I should have waited. Carlson might have put together a task force eventually. Surely other members of the Legendary were changed by the event. We could have
teamed up. But no, I had to rush in and see what Ghost Widow was up to before the cavalry arrived. That's what a scrapper does, right? Especially one
possessed by a goddess of battle. She has no patience.
As recon missions go, it's been a bust. Ghost Widow is hanging around San Fransisco. She's up to something. Some of the new villains--and heroes--are
gathering to her banner. But we already knew all of that.
Instead of a plan, I followed my instincts to Alcatraz. It seemed like it would be irresistible to a villain, but Ghost Widow wasn't there, just a couple
of morons terrorizing the tourists. One of them was standing on the wall with his hands in the air like Charlton Heston playing Moses, summoning a waterspout
and keeping the Coast Guard and news helicopters at a distance, while the other--some kind of green buglike creature--robbed the people trapped on the island.
I missed having names floating above people's heads.
I announced my presence by dancing on Moses' head, and the tourists stampeded. Moses staggered, and I kept kicking him until he went down and stayed down.
I was standing over him wondering which archetype he was supposed to be, when the bug impaled me. I guess it must have hurt, but the moment is gone. The next
thing I remember was my knees hitting the ground as the bony spur withdrew.
I rolled to the side, kicked at him, felt a spine rake my calf as it connected. There was an explosion of bony shrapnel. One of them barely missed my left eye.
The poison was enough to blind me on that side anyway. I got my legs under me and came up swinging, ignoring the blood and bilious green spray that flew every
time I connected. Then he ducked and twisted to his right and I lost him.
I ran. Not going anywhere, just moving, random zig-zags. I wasn't going to stand there fuming while he snuck up behind me and stabbed me again. My hands
stopped hurting and my vision cleared. Maybe he'd decided that he couldn't hurt me badly enough, fast enough to get a kill and he'd
'bugged' out. I laughed, and it didn't hurt a bit. Even if he had managed to drop me, I'd have just gotten back up and pounded him. That would
have surprised him.
Or maybe not. He must have jumped off the prison wall or something. It felt like I'd been slammed into an iron maiden. I managed to tear my arms free and
tried to twist his head off. Not a scratch on his carapace, I noticed. And his head wasn't coming off. My vision started going dim around the edges.
She said something, and I could sense the panic in him as he tried to pull away. My inner idealist went somewhere else and the goddess took over.
Fists and boots pounded him, cracked his armored carapace, breaking the spines protruding from his body. He healed fast, but her intent was lethal and she was
perfectly happy to kill him more than once if she had the chance.
With an eerie, wailing cry, the stalker broke free and jumped, a desperate parabolic arc that plunged him into the bay. I almost went after him, but I was
suddenly human again, fighting the urge to burst into tears or throw up, thoughts racing three directions. That really hurt. PvP Spines/Regen Stalker, had
to be. He nearly killed me. Fear is not commonly resisted. I nearly killed him. You're supposed to be a hero!
And that's how Ghost Widow found me; talking to myself, without a scratch on me after getting stabbed repeatedly on live television.
A blast of darkness chilled me. I know now that she opened with a weak attack. Getting my attention, playing with her food, a cat with a mouse. Foreplay. Pick
a metaphor. Or maybe just raising Domination. I've had plenty of time to think about it.
At the time, I smirked and said, "Was that supposed to hurt?"
She only smiled, hovering above the prison yard. Almost out of reach, but not quite. I did a Jackie Chan move up the inside corner of the wall and launched a
flying kick--and passed right through her, landing hard.
That made her laugh. Not a calculated, intentionally demoralizing laugh, just an honest laugh at unexpected folly. Which was worse. Right. She's a ghost.
I'm probably the only person who played the game and read the comics capable of forgetting that fact. I picked myself up. Dusted off. So embarassed.
"You can't hurt me that way," she said, and tagged me with a wave of darkness that almost knocked me over again.
"Yeah, I remember now. I also remember that you can't be destroyed as long as Arachnos exists. But it doesn't exist."
"Oh, but it does." She gestured down at herself as proof.
"It's just a game. None of this is supposed to be real. Something weird happened and the people playing the game changed, but there's no Paragon
City. No Rogue Isles."
Ghost Widow gave me another of those secretive, blind smiles. "Not in this dimension, perhaps."
"There aren't any other dimensions!"
She hit me with another bolt of darkness. I tried to dodge around the prison yard. It seemed to encourage her. But I was still recovering faster than she hurt
me. So I can't convince her she's crazy. No big surprise there. Forget trying to wrap my brain around whether it's more unlikely a game could model
some parallel world or that a game could give a bunch of people superpowers. How do I deal with a ghost?
"You'll never get away with it!" I stalled. Ok, the powers aren't limited by the game engine, but they're inspired by it. And the game
designers wouldn't create a permanently intangible unbeatable foe. So there's got to be some way to hurt her.
