Cindy Meets the Devil!

February 06, 2017:

Examining the mysterious web of her new roommate's life in the private bedroom of Alias Investigations, Azalea Kingston meets the spider-heroine, Silk… and furniture pays the price.

Alias Investigations, Hell's Kitchen, NYC

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions: Jessica Jones, Spider-Man

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Has Silk ever thought about what it would be like to feel the nuclear apocalypse coming? The escalation on television wouldn't be the worst part. The worst part would be the way her acute sense for all things dangerous would give her a slow keen in the back of her mind. Ticking up well ahead of the global destruction, two steps ahead of the media, one step ahead of those pulling the strings.

Whatever it is that's going on in Jessica's apartment, Cindy will feel it before she ever gets close to the rooftop or the window - or however else she usually critter-crawls into the place. A tension line of escalation, a whirlwind of furious danger with a single epicenter:

The stare of Azalea Kingston.

At first she didn't understand exactly what drew her to look at the bedroom. She'd been told they'd have other guests, but she'd been so busy, been out so often, that she never would have guessed any had moved in. Invading Cindy's privacy was easy - in theory she was supposed to share this room, though she's been borrowing other people's beds outside of this place as of late. And so she stood there in the dark, her gaze fixated on the layers of webbing on one wall and the things attached.

Sure, that was odd. Sure, that was strange. But there was something else, too. Some other feeling, reaching back to memories that are not her own, eyes wide and filled with ire, brows lifting and lips pulling back in a slow snarl as her rage crawls up her spine and sends goosebumps cascading across her skin.

Her whisper is low, beneath her breath, in a language she does not know that she knows.

"Ananasi… you will not escape /this/ time."

—-

Until she started to live outside of the bunker under the Sims Tower, Cindy did not think she would have felt a lot of things— let alone that of the nuclear apocalypse. After so many false fires, incidents that turn out to be nothing, and the occasional sweet swing-in to save a corgi from getting nailed on Flushing Meadows parkway, the budding new superheroine Silk has decided to end her day by returning to Alias Investigations— and the closer she gets to the apartment building that houses one Jessica Jones, Azalea Kingston, and now Cindy Moon, she relies less on webbing and more on parkour and stealth to enter the building.

Among the new things sitting amongst Cindy's side of the room includes textbooks and worksheets— parts and pieces of her attempt to get a GED, and lord knows if Jessica wants her to actually learn how to drive. I mean, who would even want to do that when you can get across town in the /most awesome possible way in the world/. She even has a sweet new black, white, and red set of spider-threads to look stylish, too!

Pausing well across the street— feeling that extrasensory tingle blaze the whole way— she peeks over the ledge of the building hoping to see what's going on inside the apartment. Then, a few short running steps before a leap and a soft landing against the brick exterior of the building. She looks in again, squints, not quite sure if it's her intrepid roommate or not—

— then quietly tries to open the window from the outside. Except like, it sounds like wood scraping on wood scraping on the loudest, most ancient-ass window track in all of Hell's Kitchen.

Silk, queen of stealth.

—-

As The Dark Devil stews in her ire she notices the pile of books, gaze narrowing, teeth baring. She does the only sensible thing here, and reaches out to give them a gentle push and send them tumbling.

A sense of satisfaction washes over her then, the bullying complete, but wait. What's that? SOMEONE IS TRYING TO BREAK INTO THIS PLACE?

Normally someone wouldn't be able to surprise Cindy, but it could be that the constant wail of an ever-present danger will overwhelm that sense. Either way, Az has little idea what she's getting into, and the moment Silk enters the apartment, Azalea Kingston will find herself in a familiar position:

Once again, unto the Spider-Horse.

She leaps for a tackle at her back, and if successful, she may just catch Cindy in a way that will drive them both into the BRAND NEW DINETTE TABLE. Oh noes.

Someone better get Tim Drake on speed dial, this shit is going to need another remodel.

"Broke into the wrong house, fucker!"

