Ill Met By Moonlight

"So your exams went well?" Gwen Stacy smiled at Liz Allan as they ate their lunch in the Students' Union Building. "That's good to hear."

"Yeah, but I'm really glad it's over," Liz sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I was lucky to get any sleep at all studying."

Gwen only frowned in sympathy, realizing that she'd been lucky to do as well as she thought she did on her own exams. Work, rehearsals, studying and superheroing had all taken their toll on her, and she was just as glad that the semester was over.

"So what's going to happen with Harry?" she asked. "Have you heard from him since...well..."

"I know how it sounds, but at this point I'm having trouble even caring anymore," Liz replied bitterly. "It's terrible, I know, but..."

"But nothing," Gwen interrupted. "Harry ditches you all the time, he refuses to explain what he's doing...frankly, you're have been justified in dumping him," she pointed out.

"I suppose..." Liz replied. "I'm mad at him...but I'm worried about him, too. He's so angry at his father, I don't know what he'll do."

"Is there any way any of us could help?" Gwen asked. "Maybe Randy, Kitty or Ben could-"

"No, thanks," Liz shook her head. "Right now, I don't know if there's anything anyone can do."

Gwen only frowned in sympathy. She knew there wasn't much she could do to help Harry right now.

Of course, she knew that there were other ways of helping someone who needed it.

SPIDER-WOMAN #20

"ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT"

Dr. Karla Sofen typed away diligently in her office at the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, before looking up at the knock on her door. Inviting the person in, she was surprised to see the middle-aged Dr. Charles Jefferson. Formerly one of the senior psychiatrists, Dr. Jefferson had been appointed overall head of the institution since the death of Dr. Ashley Kafka in the murderous breakout that had occurred several weeks ago. After Dr. Kafka had disabled all the security systems and overrides, the supervillain inhabitants of Ravencroft had staged a mass breakout led by the nightmarish Psyko, which had just barely been contained by the Avengers and New York's superhero population.

"So it's alright, then?" Dr. Sofen asked Dr. Jefferson as the older man sat down in the chair opposite her desk.

"I suppose it is," Dr. Jefferson sighed as he glanced over the notes he had brought with him. "You've been speaking with many of the patients?"

"Yes, I have," Dr. Sofen replied. She had intended to write up an analysis of the breakout and the riots from the supervillains' perspective, particularly in analyzing the mass reaction they had shared before Psyko had brainwashed them. As she had not been on the premises when the breakout occurred, Dr. Sofen had been more detached from the madness and was capable of taking what she viewed as a more balanced perspective on the matter.

"What did they tell you?" Dr. Jefferson asked.

"They all felt a sudden rush when they realized they were free," Dr. Sofen replied, glancing back at her notes. "Few of them had any real reservations, and in fact were looking forward to getting back out into the world where they could cause some real damage."

"How unfortunate," Dr. Jefferson sighed. "And when they fell victim to that Psyko creature, they all began suffering from terrible nightmares, didn't they?"

"That's right," Dr. Sofen nodded. "The Chain Gang dreamed of seeing his fellow soldiers die all over again, the Brothers Grimm dreamed of being trapped in a boring, lifeless bureaucracy, Blackout dreamed of being trapped entirely alone and in the dark, and so on."

"How interesting," Dr. Jefferson nodded. "Tell me then, what are your conclusions?"

"Considering how many of the supervillains returned to their base natures after they were freed of their nightmares, as opposed to the many sane victims who were traumatized by their own nightmares, it coincides with the greater fact that criminals are generally far less concerned with moral restraints than law-abiding citizens. In the case of our patients, it is all the more intensified by their madness. The majority of them feel far less horror at their own nightmares than do the sane," Dr. Sofen stated matter-of-factly.

Dr. Jefferson frowned at Dr. Sofen's analysis.

"A pity," he sighed. "You plan to have this published?"

"Absolutely," Dr. Sofen nodded. "You're having second thoughts?"

"No, not at all," Dr. Jefferson shook his head. "I'm just somewhat frustrated at our apparent inability to make any headway with our patients."

"All we can do is keep trying," Dr. Sofen reassured him.

In her mind, however, she began reflecting more and more on how the normal, sane people had reacted to the stress and fear of Psyko's nightmares.