"Get away with what, exactly?"
"Building a new Arachnos? Taking over the world? Holding the Golden Gate Bridge hostage?" Wasn't she supposed to have an uncontrollable desire to
monologue? Her blank white eyes gave nothing away. No hint of a telltale smirk on her lips.
This time, when she took a shot at me, I threw a rock. She was vulnerable when she phased in to attack, in the comics. I hoped. I couldn't really remember
clearly. Either my timing was off or I was wrong. But she looked annoyed. Darkness engulfed me again. I reached for another rock and it passed through my
fingers. The hell? Shrieking, glowing things lifted me off the ground and whirled me about like a gyroscope. Did that one have a face? I could see my breath
fog as I exhaled. I couldn't breathe in. I felt my heartbeat slowing as it got colder and colder.
I fell. Dimly aware that I'd been dropped, and was free. I pushed the cold away, felt my heart beat again. Took in a breath of warm air, then let the
goddess aspect take over again. We struck her with fear and shadows and fury. And this time we hurt her, felt her reel with the blows. But it wasn't
enough.
Ghost Widow rose into the sky, and the darkness broken only by bright spirits of the fallen seized us again. And this time we fell farther.
It took longer to wake, and when I did, I was in a cell, shackled. I didn't see a door.
At my first movement, Ghost Widow appeared, drifting close from somewhere behind me. Possibly through the wall.
"Please, do struggle. It will be entertaining."
I stopped straining against the chains, for the moment. "Now what? I'm the goddess of battle. You can't hold me. Torture won't work on me. I
don't remember pain." But how much would I forget in the process of surviving?
"A goddess forgotten and unworshipped."
"But her power is real. You can't kill me."
Ghost Widow smiled. "Oh, but I can. I have, in fact."
"I don't stay dead."
"No. But I can summon the souls of all those I slay to strike down the living." Her smile became beatific. "Including yours."
"I don't believe you," I said, but felt a chill settle somewhere between my shoulder blades. I thrashed against the chains. I couldn't reach
her. Felt my right shoulder on the verge of dislocation, blood trickling down both wrists as I tried to slip the shackles. Just a little more...
"No, it's not that simple. In fact, it's not simple at all." Ghost Widow drifted closer, near enough that I should have felt something if
she'd been tangible at all.
She whispered, "But I think, if I keep killing you... it will get simpler. Eventually."
And then the pain started in earnest.
teamed up. But no, I had to rush in and see what Ghost Widow was up to before the cavalry arrived. That's what a scrapper does, right? Especially one
possessed by a goddess of battle. She has no patience.
As recon missions go, it's been a bust. Ghost Widow is hanging around San Fransisco. She's up to something. Some of the new villains--and heroes--are
gathering to her banner. But we already knew all of that.
Instead of a plan, I followed my instincts to Alcatraz. It seemed like it would be irresistible to a villain, but Ghost Widow wasn't there, just a couple
of morons terrorizing the tourists. One of them was standing on the wall with his hands in the air like Charlton Heston playing Moses, summoning a waterspout
and keeping the Coast Guard and news helicopters at a distance, while the other--some kind of green buglike creature--robbed the people trapped on the island.
I missed having names floating above people's heads.
I announced my presence by dancing on Moses' head, and the tourists stampeded. Moses staggered, and I kept kicking him until he went down and stayed down.
I was standing over him wondering which archetype he was supposed to be, when the bug impaled me. I guess it must have hurt, but the moment is gone. The next
thing I remember was my knees hitting the ground as the bony spur withdrew.
I rolled to the side, kicked at him, felt a spine rake my calf as it connected. There was an explosion of bony shrapnel. One of them barely missed my left eye.
The poison was enough to blind me on that side anyway. I got my legs under me and came up swinging, ignoring the blood and bilious green spray that flew every
time I connected. Then he ducked and twisted to his right and I lost him.
I ran. Not going anywhere, just moving, random zig-zags. I wasn't going to stand there fuming while he snuck up behind me and stabbed me again. My hands
stopped hurting and my vision cleared. Maybe he'd decided that he couldn't hurt me badly enough, fast enough to get a kill and he'd
'bugged' out. I laughed, and it didn't hurt a bit. Even if he had managed to drop me, I'd have just gotten back up and pounded him. That would
have surprised him.
Or maybe not. He must have jumped off the prison wall or something. It felt like I'd been slammed into an iron maiden. I managed to tear my arms free and
tried to twist his head off. Not a scratch on his carapace, I noticed. And his head wasn't coming off. My vision started going dim around the edges.
She said something, and I could sense the panic in him as he tried to pull away. My inner idealist went somewhere else and the goddess took over.
