Paralyzed

February 15, 2016:

Superman, Miss America, and Spider Woman deal with a strange invader.

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\ None.]


Fade In…

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

That is approximately the sound made by the dark purple, iridescent beast as it goes sailing over rooftops and hits the side of an apartment building, making a loud slamming sound. A few people scream and flee along the sidewalk. If it jumped, it is terrible at jumping; more like it was flung. It is roughly the size of a car, a churning pool of darkness and purple mist that melts into the color of the wall as it seems to disappear for a few moments. In the alley below, ichor drips, a steaming yellowish splatter. The creature is quiet, faceted eyes rotating around and up, and it starts to climb the building, but badly: it's nearly done for. It has six legs, so it can't be a spider, but it's easily creepy enough to spawn plenty of horror movies.

Rooftops are the staple hangout for superhero types. Julia has an overnight babysitter because.. she officially works a government job which has oddball hours, and that lets her have some freedom to go out at night. Her black and white costume works as some sort of oddball camouflage look in the NYC streets and alleyways.
But for the moment, she was simply enjoying the cool air rushing past her winterized heavily insulated costume. The benefits of a government paycheck right? Anyway, she releases the psi-web she was swinging from… soaring into the air and spreading her arms out in the gesture of a swan dive when that scream hit her ears.
And..that's when she creates a new web to arc herself skywards after a downward swing with a leg pump to give more speed. She comes up over the rooftop edge only a few feet from the creature, and she immediately webs herself back away from it with a "Whoa! Down boy!" coming from her mouth as she ends up perched on the side of a tall chimney up above the creature. "Where the -heck- did you come from?" she finds herself asking aloud.

Korean BBQ is a particular weakness of America's. She knows the best places in the multiverse to get it, and it just so happens that this particular earth…

Well, it isn't exactly in the top five, but it does make it within the top twenty. Having only recently come back to this universe after a lengthy jaunt with a team called The Ultimates back in Earth 616, the young woman wasn't in any mood to jaunt back to Earth 41885, which had the best Korean BBQ in existence. This would do. She was just in the middle of enjoying the pork belly (her favorite part) when a shape slammed against the building across the street, and people screamed and fled.

"Of course," the teenager says as she pushes her plate away from her. It never failed: any time she sat down to eat something she actually enjoyed, something decided to happen. She always had the nagging suspicion that Loki might be behind it all.

She'd have to find out.

In the meantime, however, there's the matter of the bizarre and strange creature. Leaving a bundle of dollars behind on her table and a brief "I'll be back," the hispanic woman walks out into the street and quickly takes to the air, in an attempt to ascertain the final touchdown place of said aforementioned monster. She spots it climbing the building, but does not approach yet- rather, she starts flying around the perimeter to better observe this creature.

"Look out, it ——" rings out in a strong, clear masculine voice, before the beast suddenly is already doing what was being warned. It 'spits' at Julia.

And it's not the expected spit of snot goop, it launches the front of it's whole upper face forwards in a snapping motion: the top of the head opened and a long lashing barb slams out at extreme speed, spewing a spray of paralytic purple liquid. It stabs and stabs while shrieking and jolting backwards awkwardly. For a good reason: the man that spoke is bodily hanging onto it and pulling it backwards. "—Spits and bleeds paralytic liquid," Superman finishes, having streaked down in a blur of red and blue into play at high speed and hauled the beast backwards by the back left leg with his left hand. His right is covered in yellowy ichor-stuff. Probably from having figured out the blood thing.

Julia is not a slow reflex person. She may not have Spider Sense, but she has -incredible- reflexes, on par with a Kryptonian, or someone empowered by the Speed Force. She leaps from the chimney the moment the creature starts moving. It's like she is already gone even as the creature is flexing its muscles in preparation to attack… and with a judiciously applies psi-web, she arcs about and lands on an AC unit nearby. But seeing that red and blue guy.. she hesitates for only a moment before she begins spinning psi-webs to try to tie up the beast….

America frowns. She recognizes the man, alright, a face who has been absent for a very long time. "You're back." she says, in that characteristically expressive way of hers. For America, it's positively a ticker-tape parade.

Celebrations will have to wait, however. The creature's paralyzing ichor needs to be dealt with, which means that they need to find a way to capture it without necessarily touching it. The psi-web looks like it can be a solution, but if any liquid can get past the web, then there will be need for more.

"Don't let it go anywhere. I'll be right back."

And with that, she darts off into the distance in a red, white and blue blur, heading towards the docks.

The spider-woman's expert dodging annoys the creature, who lobs a final spit at her, but seems to realize it would be easier to get at her if it wasn't being hauled backwards.
"Sure," Superman answers to Miss America, but is distracted by the purple beast. Sounds fine.
The beast turns backwards along its spine with surprising speed to snap at Superman at its leg, the head upside-down, stinging at him repeatedly. He dodges, but only minimally, trying to hold attention (and the leg). It then starts to hawk up a spray, and Superman chooses not to move. "Web it all you can — I'll keep it—" on him, or perhaps occupied?, but he has to stop talking, to release a chilling breath of freezing air into the spray. It freezes the goo in splinters of a solid, which makes the monster lurch and choke and chitter in confusion, trying to spit, but the valve is clogged and frozen, for the moment.
The webs catch onto the legs, while it tries to make sense of what just happened in its face.

It's a good thing these webs are psionic.. telekinetic to a degree, and not physical. They can't freeze and become brittle. She just pours it on… basically attempting to web Superman up with the beast all into one giant coccoon. Her webbing isn't as straight up strong as Spider-Man's though.. so she's trying to replace it faster than it is being ripped up.
"Welcome home Superman." she remarks as she works. The thing is, the webs take more energy out of her… more effort, than fighting physically does. She's quickly growing fatigued by this, but she won't quit.

