"I think this belongs to you," Gosunkugi said as he handed the bag
to the woman. She was only a little taller than he, a short black skirt and
white cotton jacket in disarray.
        "Th-thanks," she said weakly, staring wide-eyed at him.
        "Are you okay?"
        "Y-yes."
        The sound of running footsteps drew Gosunkugi's attention to the
mouth of the alley. A thin beam of light hit the wall, and began to move in
his direction.
        "What's going on in here?" came a deep male voice. Recognizing it as
that of a police constable his father knew, Gosunkugi decided to take his leave.

        "What the?" Officer Kensuke muttered as he took in the sight.
"Shinji, you gotta see this!"
        "What?" Shinji asked as he ran to join his partner. "Holy..." The
two officers entered the alley, Kensuke going to the woman and Shinji
examining the dangling man.
        "Are you okay?" Kensuke asked the woman, who as staring upward at
nothing at all.
        "Yeah, I'm fine," she replied distantly.
        "Would you tell us what happened here?"
        "He was going to..." she said, pointing at the mugger, "and then
that Spiderman came and stopped him."
        "Spiderman?" Shinji asked, "You mean that guy in this morning's paper?"
        "Come on, miss," Kensuke said, "let's go back to the station. We'll
get this straightened out."
        "Damn," Shinji said in disbelief, "How're we gonna get him down?"
        "Don't worry about it," Kensuke said with a chuckle. "Personally, I
think he's just fine right where he is for now. He's even gift-wrapped!"

======================================

        "Who is the Spiderman?" Leung sat at his desk, examining the photos
of the garishly-dressed man swinging through downtown Tokyo. Leung had an
odd feeling, looking at the pictures, that this mysterious stranger would
turn out to be big trouble.
        Leung sat in his office high atop one of the many skyscrapers in the
city, the brightly lit room a stark contrast to the blackness outside.
Spiderman, whoever he was, was a wild card. In Leung's rise to power in the
fiercely competitve Triad, he had learned the value of control. In every
operation the Triad placed him in charge of, in every scheme and power play
he had ever orchestrated, control had always been his key to success.
Control over every detail, no matter how miniscule and insignificant was how
he got his monicker, Kingpin.
        Spiderman, however, was an element he had no control over and Leung
didn't like that one bit. Who was he? Was Spiderman part of a rival Triad
group? Was he part of the Yakuza, meaning to rid Japan of any and all Triad
operations? Maybe he was part of the Korean or Russian mafias?
        Leung pushed all those thoughts out of his head. For now, he had no
clue as to Spiderman's origins or intent. The first logical step, then, was
to find out as much about Spiderman as he possibly could. He looked at the
name of the photographer, one Hikaru Gosunkugi. Could there be something
there? Could this Gosunkugi actually hold the key? Leung dismissed the
notion after a few moment's thought. He had researched the name, and come up
with a high school student in a ward called Nerima. The kid had probably
just been in the right place at the right time. Such things did happen,
after all, though not to Leung if he could at all help it.
        He would find out who Spiderman really was. If possible, he would
make him part of the Project. Anyone who could swing through the air at that
height could be useful, after all.

==================================

        Well, that's Issue 3! Sorry this took so long, Real Life and other
projects got in the way. I'd like to thank all my pre-readers/creative
consultants for their help with this fic.

        Thanks!

Jed