Fists and boots pounded him, cracked his armored carapace, breaking the spines protruding from his body. He healed fast, but her intent was lethal and she was
perfectly happy to kill him more than once if she had the chance.
With an eerie, wailing cry, the stalker broke free and jumped, a desperate parabolic arc that plunged him into the bay. I almost went after him, but I was
suddenly human again, fighting the urge to burst into tears or throw up, thoughts racing three directions. That really hurt. PvP Spines/Regen Stalker, had
to be. He nearly killed me. Fear is not commonly resisted. I nearly killed him. You're supposed to be a hero!
And that's how Ghost Widow found me; talking to myself, without a scratch on me after getting stabbed repeatedly on live television.
A blast of darkness chilled me. I know now that she opened with a weak attack. Getting my attention, playing with her food, a cat with a mouse. Foreplay. Pick
a metaphor. Or maybe just raising Domination. I've had plenty of time to think about it.
At the time, I smirked and said, "Was that supposed to hurt?"
She only smiled, hovering above the prison yard. Almost out of reach, but not quite. I did a Jackie Chan move up the inside corner of the wall and launched a
flying kick--and passed right through her, landing hard.
That made her laugh. Not a calculated, intentionally demoralizing laugh, just an honest laugh at unexpected folly. Which was worse. Right. She's a ghost.
I'm probably the only person who played the game and read the comics capable of forgetting that fact. I picked myself up. Dusted off. So embarassed.
"You can't hurt me that way," she said, and tagged me with a wave of darkness that almost knocked me over again.
"Yeah, I remember now. I also remember that you can't be destroyed as long as Arachnos exists. But it doesn't exist."
"Oh, but it does." She gestured down at herself as proof.
"It's just a game. None of this is supposed to be real. Something weird happened and the people playing the game changed, but there's no Paragon
City. No Rogue Isles."
Ghost Widow gave me another of those secretive, blind smiles. "Not in this dimension, perhaps."
"There aren't any other dimensions!"
She hit me with another bolt of darkness. I tried to dodge around the prison yard. It seemed to encourage her. But I was still recovering faster than she hurt
me. So I can't convince her she's crazy. No big surprise there. Forget trying to wrap my brain around whether it's more unlikely a game could model
some parallel world or that a game could give a bunch of people superpowers. How do I deal with a ghost?
"You'll never get away with it!" I stalled. Ok, the powers aren't limited by the game engine, but they're inspired by it. And the game
designers wouldn't create a permanently intangible unbeatable foe. So there's got to be some way to hurt her.
"Get away with what, exactly?"
"Building a new Arachnos? Taking over the world? Holding the Golden Gate Bridge hostage?" Wasn't she supposed to have an uncontrollable desire to
monologue? Her blank white eyes gave nothing away. No hint of a telltale smirk on her lips.
This time, when she took a shot at me, I threw a rock. She was vulnerable when she phased in to attack, in the comics. I hoped. I couldn't really remember
clearly. Either my timing was off or I was wrong. But she looked annoyed. Darkness engulfed me again. I reached for another rock and it passed through my
fingers. The hell? Shrieking, glowing things lifted me off the ground and whirled me about like a gyroscope. Did that one have a face? I could see my breath
fog as I exhaled. I couldn't breathe in. I felt my heartbeat slowing as it got colder and colder.
I fell. Dimly aware that I'd been dropped, and was free. I pushed the cold away, felt my heart beat again. Took in a breath of warm air, then let the
goddess aspect take over again. We struck her with fear and shadows and fury. And this time we hurt her, felt her reel with the blows. But it wasn't
enough.
Ghost Widow rose into the sky, and the darkness broken only by bright spirits of the fallen seized us again. And this time we fell farther.
It took longer to wake, and when I did, I was in a cell, shackled. I didn't see a door.
At my first movement, Ghost Widow appeared, drifting close from somewhere behind me. Possibly through the wall.
"Please, do struggle. It will be entertaining."
I stopped straining against the chains, for the moment. "Now what? I'm the goddess of battle. You can't hold me. Torture won't work on me. I
don't remember pain." But how much would I forget in the process of surviving?
"A goddess forgotten and unworshipped."
"But her power is real. You can't kill me."
Ghost Widow smiled. "Oh, but I can. I have, in fact."
"I don't stay dead."
"No. But I can summon the souls of all those I slay to strike down the living." Her smile became beatific. "Including yours."
"I don't believe you," I said, but felt a chill settle somewhere between my shoulder blades. I thrashed against the chains. I couldn't reach
her. Felt my right shoulder on the verge of dislocation, blood trickling down both wrists as I tried to slip the shackles. Just a little more...
"No, it's not that simple. In fact, it's not simple at all." Ghost Widow drifted closer, near enough that I should have felt something if
she'd been tangible at all.
She whispered, "But I think, if I keep killing you... it will get simpler. Eventually."
And then the pain started in earnest.