The blur eventually comes back. It's hard to make good speed over a city while resisting to go hypersonic- the damage that could be caused from flying over the buildings at that speed would be disastrous. Still, America makes good time on her way back- trailing behind her something large, long, and shiny. The plastic tarps used at the docks, often to protect from spillage of various liquids and chemicals, should provide a good temporary tool. As she approaches Superman and Julia, America shouts out to them: "Let's see how it looks as a mummy. Throw it up in the air, if you can."

With Julia's web holding it still, America figures that she and Superman could use the tarp to wrap the creature up as tightly and as closely as possible at high speed, using several layers to cover it up completely and thus render its noxious secretions harmless, at least for a short while.

"Something's happening — look out! America, it might be spraying the street!" Superman calls to America quickly, hoping she'll respond fast enough. You know to possibly use her plastic to shield where the people and cars are, and the police are coming: innocents must be protected.
The monster pulls its limbs in slowly, fighting with the strands of webbing. Superman opts to let go this time, and with a forceful jolt, rips free backwards, and goes back into the freezing breath cone.
The monster shakes, shakes, inside the forming cocoon like a frustrated purple moth, and then suddenly explodes. Most of the psy-webs contain it, but splatters of yellowish ichor spray in all directions through spots that were weak or weren't quite able to withstand the force of the explosion. There's a LOT of the stuff, surging out from the holes in splatters of goop. A lot of it is frozen in a giant blob on Superman's side towards the building though, there was plenty more to deal with.
Superman stops the frozen breath, with a slow breath. At least it seems to be 'dead'. "Were you hit?" he calls to the women immediately, more concerned for them than his ichor-ified right hand at the moment. And to see if America was able to protect the people.

Seeing the coming explosion of monster from the webs, Julia is already in motion, leaping through the air. She can't fly or go supersonic speeds. But what she can do, is come down from an acrobatic flip that was done at high speed, with an incredibly forceful double kick, one foot and then the other… to the head of the beast as she cartwheels to land before it and perform a one two cross/uppercut combo before vaulting back away again and firing more webs at its /hopefully/ semi-stunned form.

While America is capable of super-speed in flight, there is only so much time to react and, honestly, so much you can do with how you're positioned. As Superman shouts his warning, the young woman zooms forward, letting the tarp extend in her wake. She throws the massive thing out onto the street, where it covers a large number of pedestrians and vehicles.

It does cause some minor accidents, but fortunately nothing serious- and it does keep the fragile pedestrians from being touched by the monster's paralyzing blood as it explodes and dies.

Unfortunately this action leaves America completely in harm's way. She catches a good amount of the gush across her body and immediately tenses. Without a word, she starts falling down to earth, paralyzed.

She is calm, however, as the ground rises up to meet her. Her invulnerability will protect her, but she will leave a nasty crater on the ground below…

But she is worried about one issue:

What if the paralysis can't be removed?

Julia's fast thinking rapid kick and slam granted a few extra precious seconds for America to get into position. It also did something else: it caused Superman to stop breathing ice, so as to not hit her. Which meant, finally, that when he glances back to check on America, it's early enough to see her start to fall. Superman jolts for her immediately, to get under her and intercept to catch her. It's a bit awkward due to one-armed, so she'll get an awkwardly close hug against the man of steel's chest, but at least she didn't slam into pavement. And yes, he'll get a bit of the goo on him that was on her, but, priorities.
The monster (or what remains of it) sags inside the webbing blob, looking appropriately defeated.

With Superman doing that… Spiderwoman is also leaping off the rooftop. She is delayed briefly by the fact that she has no power for moving fast. She does however… whip out a psi-web… and use it to propel her towards the downed monster for a final kick… bouncing off of it and landing in the street. Now ready to believe that it is defeated…

America is easily caught by the Man of Steel- it isn't exactly what she was expecting, but then again… she realizes he probably doesn't know what she's capable of. It was only natural that he would try to protect her, and it would be extremely rude for her to snap at the Man of Steel for it.

"Thank you," she says, managing to sound polite, even. Usually when she says 'thank you' to anyone she isn't close friends with, the words come out with the same inflection as one might have when saying 'Eat hot lead, Kincade!' "-where did you get that thing, where have you been, and how can I get this off me?" she says, asking three questions in quick succession. She is as rigid as a statue under the paralyzing effects of the snot, which is starting to make her somewhat cross.

"Let's start with getting this slime off of you immediately, the rest can wait," Superman suggests, his tone firm. "Would you be willing to see to the police getting a chemical hazard crew here, please?" Superman calls to Julia directly. No point in this stuff out or into water and who knows what it could do. If she can handle it, he can focus on getting America un-stuck. And, well, himself, too.

"Yeah. I can get it handled." says Julia as she lifts a hand to the comlink in her right ear. She calls in a request to get a Hazmat team here and steps back to look at the others presence. "She gonna be okay?" she asks more softly.

"I'll be fine," America says, trying her best not to sound too curt to the woman who had helped take down the monster. She wasn't responsible for the sticky mess she found herself in right now.

Goodness only knew what the Paparazzi would make of them stuck like this the moment any of them arrived on the scene.

And, across the street, the pork belly was getting cold.

"There you have it," Superman says, of America's proclamation, and flashes a charismatic, honest smile to Julia. "Thanks for your help." He does mean it, too. He doesn't say things he doesn't mean. In less than a moment they're airborne, and due for a (safe) rinse.

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