Mechanical-Arm Spider #61
The bridge stretched before Jake like a promise written in rust and steel.
Each step forward required more than conscious effort. He was lucky that Sleeper could compensate for muscle damage that conventional healing would have needed weeks to address.
The drawbridge loomed ahead. Forty-five degrees of lifted roadway creating a gap that would have stopped anyone without enhanced abilities or significant equipment. Jake's eyes tracked the angle, calculated trajectory, measured the distance his depleted reserves would need to carry him.
Two hundred yards to the gap. Then the jump. Then whatever waited on the other side.
Jake reached the drawbridge's base and started climbing.
His claws found purchase in the midnight-cold metal, pulling his body upward with movements that felt automatic despite the exhaustion. Sleeper handled the technical aspects while his conscious mind processed something else entirely, some instinct that made him pause halfway up the incline and turn.
Gotham burned behind him.
His eyes tracked across rooftops, searching without knowing what he was searching for, until they found it. A dark silhouette on a building blocks away from the bridge, barely visible against smoke-stained sky. Three figures. The central one triggering his drowned synethesia, bringing back the taste of orange and black for a fleeting moment.
Deathstroke.
Distance and exhaustion made details impossible. Jake's memory compensated. The mercenary stood with casual confidence, flanked by two assassins. Watching. Waiting.
Jake could feel it across the space between them. Deathstroke knew Jake could perceive him, knew his spider-sense would register the attention being paid, knew exactly what message his presence sent.
The offer still stood. Alliance with the League of Shadows. Resources that could shield Jake from consequences when Gotham's destruction got blamed on the Spider, when his mask appeared on wanted posters across continents, when every city he visited became another disaster waiting to happen. The League had reach. Had influence. Had centuries of experience making problems disappear.
They could protect him when collecting totems escalated beyond Gotham's street-level chaos. When he needed to steal from people who operated in spheres where power measured in nations rather than neighborhoods. The League could provide backing, training, refinement of abilities that were still raw despite everything he'd survived.
It was beyond golden opportunity for someone in his situation. A lifeline extended when drowning seemed inevitable.
Jake's jaw tightened behind Sleeper's mask.
He might have been naive once. When he let Gotham back him into corners. Let Harley Quinn drown him in chemical baptism. Thought this would work out like every DC story he'd read, where heroes always found the right path and villains got what they deserved.
That stopped now.
Everything that had happened to him, every compromise forced by circumstance, every line crossed because survival required it, none of it had made him weak. If he'd shown weakness, it was only because his resolve hadn't been pronounced enough, hadn't been hardened by the right kind of fire.
Allying with the League of Shadows was defeat dressed as strategy.
Ra's al Ghul was cunning in ways that made Gotham's crime lords look like children playing dress-up. Selfish despite pretensions of serving greater purpose. Always putting himself first at the expense of others, building legacy on corpses of people who'd thought partnership meant equality.
Joining the League would add Jake to that centuries-long list. Would mean accepting that he couldn't handle his problems alone, couldn't settle his own debts, couldn't take care of himself despite abilities that made him dangerous to everyone around him.
It would mean the powers were wasted on him. That having spider abilities meant nothing if he still needed someone else to fight his battles.
The system was cruel, but at least it was honest. Get to one hundred percent completion, and the powers were his. No handouts. No false promises. Just the grinding mechanical certainty of progress measured in souls consumed and time accumulated.
What Deathstroke offered was alliance with an organization that only made enemies, that would exploit his abilities while pretending to develop them, that would own him the moment he accepted their help.
Jake turned away.
The road ahead was uncertain. He understood he needed help sooner than later, that operating alone had limits and those limits were approaching faster than his Time Bank could compensate for. But if he was going to get assistance, it would be on his own terms. Not because someone thought he was desperate enough to take whatever scraps they offered.
His claws dug into metal. Pulled him higher up the drawbridge's incline.
Jake reached the peak. Stood on raised roadway forty-five degrees from horizontal, looking down at the gap that separated Gotham from everywhere else. The military vehicles clustered beyond looked small from this angle, weapons tracking his position with precision that suggested they'd been waiting for this exact scenario.
A spotlight from one of the vehicles fell on him.
"ATTENTION." The voice crackled through speakers mounted on military hardware positioned beyond the gap. Amplified authority carrying across distance designed to keep threats contained. "YOU ARE APPROACHING A MILITARY QUARANTINE ZONE. TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY."
Jake stayed still. His spider-sense registered the weapons tracking his movement, painting threat assessment across his awareness without urgency.
"THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING. RETREAT FROM THE BRIDGE OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE."
They warning was clear. But Jake was someone who needed to leave. The math was simple even if the execution would be complicated.
Gunfire erupted.