"No, no, no!" Archibald Llewellyn shouted in frustration as he supervised the rehearsal for his impending performance of A Streetcar Named Desire. "Miss Stacy, you are handling the scene all wrong!"

The other cast members glowered at Gwen as she blushed in embarrassment, even as Mr. Llewellyn continued muttering under his breath. For some reason, every time they tried rehearsing her scenes, Mr. Llewellyn had continually managed to find some new flaw in her performance. Either she wasn't using the proper accent, or she walked too forcefully, or her facial expressions were all wrong. As a result, Gwen had begun getting some increasingly unpleasant looks from the rest of the cast.

Gwen could understand Mr. Llewellyn's critiques to a certain extent, but some of them were getting more than a little bizarre. Now he was complaining about how she wasn't being 'earthy' enough in her rendition of the Strange Woman. Before that, he had been yelling at her for not 'presenting enough of an appealing glance' to the audience.

"Unless you step things up, Miss Stacy," Mr. Llewellyn finally sighed in a dramatic flourish, "we may not be ready for opening night. All our efforts will have been in vain!"

Gwen looked down in embarrassment, still not able to figure out what Mr. Llewellyn meant with some of his more recent critiques.

"In any event, the time is now too late for continued rehearsal. I bid you all goodnight, anticipating your return for tomorrow at 7 PM sharp!"

As she packed up her things and headed for the door, Gwen caught up with Randy Robertson. He briefly glanced up as she called out to him, although he made an effort to ignore her as she followed him out. Finally, she caught up to him in the parking lot, as he was getting into his car.

"You did pretty good tonight," she grinned at him as he put his bag in the backseat of his car. "How'd finals go?"

Randy continued to ignore her.

"Look, Randy...I didn't mean to..." she began, as Randy moved to get into his car. Finally, he looked up at her.

"Need a ride?" he asked her. "No sense you taking the subway this time of night..."

"Sure, thanks a lot!" Gwen smiled at him as she got in, putting her own things in the backseat. As soon as she was buckled in, Randy started the car and pulled out into the street, staring straight ahead without saying anything.

They rode in silence for a few minutes.

"Randy?" she started.

Randy continued to ignore her.

"Look, I'm really sorry about me and Ben," she continued. "I thought we were just dating casually. I didn't realize you felt that way, honest..."

Randy blinked once, before a sad look crossed his face. He drove for another minute or so before finally speaking.

"So why'd you stand me up, then?" he asked acidly.

"I was called in to work," Gwen shook her head, "and I had an absolutely miserable night. By the time it was over, I was so stressed and upset I completely forgot about our date. I ran into Ben when I got home, and he offered to take me out. I just forgot to tell you, Randy. I'm sorry, I really am..."

Randy's expression softened at Gwen's explanation.

"I get what you're saying, Gwen," he finally said, as they pulled into the parking lot of Gwen's apartment building. "I've just been burned really bad in the past. That's why I was so angry."

"You were burned?" Gwen asked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"It's way too long a story," Randy shook his head, "and it's way too late to be telling it. I have to get up early for work tomorrow...and you need your beauty rest," he finished with a half-smile.

"So...we're..." Gwen asked tentatively.

"I'll be alright," Randy smiled back, as Gwen got out of the car. They waved to each other as Randy pulled out of the parking lot and got back on the road.

Smiling gratefully, Gwen made her way into the building and up to her apartment, glad that at least something seemed to be going right these days.

At the back of her mind, however, she continued to dwell on her confusion over Mr. Llewellyn's increasingly bizarre criticisms.

"So why did you cast her?" Wilhelmina Llewellyn asked her husband Archibald as they took in lunch at their favorite bistro the next day. "I confess I don't quite understand..."

"To teach the young lady some humility," Archibald sniffed disdainfully. "I have lost all patience with the plethora of young women, both on stage and on screen, who attain their roles through their looks, rather than their talent! Hopefully at least Miss Stacy will learn that she cannot hope to progress in her theatrical career on physical appearance alone!" he completed with a dramatic flourish.

"Quite so," Wilhelmina sighed, by now quite used to her husband's eccentricities. She didn't bother trying to talk Archibald out of his inane schemes, knowing full well she'd have better luck talking to a wall.