—-

hey no that's her homework :(

Silk swings her legs into the windowsill and slips inside with a tap-tap. This is a little strange for her; she just isn't used to having roommates and it's weird enough having to explain herself to Jessica and the Spider-Man without feeling like she's putting her whole life on display. The webbing wall of papers, photos, and receipts seem to be left intact, but—

— but—

Suddenly her Silk-senses (it's cooler, seriously) flare, and she finds hands curling into the silken threads of her suit. The world blurs for a moment as she's not quite sure what happened— the speed, the lift, the shift of her weight to try to get her bearings before being put down on the table with a meaty crash.

'Broke into the wrong house, fucker!'

Silk grabs at Az's wrists, trying to leverage her strength even after being slammed down onto a table. "Whoa!! WHOA!! SWITZERLAND, SWITZERLAND!! Please don't break anything, I don't have any money!!"

—-

As the table becomes a lost cause and they go rolling over and over, her wrists are bound with an insurmountable strength, a place of disadvantage she honestly should never have put herself into.

Angry at her mistake, her hips shift sidelong for an escape that seems oh so practiced, and using the iron-clad grip of Cindy Moon to provide the pressure she needs as she makes space and presses her feet in against her throat.

It'll look pretty comical, but won't feel great for Cindy.

But that's okay, she's only really pressing for a few moments, a blink given as she looks down along Cindy's form and finds not her ancient enemy, The Spider Queen, but instead a stripper ninja.

Why is there a stripper ninja?

"Wait. Did.. did Jess hire you? Is it someone's birthday? That Foggy guy?"

This conclusion is certain to be worse. But at least they won't destroy more of the apartment!

—-

Snap. Crack. It's not her bones, it's the table's legs. The impact with the floor and the sprawling tumble leads to her holding on for dear life, but the strength works against her as the experience Az has comes to light— the roll gives Az the room to get the girl mashed down into the floor with a foot in her neck. Shifting her grip, she's considering her options: Leg grab? Break her wrists? Throw her into the wall?

'Wait. Did … did Jess hire you?'

"Something like that."

'Is it someone's birthday? That Foggy guy?'

"PLEASE MOVE YOUR FOOT BEFORE I BREAK IT?"

Because she's pretty sure she's got a table leg stabbing her in the spine right now, and that is super uncomfortable.

—-

There's a simmer to her eyes, a glimmer of something past. Predatory. Dangerous. It is not often she steps on someone's neck now adays when it isn't by specific request. But when she sees, too, when she looks Cindy over is not someone of vile intent, and as much as she enjoys lording over someone, it's like every other time she puts herself in a situation to injure or kill.

A slow blink, a step back, and she's hauling Cindy, up and to her feet, still just using her iron grip on her wrists to anchor the motion. It's clear to her, now, that this is no entertainer. They wouldn't come through the window. So just, actual ninja then.

Jess is far more resourceful than she'd thought!

"Well. Fuck."

She's already glancing at the table, her teeth showing as it sinks in that this new thing that Jess got for them, just days prior, is the first victim of her violence. Well, second. She also punched a hole in the bathroom wall, but that's since been repaired.

"Step one. Let go of my wrists. Step two, I'm Azalea. Who the fuck are you? And.. step three, we need to find some duct tape and fix this table. Maybe some glue."

—-

Shifting her feet to help herself up while Azalea pulls, Cindy looks down at the girl's hands with a steady, even stare— she squints, even, not quite sure whether or not it would be a good idea. The red mask covering the lower half of her face even shifts to this effect, the deepening-yet-flat frown on her face vaguely implied by the motion. Then—

Oh. This is her roommate?

"Oh. Uh— Hi! Sorry," Cindy says, releasing Az's wrists and stepping back. Hands pressing into the small of her back, she tries to get the kink worked out of her back from landing on the table and the damage caused. "I, uh— I go by Silk," Cindy says, still a little reluctant to actually remove her mask just yet. Pulling a phone out of a thin, slim pocket, she thumbs in a quick message before tucking it back into her suit.

Scratching the back of her head and looking down at the mess of the table, she's already thinking about how this is going to go when Jessica gets back, frowning hard. Moving to the table, she curls her fingers under one side and lifts it up pretty casually, holding out her hand for one of the table legs.

