"we hit back."

It’s a strange feeling, this sudden, unshakeable clarity. For weeks, she’d been left reeling by Spider-Man’s actions, unable to comprehend how things had gone so sad so fast. But here she sits--on forced, unpaid administrative leave, facing legal action--replaying the memory of her attempted murder of Hammerhead. Pushing past her subordinates at the time of his arrest, no one stopping he as she took aim, the flash of the gun’s muzzle, the dark thrill as his head had been thrown back on impact.

It hadn’t been revenge, or justice the fueled her actions, not really. Rather, it was something darker and more sinister, some primal instinct or bloodlust she’d never felt before, and now that she had? It was only a matter of time before she needed another taste.

For a while, she was careful only to pick off the worst of the worst, explaining her actions away to herself as vigilantism. And with Spider-Man incarcerated and the crime rate exploding in his absence, there was no shortage of criminals to sate her violent appetite. But street level thugs... You take out one, and two more replace them.

Like vermin, it’s better to target the nest; the source of the city’s infestation. The powerful corrupt, starting with none other than Norman Osborn himself. But to do that, Wraith would need help. And who better than to call upon than an old ally who’d also taken a dark detour.

Despite the blemishes on her record, it’s easy enough to pass along a deeply coded letter to the ex-hero: many of the corrections officers were sympathetic to Captain Yuri Watanabe’s plight, and seemed to think that her working relationship with the Spider might be helpful in rehabilitating the man.

With no way to be sure he’d read--let alone understood--the message, she enacts her plan a few nights later as Wraith, igniting explosives around the building as a diversion as she slips inside to free her ex-partner. 

Her teeth click together as her jaw tightens, and her tongue flattens against the roof of her mouth as rage courses through her veins. She’d had to put on an act, pretend to be remorseful and shocked by her own actions amongst her officers, but truthfully, her only regret is not ending that monster’s life then and there.

GHOSTS

Your pain takes the shape of ghosts, haunting you, always there. No one would believe you if you told them, or understand even if they did. You don’t know how to make them go away, or what they want. They just follow you, casting shadows over all you do, being your fears and the embodiment of all you’ve lost or are afraid of losing.

They can’t touch you though… Can they?

“Stay out of my way,” she says, enunciating each word precisely. Her eyes are cold and sharp as she stares at the lenses of his mask with an intensity that suggests she can see through them into the eyes beneath.

Yuri has worked in law enforcement for years, and in that time, she has been faced with some of the absolute worst people New York has to offer. But never before has one man evoked such a primal, rage-driven reaction. There’s no hiding the disgust, nor the fury the shapes her features as his name is spoken.

Hammerhead.

Before she answers, she spits on the ground, hands balled into hidden, vicelike fists in her jacket pocket.