That said, Wilhelmina did feel a certain twinge of pity for the latest unlucky actor (or actress, in this case) to get on Archibald's bad side.

"Like a virgin...touched for the very first time..." Ronald Hilliard sang as he ascended the stairs to head back to his bedroom. Smiling winningly as he shut the door and turned on the romantic music, he set about daydreaming about his beloved Spider-Woman, until he was interrupted by the knock at the door.

Looking up in annoyance, Ronald was not very surprised, and even less pleased, to see his mother standing in the doorway, looking around in amazement at the posters, sketches, and photographs of Spider-Woman that covered every inch of Ronald's room. Whether she was fighting one of her enemies, webswinging from building to building, posing in some sort of erotic position or indulging whatever twisted fetish the artist had was thinking of, Spider-Woman was the biggest thing-if not the only thing-on Ronald's mind.

Mrs. Hilliard felt more than a little nauseated, learning far more about her sixteen year-old son's fantasy life than she'd ever wanted to know. All she could do was stare around the room in amazement, until an irritated Ronald interrupted her.

"What the hell do you want?" he demanded rudely, scowling as his mother stood there nonplussed, trying to remember what she'd come in to talk to him about.

"I...I was just going to ask you if you were interested in joining your cousins for that party at the Templetons," Mrs. Hilliard replied.

"Again with the goddamn parties," Ronald sneered. "Why the hell are you always bugging me about them?" he rolled his eyes.

"Because all you ever do is stay cooped up...Ronnie, what is all this?" she demanded, gesturing around at the Spider-Woman pictures covering Ronald's walls.

"What's it look like?" he grinned. "I finally found a girlfriend."

Mrs. Hilliard simply stared back at her son in amazement.

"Ronnie...you...you don't even know this girl! How could you possibly think she's your girlfriend?" she sputtered, still trying to comprehend Ronnie's logic.

"Because she fought to protect me from that twisted Jack O' Lantern freak," Ronald replied calmly. "She risked her life to save me. She loves me," he finished, as a dreamy look came into his eyes.

"Ronnie...sweetie..." his mother stammered, caught completely off guard by Ronald's words. "She wasn't just there for you, she was trying to protect everyone else who was there. She's a superhero, that's her job."

"I might have known you'd try and get between us," Ronald muttered. "Besides, she showed she cared for me. Jack O' Lantern could have killed me, and she managed to protect me! And she knows I care for her..."

"Ronald, she is not in love with you!" Mrs. Hilliard shouted in frustration, now completely flustered. "Maybe if you got out of your room once in a while and actually talked to some women besides me, you might meet someone! Taking the time to actually shower or use deodorant wouldn't hurt either," she continued, shaking her head as her son continued to ignore her.

"Ronald-" she tried again.

He finally did look up at her, and his eyes flashed.

Mrs. Hilliard felt a chill run down her spine, before closing the door and leaving her son alone in his room.

She felt herself shivering as she made her way back down the hall.

Already half-drunk, George Stacy could do nothing but rant and rave about the latest client to abandon him. He had sweated blood to get in good with Wilson Fisk, and get a share of Roxxon's extremely lucrative trade, and now it was all cut off. Just about the only ones left were Norman Osborn and his various criminal clients, but the setbacks the Maggia continued to endure at the hands of Crimewave and Phillipe Bazin meant he couldn't depend on them forever.

Then again, he'd met a number of costumed supervillains while working with the Maggia. He'd even employed a couple of them on Osborn's behalf, notably the Constrictor and Will O' the Wisp. Supervillains often tended to become flush with cash all at once, and needed to dispose of it in a hurry. Perhaps George just needed to find a new use for his skills, if most of the rest of his clients were going to ditch him...

At first he smiled, but then stopped short as he heard his back door slam.

Even as hardened as he was, George felt his skin crawl at the sickening, ghoulish laughter that suddenly seemed to echo through the penthouse. As bad as the laughter was, still worse was the sight of the obscenity that flew into George's den. The creature had gloves and boots that resembled skeletal limbs, a collection of twisted devices hanging from its belt, a chestplate covered in what looked disturbingly like tiny skulls, and a horrifying, nightmarish leering pumpkin for a head.

Although he'd never met the thing before, George already knew what it was.

The Jack O' Lantern.

"W...what the hell do you want?" George demanded, stumbling back in alarm.