"I can cover the glue part. I mean it /should/ hold. I don't think it'll have a problem. I mean at least until we figure out anything better. As long as you don't toss me through it again."

—-

"We just have to be careful. Someone…. I think there's a spider demon here. Somewhere." Yeah that's right, the name Silk didn't really catch her attention in the way it should, and she looks almost feral as she glances to her left and over her shoulder, hair falling forward and hanging wild. It's only now that Cindy will get to see that she's in a tank top and cargo pants - not exactly hero garb, but SOME OF US CAN'T MAKE OUR OWN COSTUMES OUT OF BODY JUICE.

There's a slow, almost offended blink when Silk asks her for the table leg, finally reaching down to pick it up and smack it into her hand. "You just carry glue on you? Like, in your pocket? Wait.. did you say your name was 'Silk'?"

It's here that her gaze narrows, and if not for her heightened state of awareness concerning the ever-present threat of a Spider Goddess lurking nearby, she'd probably say something like 'let me be the judge of that'. But instead she taps a finger to her lips in thought.

"Look, I'm sorry about the whole.. thing. Attack. Whatever. Didn't realize anyone else in this house preferred the window or I would have kept it open."

—-

"A spider… demon?" Cindy squints— but honestly, the idea of a spider-demon is not too far out of the realm of imagination. She only just found out the other day that magic is a real live thing and that ghosts are actually real. Which is awesome, if not a little bit scary— only a couple of weeks ago, her whole world was much, much smaller than all of this, and she's only had little to go on.

Cindy takes the table leg, propping it up at an angle against one leg, the table against her hip. Pointing her index and middle finger against the top of the table's leg, a short gush of thick, tacky webbing— not unlike that of the Spider-Man's— moves across it, then she affixes one leg under the table and gives it a good smack into place.

Setting about repeating the process for the second leg, getting one end of the table back up straight, she exhales a sigh. "Yeah, Silk. Like. Spiders. Not spider-demons, though, honest— I've got enough in my life right now to deal with without that kind of thought hanging over my head."

Then, her phone's ringtone goes off: The classic synth-chip Pokemon theme song.

Taking the phone out and flicking the display like someone that just doesn't know how to handle this modern technology stuff, she adds, "Miss Jones told me it was okay to leave it unlocked if I had to sneak out for a bit. Or if Spider-Man needed to swing by, too," she says, not letting the chance for a pun slip her by.

—-

There's a long moment there where Cindy is webbing things up and Azalea is shocked silent. Not only does she realize where the web came from - and that Cindy is not in fact a spider-demon - but that she is just.. splooging that stuff out of her fingers? WTF.

"Holy shit. You.. are you related to that guy? Are you all just a big family of spider people? Do you all wear masks because you have mandibles and shit?" Her eyes go wide as she ponders that thought, and she takes a step back. In case Cindy unleashes her mandibles. "That would be awesome."

It doesn't occur to her that it was Cindy's homework she knocked over earlier, and glancing to the room she winces just a bit, finally giving a little nod to the table. "Yeah uh. That looks good. I'll be right back." And then she sprints into the bedroom to work at picking up everything, a silent curse under her breath slipping free as she chastises The Devil Inside and it's Stupid. Fucking. Paranoia.

—-

It seems to pass straight out of her suit through her fingers— it's that weird surreal-fascinating where it shouldn't seem to work that way but it just /does/. Setting her phone down, circling to the other side of the table, her head tilts. "Do we have /what/? No! I mean that'd be weird or something but. Maybe? I mean /I/ don't, but that's not to say I know what's— like. Everyone's… /thing/," the web-clad heroine replies.

She dodges 'are you related' pretty handily.

Az excuses herself; Cindy sets about fixing the other side of the table in the exact same way, setting up the table legs and making sure they're sitting tacky before giving them a bit of a thump on the table surface to make sure it's all steady and sound— at least for now.

The chiptune begins again, and Cindy snatches up the phone. After a moment, she winces, then sets the phone down on the table, waiting for Az to return. Hooking her fingers into the top of her mask, she tugs it down around her neck, looking a little sheepish for the situation— and no, no manbiles. "So… I kind of lied— Miss Jones /didn't/ hire me. I'm actually, uh, I guess. … your roommate."

