My name is Mary Jane Watson-Parker and I know this is usually where Peter introduces himself, but I’m taking over for now. For the last six months I’ve been in L.A., having left Peter and New York to try to get some space and start my movie career.

I landed a part in a big budget action film and, for a while, everything seemed to be going great. I was making my dream come true and I was starting to move on. Then I found out one of my young co-stars, Riley, was being targeted by a cult that wanted to sacrifice him to revive the ancient Egyptian goddess Bastet.

Then, on top of that, Peter decided to come to L.A. to try to make things right between us and quickly got involved with helping to protect Riley. Unfortunately he had to bring Felicia Hardy along. Long story short, everyone’s in danger and now it’s up to me and Peter to save the day.

I thought I’d gotten away from the craziness of Peter Parker’s life as Spider-Man, but I guess fate had other plans…

WELCOME TO SPIDEY-WOOD

Part IV

By Tobias Christopher

Spider-Man was on the roof, waiting for the right time to bust in and create the distraction so Mary Jane could usher Riley to safety.

Once MJ and the kid are safe, I am going to kick so much cult butt. I just hope that Flash and Felicia are out of the line of fire. I just wonder why Felicia hasn’t tried to get in contact, unless she really was captured. Sure, these loons are packing, but what kind of weapon could they have that could get the best of the Black Cat?

Headlok had grabbed Mary Jane’s arm as she walked through the door. She had worn a robe that she’d taken from her co-star Nick Hammond, whom Mary Jane had just found out was part of the Cult of Bastet. Mary Jane’s face was hidden under the cloak, but she was sure her cover had been instantly blown.

“Stand at the altar with the boy and make sure he stays put,” Headlok ordered without seeing the woman’s face. “If I have to use my powers to hypnotize any interlopers, it might weaken my hold on him. It is your job to make sure he stays where he is.”

“Consider it done,” said Mary Jane, who was trying to mask her voice as Headlok let her go. That was easy.

Mary Jane walked up to the altar and looked down at Riley, whose eyes were glazed over as he lay there. She felt sorry for the young man and hoped that by the end of the night, he’d be safe.

“Don’t worry, kid, help’s on the way,”

Our Lady of the Drunken Starlet Hospital

Flash opened his eyes, seeing that he was in a hospital bed with all of his wounds tended to. He was wearing a hospital gown and his body ached all over. He felt the stitches on his forehead and that his wrist was in a cast.

“What happened?” asked Flash as he tried to sit up.

“You’re very lucky someone saw you were injured and delivered you just outside of the emergency room,” the nurse told him. “You could have died if you were brought in any later. You should thank whoever saved you. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I remember being at the film studio,” Flash said as he tried to think. “I was coming to find my friend Peter and then it just all goes dark from there.”

“Get some rest, the doctors will release you shortly now that you’re conscious,” the nurse told him as she left.

Flash lay back and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what had happened and if everyone else was all right.

Anthony walked up the altar, the dagger in his hand that he was planning on stabbing Riley with. He looked down at the boy, not even caring that he was about to stab his own son to death. Mary Jane saw the resemblance between the two and immediately put two and two together.

“He’s your son,” Mary Jane said out loud, not realizing she was about to blow her cover in the process.

“He’s a vessel,” Anthony replied bluntly, “nothing more than a tool to carry the essence of our goddess upon her return.”

Looking out through the window into the dark night, Anthony hovered the dagger over Riley’s body, right over his heart. Within minutes, the eclipse would happen.

“What if this doesn’t work?” asked Mary Jane, trying to stall for time. “What if you end up killing an innocent child?”

“Non-believer!” Anthony shouted as he pointed the dagger at her. “Blasphemer! You are not one of us!”

Several people started to head toward the stage when Spider-Man swung in through the window, shattering it. He landed at the altar and started shooting webbing at the cult members before they could react, pinning their feet to the ground. Meanwhile, Headlok headed into the backroom where Felicia was.

“Sorry I can’t stay, can I get some wafers and wine to go?” asked Spider-Man as he started punching through the cultists, being careful not to badly harm any of them. As he distracted them, Mary Jane punched Anthony as hard as she could and grabbed Riley.