"What a lovely place," Jack O' Lantern mused, looking around admiringly at the rich décor. "You must know a lot of people in high places..."

"And they'll make you live to regret it if you hurt me," George threatened, regaining some of his boldness.

"Hurt you?" Jack O' Lantern seemed to smile behind his impassive pumpkin mask. "Please. Rather, I'd like to express my admiration for you."

"A...admiration?" George asked in surprise. "For what?"

"For everything," Jack O' Lantern said smoothly, as he jumped off his hover disc and took a seat on George's couch. "Until very recently, you hid your face, your true face, behind one of the most exquisitely crafted masks I've ever seen in my life."

"...What the hell are you talking about?" George demanded.

"I know who you are," Jack O' Lantern seemed to smirk, as he folded his arms behind his head and put his feet up on George's coffee table, making himself comfortable as if he owned the place. "You hate the mutants, you want to see them all dead or enslaved, but you're forced to hide your feelings behind a concern for the harm they might do. Many of your clients, to keep up their own masks, those facades that disguise their true feelings, abandon you because your true feelings were revealed."

"They hate the mutants too, but they don't want to make their feelings known. They're afraid of what people will think of them, so they distance themselves from you. Otherwise, they're afraid people will think they have the same feelings, and their own images, their own masks, will suffer."

George stood in silence, not quite knowing what to make of Jack O' Lantern's speech.

"You try to hide your dealings with the Maggia, because you know what people will think. You try and present yourself as an upstanding citizen, even though you-rather openly, I might add-cheated on your wife with women young enough to be your daughters. Even now, you deny your support of the Friends of Humanity, who are in turn publicly condemned by so many people who still covertly support them," Jack O' Lantern continued.

"I know everything about you, George Stacy," he whispered, his voice turning cold as ice. "I know about your dealings with the Friends, your dealings with the criminals, the way you've mistreated your family...I know it all. And yet you try and hide it all behind a mask of respectability."

"You're the one in the fucking mask!" George shouted, growing increasingly unnerved by Jack O' Lantern's words. Reaching into his pocket, he tried to pull out his gun, more than ready to blow the son of a bitch away, if he had to.

Faster than lightning, Jack O' Lantern sprang off the couch and reached onto his belt, before dropping a pumpkin-shaped grenade onto the floor. The grenade unleashed a sickly-sweet pinkish gas, which George inhaled before he could hold his breath. Completely paralyzed, he dropped his gun and sank to the floor, as Jack O' Lantern steadily advanced on him. The pumpkin-headed lunatic picked him up and gently put him down on the couch, even going so far as to put the gun back in his pocket before pulling up a chair and sitting down opposite George.

"Hence the irony of it all," Jack O' Lantern hissed, seemingly to smile once again behind the flaming pumpkin. "I'm forced to wear a costume and a mask to show what I truly am. You see, friend George, I'm evil. I'm the villain. I know it, I acknowledge it, I revel in it," he continued. "The reason I do what I do is because I embrace my dark side. In my heart, in my soul, I truly am what you see before you. I'm a freak, a horror, a monster."

"Far too many people, you see, refuse to acknowledge their dark sides. They hide so many of their truest thoughts behind their civilized facades, wearing figurative masks because they're afraid of what people think. They're hypocrites, pretending to like each other when deep down they hate the people they're dealing with. The only thing holding them back is their own fear of how people react," he continued.

"I'm more than that," Jack O' Lantern said as he retrieved another pumpkin from his belt. "I'm everything they fear, I'm everything they hate. I embrace what I am. I'm sick, twisted and depraved. And yet, I have to wear a mask and a costume to show the world what I am, to be able to act out my fantasies and have my fun. The irony is all the more sickening, that a mask must reveal our truest emotions and feelings."

"But you're going to help me change all that, George," Jack O' Lantern sniggered as he dropped the pumpkin grenade on the floor and it began emanating a silvery-white gas. "I devised this special formula just for you..."

Until now, George had merely been paralyzed, forced to listen to Jack O' Lantern's rantings. Now, as he breathed in the silver gas, he felt himself slowly blacking out, even as he heard Jack O' Lantern's bone-chilling laughter continuing to echo faintly in the background...