Dozens of weapons opening up simultaneously, muzzle flashes painting the gap in strobing light as bullets tore through air where Jake had been standing. He jumped. Let himself fall toward the gap with trajectory his spider-sense painted in real-time awareness, webbing ready to deploy the moment his body crossed the point of no return.
Exhaustion made the timing wrong.
His webs came out late, strands shooting toward the far side of the gap while his body dropped faster than depleted reserves could compensate for. For a moment it looked like he'd fall, like gravity would claim him and this would end with impact against water far below.
The webbing caught. Jerked him forward with force that sent pain spiking through damaged ribs, pulling him toward the raised drawbridge's underside where shadow would provide temporary cover.
The gunfire paused.
Two hundred soldiers watching, waiting to see if the fall had finished what bullets hadn't started. Weapons still tracking the gap but fingers easing off triggers as seconds passed without movement.
Jake's claws found metal. Pulled him up the drawbridge's far side with movements that felt more like automation than conscious action, exhaustion making everything mechanical. He rolled over the peak, dropped to the downward slope, stuck to the surface through adhesion that was mostly instinct.
He appeared back in their line of sight.
The gunfire resumed immediately. Hundreds of rounds tearing through space he'd just occupied, tracking his descent down the drawbridge's slope with professional precision. Jake rolled. Let gravity and momentum carry him toward the bottom while bullets sparked off metal inches from his body.
He hit the ground. Collapsed. Rose.
Bullets slammed into Sleeper's surface with impacts that should have torn through flesh and shattered bone. The symbiote absorbed them, black material rippling as rounds disappeared into mass that had learned to reject conventional ballistics. Some emerged from Sleeper's back, momentum spent, falling to the ground like rejected offerings.
Jake started walking toward them.
His stride was slow. Mechanical. The trudge of something held together by stubborn refusal to stop rather than actual energy reserves. Each step forward looked wrong, looked like someone moving past the point where their body should have shut down.
"What the hell--" Someone beyond the barricade voiced what they were all thinking. The target should have gone down. Should have bled out or collapsed or done something other than walk toward them like bullets were irrelevant.
"IT WON'T GO DOWN!"
The professional discipline cracked. Two hundred soldiers watching something their training hadn't prepared them for, watching rounds disappear into black material that seemed to eat ammunition faster than they could fire it.
"CEASE FIRE!" The command cut through chaos with authority born from rank and experience. "META-HUMAN COUNTERMEASURES! THREE UNITS, ENGAGE!"
Specialized weapons emerged from positions behind the primary barricade. Expensive hardware designed for threats conventional firearms couldn't handle, ordinance that cost more than most soldiers made in a year. Three units trained specifically for this scenario, spacing themselves to create overlapping fields of fire.
They aimed. Calculated. Fired.
The meta-human rounds tore through air with velocity that made conventional bullets look pedestrian. Jake's spider-sense screamed warning half a second before launch, painting trajectories that converged on his position from three different angles.
He moved.
His body responded despite exhaustion, dodging left while the first round passed through space he'd occupied, adjusting mid-stride as the second round tracked his new position, throwing himself forward as the third round completed the pattern that should have trapped him.
All three missed by inches.
Jake kept trudging forward. Faster now. Not running, but pushing past the mechanical pace, forcing his depleted reserves to find something extra because stopping meant death and death wasn't acceptable when he'd come this far.
The specialized units fired again. Jake dodged again. Spider-sense painting patterns through exhaustion, body moving on instinct refined through weeks of people trying to kill him in increasingly creative ways.
He got close enough.
Twenty feet became fifteen became ten, and Jake's hand shot forward. Not flesh anymore but something else, Sleeper extending from his palm in web-like strands that caught the nearest soldier before he could retreat. The symbiote pulled. Reeled the man in like prey on a line, dragging him across concrete while his team watched in horror.
Jake brought him close. Close enough to see the terror in the man's eyes, close enough to smell the fear-sweat soaking through tactical gear, close enough that the soldier's screaming cut off when Sleeper's mass engulfed his head.
The symbiote fed.
Not clean. Not quick. The consumption was visible, black material flowing over the soldier's struggling form while something underneath dissolved into component nutrition. The man's legs kicked twice. Then stopped. Then disappeared as Sleeper absorbed every piece that mattered.
Jake turned toward the others.
They fired aimlessly. Professional discipline shattered by watching a colleague get consumed by something that shouldn't exist, by facing a threat their training had no protocol for handling.
He caught the next one. Webbing from his other hand snaring a soldier mid-retreat, pulling him back while his friends kept running. Sleeper engulfed him too. Fed with efficiency, processing biomass into usable energy.
The third one made it fifteen yards before webbing caught his ankle.
Jake consumed him on the ground. Let Sleeper flow over struggling form while spider-sense tracked the remaining soldiers repositioning, regrouping, trying to establish defensive positions that would give them angles to fire without hitting each other.
