first.”
“Sure.”
It didn’t take long for Feli to get what she was getting.
“OK, Home.”
“Sure.”
Once she had dropped Feli off at home, SpiderGirl headed home herself. She wanted to do some homework and to have dinner before going on patrol later.
SpiderGirl arrived back on Eichler Street at a quarter to nine. She wanted to rule out both Stacy and Feli as Ninja Talon. Carefully she looked into both their bedroom windows. She saw that Stacy was watching something on her TV. ‘She’s here, but what about Feli?’ She looked at the other house and saw that Feli was doing her homework.
She took up a position in a street tree and began listening to the radio, while watching out for either Stacy or Feli leaving.
“The mysterious new vigilante has again been sighted in downtown Lawndale…” SpiderGirl turned off the radio. Neither Stacy nor Feli had left home in the meantime. ‘Certainly rules them out.’
SpiderGirl knew the same approach wouldn’t work. ‘I’m going to catch her,’ she thought.
She soon located the other vigilante, Njnja Talon. ‘There you are!’
‘Surprise!’ SpiderGirl thought as she swung up in front of Ninja Talon and shot out webbing.
“Really? SpiderGirl?” Ninja Talon asked as she was trapped in the webbing.
“Hey, you’ve been running off the past few nights,” SpiderGirl responded.
“True,” Ninja Talon said. “However…” She then extended her fingers and sliced some webs. The was then able to get free.
“Wait!” SpiderGirl called out.
The two then spared. SpiderGirl found that it was the Spider Sense that was stopping her being hit. Ninja Talon was quite skilled. ‘Maybe that narrows it down,’ she thought. This fight continued for about a minute before Ninja Talon again made herself scarce.
‘This is ridiculous!’ SpiderGirl thought as she chased after the other vigilante yet again.
That didn’t last long. ‘It will be have to be tomorrow night.’
Lawndale Sun-Herald
Tuesday January 16, 2001
SpiderGirl seen chasing new Vigilante
SpiderGirl read the article. It was full of speculation. ‘I’m sure Ted would do better at just telling the truth.’
Ms. Li lead her new student to his first class. “Remember, you’re not going to get special treatment here.”
“I know,” the boy said quietly.
“Good!”