In recent years, Google had become the premier search engine, backed by a company worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. By simply typing in a person's name, an Internet user could in theory find almost anything recorded about them online.

It was all Liz Allan could hope for as she typed Harry Osborn's name. While she had told Gwen that there probably wasn't anything more anyone could do, that had been as much keep Gwen from fretting, as her honest belief that they couldn't do anything. This was pretty much her last chance...

Nothing about Harry himself came up in response to her search, but she stumbled across a financial website with a very strange bit of news. Apparently, a large quantity of Osborn Industries stock had appeared on the open market. This was fairly unusual, as Harry had told Liz that shares in Oscorp were generally highly sought after for their value and their blue-chip status. It would have been like any other stock trade, except for the fact that such a large share of Oscorp stock was being traded all at once.

Liz was no financier, but even she could tell that whoever was selling those shares was probably making out like a bandit.

A strange thought flashed across her mind.

Was Harry the one selling those shares?

And if so, why?

Bruce McFarlane, commonly referred to as "Kong" by his friends due to his massive size and hairy, apelike face, slammed the door behind him as he took off his shoes, weary after a long day of studies. Eagerly looking forward to dinner, he called out to his parents.

There was no answer to Kong's first call, or to his second.

Puzzled, he started looking for them, and felt a chill of horror at finding his father on the living room floor, badly beaten and barely conscious. As Kong gently lifted him up and put him down on the couch, the telephone rang. Ignoring the phone until it went to voice mail, Kong turned around to scowl at it as it rang again and then ran to answer it as he saw his mother's cell phone come up on the call display.

"Mom?" he asked frantically. "What's going on? What happened to-"

"Bruce, please..." his mother pleaded on the other end. "She's going to kill me."

"...What?" Kong started. "Who did this to you? What happened?"

"Look down on the table where the phone is," Kong's mother replied. "Do you see that little device?"

"Yeah..." Bruce said, as he looked at it curiously.

"Attach it to your shirt collar," his mother replied.

"Wait, why would I-" Kong began.

"Bruce, please! She'll kill me if you don't!" his mother sobbed, herself almost out of her mind with panic as Kong attached the device to his collar.

"Hey, Mom, I'll call the police. Let me-" he began.

The line suddenly went dead.

Kong felt himself beginning to panic as the tears of frustration began welling up, before he turned back to his father.

He suddenly felt a burst of rage as he saw the injuries his father had suffered.

Mrs. McFarlane couldn't stop sobbing as Moonstone reached into the prison of light and confiscated her cell phone, shutting it off with a satisfied smile. All around the warehouse, several large cubes of transparent golden light stood, each one containing one of Moonstone's victims. The silver-helmeted, gold-clad woman grinned at their reactions, fascinated by how some of her prisoners shouted and threatened her, others broke down in tears and begged for mercy, while the last one simply lay there silently, seemingly resigned to his fate.

It had cost a fair amount of money to purchase the monitoring and tracking devices and get the Tinkerer to set them up, but they'd been well worth the price to see how her victims' families were reflecting on it. The warehouse had come very cheap, particularly after she'd hypnotized the owner into letting her use it for a month, no questions asked. The devices her victims' family members had been forced to wear contained miniature cameras and microphones, along with tracking modules that let her know where they were at all times.

Aside from observing the psychological reactions, she was eager to see if any of the family members would have the wits to trace her somehow.

Having stopped in to check on her mother's bank accounts, Gwen was now waiting at the bus stop, once again going over how to best approach the play. It was only after she saw him running towards her, violently shoving people out of the way, that Gwen recognized Kong. She blinked in surprise, caught off guard by the intense look on his face and his heavy, labored breathing.

"Hey, Kong!" she called out to him, even as he kept advancing on her. The big man didn't even seem to notice them, forcing Gwen and the other people waiting with her to dodge out of the way. One older man wasn't fast enough, however, and was knocked over as Kong slammed into him, giving a cry of alarm as he fell towards the pavement.

In a flash, Gwen had sprung over and caught the man before he hit the ground, setting him down gently on the bench before springing after Kong. As fast as Kong was, renowned for his speed in his high school football days, he still wasn't fast enough for Gwen, who quickly caught him and forced him to stop, maintaining a firm grip on his arm with her spider-strength despite Kong's best efforts.

