(ITB) ISSUE #6: TREMORS

The television in the electronics shop window cracked mid-broadcast. A second later, the ground shuddered beneath Taylor’s feet.

No dramatic music swelled. No splash of lightning with the accompanying boom of thunder announced what was coming. Just the blunt, clinical voice of the emergency broadcast system:

“This is an Emergency PRT Alert. All citizens in the downtown area are advised to shelter in place or evacuate if safe to do so. Repeat: Parahuman threat confirmed. Threat level: High. Suspected hostile—Lung.”

The street emptied like a drain had been pulled. Doors slammed. Tires screeched. Somewhere, a dog barked amidst the cacophony and didn’t stop.

Taylor stood on the sidewalk, suited up in her costume. Her mouth was dry. Her fingers twitched, summoning her swarm, but they came scattered and agitated.

The next tremor hit like a pressure drop in the air. Not loud—but deep. It thrummed in her bones, pressing into her chest and making her lungs forget what they were doing. A car alarm went off. And kept going.

I’m not ready.

Behind her, Miles was still. For once, no movement, no bounce in his step, no quick jokes or nervous chatter to cut the tension. Just silence.

Then, low:

“Tell me that’s not normal.”

She didn’t answer.

Miles stepped up beside her, his voice deliberately light. “That’s Lung?”

“Yeah.” She kept her eyes on the screen as it cut to shaky footage: a plume of smoke rising into the sky. Heatwaves rippling above melting asphalt. The vague outline of a figure towering over a crushed sedan. “He grows stronger and bigger the longer he fights. Grows armor over his body and claws. Controls fire. And also has a healing factor.”

“So, uh... not a guy you web up and leave for the cops.”

“Not unless you want them to burn.”

He looked toward the smoke curling over the skyline. “So we’re going, right?”

She turned to him, incredulous. “No. We’re staying out of it.”

Miles exhaled. “Taylor—”

“This isn’t your world,” she snapped, the words harsher than she meant. “You keep acting like you can fix it just because you want to, because it’s what Spider-Man does, right? You can’t.”

“We can still try.”

She almost laughed. “Try? You think the Empire cares if we try? You think Lung will go easy on us because we’ve got heart?”

“People could die.”

“They die anyway,” she bit back, her voice cracking. “You don’t get it—here, the villains win and heroes lose. There aren’t any Spider-Men swinging in with backup.”

He stepped closer. “So what—we let him burn down half the city?” 

No response. 

“We have to do something, Taylor.”

The silence between them stretched as the ground shook again, closer this time. The sky burned low over the skyline, the orange blooming brighter, flickering with deeper reds. She could smell smoke and hear distant sirens wailing, growing fainter by the second.

She swallowed. “I’m not strong enough.” The words felt like surrender, but she couldn’t lie to him. Not about this. 

“You don’t believe that.”

“I do. I know it. Lung’s not a mugger with a knife. He has fought every cape in the city. He didn’t go down then. What chance do I—we—have?”

Miles didn’t try to argue the facts. He just said, “You put on a mask. In a city that’s forgotten what hope looks like. You are strong.”

She looked away. “I didn’t do it for hope. I did it because I…” Her voice lowered. “I wanted to make a difference in a world that ignored my pain.”

He nodded. “Doesn’t matter why you started. What matters is you’re a hero now.”

Taylor stared at him, stunned. Something in his tone—gentle, but unflinching—sank past her armor. That quiet belief in her. 

He added, quietly: “You don’t wait to be ready. You jump. That’s what a leap of faith is.”

The phrase echoed inside her like a breath held too long.

She remembered her dad’s face whenever she came home from school with bruises. The way he hadn’t asked. The way he hadn’t known how to ask.

She remembered her mom—her warm hands, soft voice, and firm kindness that made people feel seen. She remembered the funeral. The silence. The way Emma had started looking through her after.

And she remembered the locker.

She clenched her fists and drew in a shaky breath. Felt her swarm snap to attention, no longer scattered. Flies. Beetles. Wasps. Roaches. Every insect she could reach within a mile. They were all drawn to her.

“I can’t promise I won’t run,” she said.

Miles nodded, something minute easing in his shoulders. “Then I’ll cover you if you do.”

Another second passed. Another tremor.

“Fine,” she said. “We go.”

They moved fast.

Taylor led them, cutting through alleyways, scaling fire escapes, and taking to the rooftops where possible. Her movements weren’t graceful, but they were methodical—height and gaps traversed by instinct and fear in equal measure. Miles kept pace easily, webs thwipping to effortlessly swing him between buildings and overturned cars, or over people’s head. 

They reached the top of a building just west of the financial district. A new explosion lit up the skyline like a second sun.

Lung stood at the center of the chaos, a dragon in the making. Easily nine feet tall now. His scales glowed like magma, eyes hidden behind growing horns and smoke. He roared, low and monstrous, and the heat of his breath warped the air around him.

The PRT hadn’t arrived yet. Or maybe they weren’t coming. Taylor didn't ask Miles.

Her bugs painted a real-time map in her mind—a man trapped under a collapsed sign, a girl hiding in a car, others screaming as they retreated.  

Miles stood at the roof’s edge.

She swallowed. “Still want to go down there?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Then, softly and honest: “No. But we have to.”

The wind shifted, carrying smoke and heat over them. Taylor tasted ash through her mask, and her heart raced.

She drew her swarm closer. Not ready. Not ready.

But she jumped anyway.

Because he did.