Walking right up to Az, she thrusts out her hand. "I'm Cindy Moon."

—-

It's a furious cleaning job. It isn't great. Cindy will be able to tell that someone (Az) knocked her stuff around. But she does her best to make amends. When she finally returns and finds an unmasked hero and an outstretched hand she gives a quick shake, and then goes back to her usual, brooding posture.

"Azalea Kingston." Arms cross over her chest and then her eyes narrow, searching over Cindy's face for some recognition. She's been meeting a lot of powered types, after all. Maybe she encountered Cindy before. But she doesn't recognize her, and when Cindy mentions being her roommate she scowls and looks sidelong at the couch.

"I sleep there. /When/ I sleep here. Room's all yours. Lots and lots of space and room for activities. Solo activities. I doubt Jess would approve of me bringing home any of my extra-curricular activities, and I /really/ doubt you would. Also, I don't know if you know but.. someone dumped an old CRT TV and something called VHS.. or whatever in your room. You want me to toss it? Find out who decided to store it there? Jess has had a couple of.. well. She's a nice person, letting so many people freeload here."

—-

The emphasis on 'when' she sleeps here tends to make the fact they haven't met until now a little more clear— she's got somewhere else to stay. Or is she seeing someone? There's so much that she doesn't know about her cool new roomie! She's never /had/ a roomie before, either, so this is all very exciting to her.

The web-wall may also make a bit more sense: The 'Moon' family showing up on each one, with shipping labels, realtor letters, recepits paid in cash through shipping companies, tons of dead ends, and a photo in the middle of the family from when Cindy was younger— damn near five years or so.

"It's fine, I— actually should clean that up a little bit. It's a bit of a mess," Cindy says, looking past Az and toward the wall that is her case. "I think there's a few nosy neighbors around here."

Az found a CRT TV and tapes and stuff? "A-Actually that's all my stuff. Sorry, I'll move it if there's some clutter, but I had to get some stuff out of my … o…ld place." Her hand lifts a little. "I'm a time traveller from the 1990s." Nevermind she's barely twenty.

Disappearing into the bedroom for a moment, she returns with a Boston Bruins jersey worn over the suit, the mask missing from around her neck, with her hands and feet also bare. She's also weaving a bit of red cloth /out of her freaking fingertips/ so she can tie her hair back. "Miss Jones is helping me get back on my feet here. I-It's a long story."

—-

The face she makes when Silk starts to weave a hairtie is a cross between disgust and resignment, figuring that she's likely never going to have a 'normal' friend again. Not any that can stand her. Her brows lift and she plops down into a chair, peering into the room and at the 'case' on the wall, and then back over to Cindy.

"A time traveler from the 1990's huh? Guess that's a pretty shitty time machine. Did traveling through the time space barrier give you the ability to shoot.. goo..strings? Did you make out with that other dude, Spider-Horse or whatever? Is it like, some freaky STD?"

She smirks then, her humor taking on a sadistic bent. "Nah, I'm sure that's not it. That dude is to much of an asshole to make out with anyone. Do you know he made fun of my code name? I mean, what the /fuck/." The begrudged way she kicks some piece of trash - probably a bolt from the table - tells Cindy that it actually /did/ hurt her feelings. Her murmur is dripping with the rumination of all the ways she wants to torture Spider-Man. "Like Spider-Man is soooooo fucking hard to come up with. Asshole."

—-

Cindy gives Azalea the longest, most confused look at the mention of the 'Spider-Horse.' When she asks if it's some kind of freaky STD, too, her eyes shift to one side, not quite sure how to respond. "Uh, well, uh… when a mommy spider and a daddy spider love each other very much," she starts, looking a little nervous about actually /giving/ the correct answer. "But I don't think there's a Spider-Horse. That'd be as weird as a Spider-Monkey or something. Or a Spider-Ham."