"Kong! KONG!" Gwen shouted at the big man, who continued pulling at her. "What's wrong with you? You could have really hurt that guy!"

"Let me go! Let me go!" Kong shouted in anger, even as a number of other passersby began gathering around them. Although Kong towered over Gwen, she easily pulled him back and sat him down on the park bench, even as several other people followed them. The other people were muttering angrily, but none of them dared confront the huge young man.

"Kong, listen to me," Gwen said gently but firmly. "Whatever's going on, you're not going to solve it by just running around screaming. You need to tell me what's wrong. Maybe I can help."

"My mother...she...she's been kidnapped," Kong muttered in between deep breaths as he fought to regain control. "I've got to...find her...they'll kill her..."

The passerby's anger soon turned to sympathy, as they saw for themselves the frustration and anger on Kong's face. Gwen felt the same way-she'd met Kong's mother once, and Mrs. McFarlane was one of the sweetest, kindest people she'd ever known.

"You should call the police," Gwen urged him. "They can help you find her."

"My dad already did," Kong muttered. "I can't wait that long-I don't know what they're going to do to Mom..."

"How are you going to find her?" another bystander interjected.

"I...I don't know!" Kong finally shouted in frustration. "But there's got to be something I can do!"

Gwen thought for a moment.

"Did you try using call trace?" she asked, remembering how Peter Parker had taught her how to use the Global Positioning System to trace not just the number, but even the location, of specific cellular phones that called one's own. As Kong handed her the phone, she began inputting the signal, smiling in relief when she saw the warehouse pop up on the map. Fortunately, Kong's cell phone was made by Stark Enterprises-from what Peter had told her, Stark's enhancements to the GPS had enhanced its capabilities tremendously over the last few years.

"Why didn't you take this to the police?" she asked him after handing the phone back.

"I completely lost my head," Kong said in some embarrassment. "I know, I should have taken this to the cops right away. But that's what I'm going to do, believe me!" he grinned as he stood up, before turning back to Gwen briefly.

"Thanks a lot, Gwen," he grinned at her. "You're a lifesaver."

Many of the passersby wished him good luck as he ran off.

Gwen nodded her appreciation of Kong's thanks, before a disturbing thought hit her.

What if whoever was holding Mrs. McFarlane prisoner was monitoring her phone somehow?

It would take time for Kong to get to the police station, and for the police to get to the warehouse-time that Mrs. McFarlane and whoever else was being held hostage might not have to spare.

Nodding in determination, Gwen got up and ran off in the opposite direction.

Moonstone's eyes flickered from one monitor to the other, observing not only the words and actions of her test subjects, the people who had been forced to wear her tracking devices after the kidnapping of their family members, but also their physiological reactions. The devices recorded her subjects' pulse, breathing, adrenaline levels, and other physical reactions to their stress. Already the data was being transferred to a separate mainframe, where she could observe it later at her leisure.

"What are you going to do with us?" one of the men yelled at Moonstone as she continued to watch the monitors.

"Kill you, of course," Moonstone replied flatly without looking back. "You've all served your purposes, and in any event you know too much. Don't worry, though," she continued, turning around as her eye-slits began to glow. "It will be very quick, and you won't feel a-"

Moonstone was interrupted by the shattering window and the startled cries of her prisoners, as the spectacular Spider-Woman burst into the room and made a perfect three-point landing in the centre of the floor, her hands glowing brightly as she stared daggers at Moonstone.

"How timely of you, my dear," Moonstone smiled at Spider-Woman. "And obviously resourceful, to be able to track me back to my lair! Might I ask how you did it?"

Spider-Woman didn't reply, except to glance around at the force fields holding Moonstone's prisoners and then firing her electrical sting blasts at Moonstone, who took to the air. The blasts struck the monitoring equipment behind her, shattering it even as Moonstone released a series of powerful golden energy blasts of her own at Spider-Woman. The arachnid heroine managed to dodge around each one before leaping into the air and shooting another webline, dodging around the blasts and firing several more of her own.

In response, Moonstone froze in place and generated a force field of her own around her, which at first shielded her from the blasts but was swiftly neutralized by the blasts' energy. As Spider-Woman geared up for another attack, Moonstone proved to be faster than she expected, firing another energy blast that cut through her webline. As Spider-Woman fell to earth, she began preparing another webline, but once again Moonstone was faster, blasting Spider-Woman with another energy bolt. Stunned from the impact, Spider-Woman landed heavily on one of the force fields holding Moonstone's prisoners and bounced off before crashing heavily on the ground.