Energy flooded back. Not complete restoration but enough to feel the difference, enough that his enhanced healing could start addressing damage instead of just preventing death. Sleeper pulsed with renewed strength, black material rippling as biomass converted into fuel for continued operation.
Jake moved faster.
He wasn't trudging anymore. His body responded with coordination that had been missing moments before, enhanced reflexes coming back online as nutrition hit critical systems. Webbing caught soldiers who'd thought distance meant safety, reeling them in one by one while their teammates watched and realized conventional tactics were worthless here.
The barricade dissolved into chaos.
Some soldiers kept firing. Others ran. A few tried to establish defensive positions before realizing the Spider was already among them, moving too fast for targeting systems designed for normal threats. Jake caught them all. Fed Sleeper with efficiency born from necessity, consuming biomass faster than they could coordinate resistance.
He broke through to the armored vehicles.
His fist slammed into reinforced plating, claws finding purchase in metal designed to withstand explosive ordinance. Sleeper flowed over his arm, extending tendrils that found seams in the armor, prying open gaps that normal strength couldn't have exploited.
The vehicle's door tore free.
Jake pulled himself inside. Found soldiers cramped in the interior, weapons raised but useless at this range. Sleeper engulfed the space. Fed on the men inside while the vehicle's systems continued running, engine still active, communications still broadcasting screams that cut off abruptly as biomass converted to fuel.
The symbiote spread further. Flowed over controls and weapons systems, learning their function through contact, adapting to vehicle operation with the same efficiency it had shown adapting to bullets. Black material replaced the exterior, armored plating disappearing under living mass that understood propulsion and steering and how to make this machine move.
Jake drove.
The symbiot-ed vehicle lurched forward, crushing smaller obstacles in its path while weapons fired from positions behind. Bullets sparked off Sleeper's exterior, absorbed or deflected without slowing momentum. The vehicle picked up speed, pushing through the remaining barricade while soldiers scattered rather than risk getting crushed.
He was through.
Past the containment, past the military presence, past Gotham's last desperate attempt to keep him caged. The vehicle kept accelerating, putting distance between him and the bridge while gunfire faded behind.
The soldiers didn't follow. They watched the symbiot-ed vehicle disappear into darkness beyond their perimeter, uncertain whether pursuit was worth risking or whether letting this thing escape was the better option when engagement had cost them so many already.
🕸️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕸️
Deathstroke watched it all from the Gotham side of the bridge. The decision had weight he could respect.
Not the tactical calculation, which was garbage. Two hundred soldiers against one compromised meta meant either capture or death, and the Spider had to know that. But the choice itself carried something Deathstroke recognized from his own past, from moments when accepting help had meant accepting chains and the only response was to walk forward anyway.
A fourth assassin materialized beside him, holding something wrapped in black cloth. "Retrieved from the intersection where he fought Batman, as you instructed."
Deathstroke took the package, unwrapped it with care. Forty pounds of crystallized tissue that had been part of the Spider's body until recently. The arm gleamed under smoke-filtered light, glowing patterns visible through black material that suggested the corruption had gone deeper than simple chemical burns.
He tested its weight, felt the density that went past normal biology. Enhanced tissue transformed into something harder, shaped by toxins and desperation into weapon that could crack skulls and crush bone.
"He's made his choice." Deathstroke's eye tracked the Spider's massacre through the military barricade, watched the black mass consume soldiers with efficiency that spoke to practice. "Demonstrated he'd rather face impossible odds than accept terms that compromise his autonomy."
The feeding continued. Methodical. Brutal. The Spider moving through containment like something that knew exactly what to do.
And that efficiency, that absolute refusal to accept help that came with strings, made him exactly what Ra's al Ghul needed. Someone who could be pointed at targets but never controlled. Someone who'd choose death over compromise. Someone whose nature aligned with the League's requirements without requiring the usual conditioning.
The Spider just didn't understand that yet. Didn't realize that Ra's al Ghul wasn't offering chains. Was offering the kind of alliance that respected autonomy because trying to control someone like that would only make them more dangerous.
But he'd learn. Eventually. When his hunt grew harder. When he faced impossible odds that turned his decision from noble to stupid.
Ra's al Ghul always got what he wanted. The only variable was how much suffering preceded acceptance.
Deathstroke watched the symbiot-ed vehicle break through the final barricade, watched it disappear into darkness beyond Gotham's containment while soldiers debated whether pursuit was worth the cost.
"He'll come around," Deathstroke said. More to himself than the assassins flanking him. "They always do."
The gunfire stopped. The Spider was gone. And somewhere beyond the bridge, the hunt continued.
Early Access in Patreon.com/mimiclord
New tier: Common for readers who wish to support me for $1
Thank you.