“Come on, kid, this is one starring role you don’t want to stick around for,” she said as she put an arm around the young man’s shoulder to help him walk.

As they headed to the back of the church, Headlok walked up to Spider-Man, intending to put him under his power. He stared directly into Spider-Man’s eyes to put him into his hypnotic trance.

“You will stop this at once!” Headlok shouted as Spider-Man looked him over.

“Joan Rivers? Wow, they got everyone to join this cult, didn’t they?” asked the hero as he noticed Headlok’s appearance. “You really need to cut back on the plastic surgery!”

“You will obey!” Headlok replied as he focused more intently.

“Yeah, the hypnotizing thing doesn’t work on me,” Spider-Man said as he punched the villain, knocking him to the ground. “Special lenses in my mask; learned that lesson the last time I got hypnotized by a super-powered psycho like you.”

Meanwhile, as Mary Jane saw the exit in the back of the church, she went for the doorknob only to have her arm scratched. As she pulled away, she turned and saw the Black Cat standing there, still under Headlok’s trance.

“You will return the boy to the altar,” said Black Cat in a low tone.

New York

“You don’t need to go through all this trouble,” said Rhett Carson as he lay on May Parker’s couch. “I’ll be fine. The bullet didn’t even do any permanent damage.”

Thanks to his advanced healing powers due to taking the Green Goblin serum, the bullet Rhett had taken had all but healed up. It had all been part of Norman Osborn’s plan to get Rhett closer to May.

“You still need to rest and heal,” May insisted as she brought him some soup. “I want you where I can keep an eye on you until you’re all better.”

Rhett took the soup and smiled up at her. “I haven’t had anyone take care of me like this since I was little. When I got old enough, Dad always told me to man up and walk it off.”

“Everyone needs someone to care for them once in a while,” May told him as she rubbed his hair. “You’re always welcome here, Rhett. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put together a care package for the sweet young man who saved my life.”

Rhett leaned back as he ate his soup. Even though he’d gotten closer to May, Drew Michaels had stolen his thunder as May’s savior, and now the kid was lying in a hospital bed, brain dead to the world.

“What the hell are you doing?” asked A.J. as he walked into his brother’s hospital room, where the orderly was changing Drew’s bed sheets. It was the same rude orderly A.J. had ran into earlier outside.

“Making sure your brother doesn’t get bedsores,” the orderly told him as realized who had walked in. “Not that he’d notice, given his situation.”

“I don’t want you anywhere near him,” A.J. said angrily. “He needs someone with a good bedside manner taking care of him. You’ll probably strike a match on him and dump your cigarette ashes on his forehead.”

“You know he’s not waking up, right?” asked the orderly. A.J. looked at his nametag with the name ‘Tommy’ on it. “The doctors declared him brain dead, and the only thing keeping from moving on is your signature. You should really just think about letting him go.”

“He’s still alive,” A.J. said as brushed past Tommy to take a seat next to Drew. “There’s still hope.”

“You’re a dreamer,” Tommy replied as he finished his job. “I see that a lot working here. People who are too blind to realize when someone is not coming back.”

“So what? Yeah, I’m a dreamer,” A.J. told him bitterly. “I’ve lost my parents, my boyfriend and now Drew. But I still have hope that my dad, Billy and Drew will come back to me. It’s the only thing I have to hold onto. Drew’s the last person in my life that I’m close to. Without him, I have no one left.”

“Wait, so you’re totally alone?” asked Tommy.

“I’m staying with a friend, but who knows how long that’ll last?” asked A.J. as he looked down at Drew. “For all I know, I’ll be out on my ass once he gets back from spring break.”

Tommy sighed as he got ready to leave to check on the next patient. He barely knew A.J. but was starting to get a picture of what his life was like. He handed A.J. a card from his pocket.

“What’s this?” asked A.J. as he looked down at the card in his hand.

“It’s the halfway house that I’m staying at,” Tommy told him. “You get kicked out when your friend returns, go there and they’ll take care of you.”

“Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?” asked A.J. as he looked at the orderly.