Woozy from the impact and struggling to get to her feet, Spider-Woman saw yet another bolt of golden energy streaking towards her, which began shaping itself into a large cube all around her, trapping her in a prison similar to those that Moonstone's victims were still encased in. They called out encouragement to Spider-Woman, frantically telling her to get up. As Spider-Woman looked around frantically, she saw that the cube was now shrinking in size, constricting more and more in on her. Slamming herself against it in an attempt to break out, she found that the force field proved to be harder than iron.

"Let's try another experiment, shall we?" Moonstone smiled. "Shall we see what happens when all the other cages shrink at the same time? Will your superhuman strength keep you from being crushed longer than the rest of these poor wretches?"

"No...NO!" Spider-Woman screamed, as her hands began glowing brightly. There was a blinding flash as her sting blasts shattered the force field, freeing Spider-Woman in an instant before she turned her blasts on the other six fields, vaporizing them one after another. Moonstone flew down to try and stop her, but Spider-Woman only stopped firing her sting blasts long enough to blind her opponent with a glob of webbing to the face. As Moonstone used her energy to burn the webbing off her mask, being immune to her own powers, she regained her sight just in time to be staring at an angry Spider-Woman and six free hostages.

Some of the hostages were running for their cell phones, no doubt intending to call the police. Moonstone fired a stream of energy towards them, but her efforts were deflected by Spider-Woman's own blasts. No longer amused, Moonstone turned her attention to Spider-Woman, but this time the arachnid heroine was faster, catching Moonstone in the arm with a webline and spinning her around until she slammed into a wall.

Wincing in pain as she crashed into the wall and began slumping to the floor, Moonstone realized that there was nothing more to be gained in fighting Spider-Woman. She had the data she needed, and it was already safely stored on her main computer. Concentrating intently, she emanated a bright flash of light that blinded Spider-Woman and the hostages.

By the time they regained their sight, Moonstone was gone.

Breathing heavily, worn out from the exertions, Spider-Woman sat down on a collection of pallets in the corner. She knew she was probably going to be late for work or late for rehearsal-she couldn't remember which one it was tonight-and she knew that Mr. Llewellyn or Mr. Spencer were going to read her the riot act once again.

All she wanted to do was groan and lie down on the pallets, frustrated by the toll her costumed career seemed to be taking on her life. All this just to spite her father...

Then she became aware of the hostages she had rescued gathering around her.

"Thanks a lot, kid," one man said with a grateful smile. "My son would have been lost without me."

"I know a lot of people hate you hero-types," a woman chimed in, "but they're just too stupid to realize what you do for us. Not everyone can do it, you know."

"You saved our lives," another man said, bowing to Spider-Woman, "and we'll never forget it."

Getting off the pallets with a smile, Spider-Woman suddenly didn't feel so bad anymore.

Dr. Jefferson typed away diligently as he continued going over the accounts for some of Ravencroft Asylum's latest purchases. He had taken considerable care to balance the budget, skimming off small sums here and there from different parts of the asylum's funding and stashing the money in a secret account that could be used for some of the side projects that the bureaucrats didn't know about. He nodded approvingly at the e-mail from the Tinkerer showing receipt of payment, and saved the encrypted files before closing them and returning to his regular work.

Even as he did this, his mind continued to dwell on that strange spinning that he recalled seeing, although for the life of him he couldn't remember where he'd seen it in the first place. Leaning back in his chair in satisfaction, he took a sip of coffee, grimacing at its sour and bitter taste.

He hated the stuff, but for some reason he couldn't get enough of it.

(Next Issue: Liz continues to try and find out what has become of Harry Osborn, while Ben and Kitty participate in a strange family meeting. Meanwhile, in the background Jack O' Lantern begins to put the wheels of a sinister plot in motion. As Spider-Woman, Gwen finds she has more pressing things to worry about, when she discovers what happened to the mysterious Tarot, and her twisted new ally, the murderous Bookworm! All this and more in Spider-Woman #21: A Match Made In Hell!)