“I know what it’s like to lose everyone that’s important to you,” Tommy told him as he walked out the door. “We don’t have to like each other, but all of us need a helping hand sometime.”

Los Angeles

The Black Cat bared her clawed gloves at Mary Jane, who pushed Riley behind her back. A smile crossed her face as she’d known this was a long time coming. The very first time she’d realized that Felicia Hardy was after Spider-Man’s heart, she knew that someday it was going to come down to this.

“Felicia, you’re under a trance. I don’t want to fight you, at least not under these circumstances, but–” Mary Jane said as the Black Cat slashed at her robe, leaving a claw mark across it. “Alright, fine, bitch…you want to throw down? Let’s throw down.”

Mary Jane lunged at the Black Cat’s midsection, sending the two women flying to the ground as Riley stood there, unmoving.

Spider-Man stood in the middle of the church, looking at the cult members that were lying on the ground, unconscious.

“This–this is going to cost me a lot of Hail Mary’s,” Spider-Man said as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I just hope Daredevil never hears I beat up an entire group of people in a church. Granted, they’re all psychos who were here to witness a kid get sacrificed, but still…”

A wooden board hit Spider-Man in the back of the head, breaking on impact, with all of the force of a cotton candy cone hitting an elephant. Spider-Man turned around and looked at Headlok.

“Really?” asked Spider-Man in a bored tone. Ten seconds later, Headlok was hanging from the ceiling, covered in webbing. It was then than Nick came running through the doors, covering his most private areas to warn his fellow cultists.

“Stop the blasphemers!” Nick shouted as Spidey knocked him out with a soft punch before looking away from the man’s nudity.

“New York’s starting to look awfully sweet after this little excursion into hell,” said Spider-Man as remembered Mary Jane was trying to get Riley to safety.

Mary Jane and the Black Cat were rolling around the floor, still cat-fighting. Clothes had been torn, hair had been pulled, furniture had been destroyed, and profanities had been tossed around. By the time Spider-Man ran to the back of the church, he looked at Riley.

“Dude, if you weren’t in a trance, this would totally fast track you through puberty,” said Spider-Man smugly as he shot a strand of webbing at the sprinkler system, causing water to rain down over everyone.

Riley started coming out of Headlok’s trance, as did Black Cat moments later.

“How did you know the water would work?” asked Mary Jane as she looked up at her husband.

“Just a hunch,” said Spider-Man as he smirked under his mask. Actually, the trance should have ended as soon as I knocked Headlok unconscious. The sprinklers were just to add to the fun. What? You’d do the exact same thing if you in my boots, admit it.

Mary Jane took one last punch at Black Cat before she stood up.

“I was out of the trance,” said Black Cat as she felt her lip.

“I know, I just wanted to be sure,” replied Mary Jane with a smirk.

Soon, the police had arrived on an anonymous tip telling them what was going on. As the cult members were being carted away, Spider-Man had changed back into his secret identity to give his statement to the police.

As he saw the police taking his father away, Riley walked up to him. This would probably be the only chance he’d have to talk to the man who’d helped give him life.

“Why?” was all Riley could ask.

“Because you’re nothing to me,” Anthony told the boy. “You were created for one purpose and now, because it’s too late, you have absolutely no further use to anyone. You’ll always be nothing, Riley. Remember that.”

As the police took him away, Riley couldn’t fight the tears anymore as Mary Jane approached him. She let Riley hug her as he cried. “Don’t listen to him,” Mary Jane told him. “He doesn’t know you and that’s his loss.”

Peter saw the conversation and poked Felicia with his elbow. “Talk to the kid, you’re the only family he has.”

“We’re not even blood related,” Felicia whispered back to him as she poked Peter back. “My dad must have felt sorry for him and his mom.”

“Would it kill you to make someone feel good about them self? Besides, make nice with the kid and he’ll probably help you find your treasure trove,” said Peter.

Felicia rolled her eyes and approached Riley, putting on a fake smile. “Come on, kid, we need to have a talk,” said Felicia as she took Riley’s hand while they headed off. That just left Peter and Mary Jane standing there.

“So, what now?” asked Peter as the two looked at other in silence.