"Spider-Man isn't a bad guy, honestly. It's …" Her head cants, looking off to the side for a moment. Wiggling a pinky finger in her ear, she makes a slightly uncomfortable noise before continuing. "I mean I can't complain about him, so…"

Silk eases forward a little, suddenly curious. "What /is/ your superhero name? I mean Miss Jones didn't tell me if she had one and you're actually one of the only other ones that I've met since I've come here. And one of the only ones I've met without a mask on," the young heroine adds, lifting her finger for emphasis.

—-

"I'm The Dark Devil. I guess. There was this Dominican gang when I first started up, in Gotham. They had a pet name for me as I was dragging their faces against brick and concrete, and it translated to 'Dark Devil'. So I kept it. I actually let their boss-man go. We had a nice long talk about how he came up with the name after reading a poem, something about a Devil in the Dark. He told me all this shit about.. old stories, tales of men turned into monsters. Then I told him to leave and never fucking come back or he could run his operation from one of Gotham's many hospitals."

Azalea says it all with an even keel, perfectly happy to share parts of her shitty origin story, one of her hands lifting to tap at her forehead, while crystal blues stay locked, pinning in the way she stares down people, on her new roommate. "Got a special guest up here. Old an Evil-Like. But I guess not everyone believes in spirits and ghosts or Murdered Gods and magic. In any case, the trade off sucks, but I'm making due. But no, really, how do you end up a human web machine, anyway? Does that stuff last forever?"

She tilts forward, as if to mimic Cindy's conspiratorial tone, elbows dropping to her knees, her eyes holding a cold kind of fire. "Ever consider making your own line of home spun undergarments? Pretty sure that if people knew the source that shit would take off. /Especially/ in Japan. They'd put that shit in vending machines."

Oh God.

They could be rich!

—-

The Dark Devil explains the origin of her codename. For a long, long moment, Cindy does not react— she's just letting the idea of someone having a hard life like that, fighting gangs, and still looking… well, around /her/ age. After a few moments, her eyebrows lift up. "Damn. That sounds intense."

Sitting on the front of Jessica's desk, folding her legs underneath her, Cindy then hears the origin of Azalea's powers. /That/ draws a little more of a raised set of eyebrows. Old evil, and weird stuff, and magic, and 'special guests.' "Wow, that sounds insane. I mean I know magic exists now for real, like, don't get me wrong there, but I always thought 'magic' would just be something like 'stage magic' or like, Mindfreak or something like that. That's crazy."

"It's— honestly, I can't say right now. It's a little bit of a secret, and a little bit of stuff that even I don't know. And, I don't know how long the webbing will last but it should hold long enough to figure out how to fix that table better. I mean it should hold for now, but. … Ugh. Maybe I should see if I could find a way to get one snuck in here before Miss Jones finds out…"

And then Az suggests that Cindy starts going into business for herself. "Wh-Wh-/WHAT/. No! I'm not going to start doing that! That's— no! God, no," the spider-girl says, shaking her head like she's trying to get the mental image out. "That's… I don't even want to start thinking about stuff like that. Oh my God."

Her back straightens, still staring at Az like she's crazy.

"Damn."

—-

Well.

Fuck.

So much for crawling out of the dregs. Guess they'll have to do it the honest way. By investigating things. Maybe getting Batman to sign a Bat-poster every once and awhile. Good, wholesome capitalism. Az tsks and slumps back in her chair, and the silence that fills in the space after Cindy's mild fit is deafening.

"No. I'll do it. I need to head out in a minute anyway. I have rounds to make, and I'm sure some stupid fuck can owe me a table." Is she going to rip of a drug dealer for his table?

Yes.

Yes she is.

When she rises her chair nearly tips over, but she reaches out to steady it. Finally she shoots a glance to Cindy and, once again, it looks like a plan is forming. "Do me a favor, while I'm out? Make me a hammock."

A beat.

"That stuff better not smell."

She'll check!

Finally she's off to the corner of the room where her backpack lays in wait, and she'll get to changing, any shy bone in her body long shed when she gained her God Soul. Time for Azalea Kingston to become The Dark Devil.

—-

"Be careful, then!" After a moment, Cindy starts to put the pieces together. 'Making rounds.' 'Stupid fuck.' 'Owes.' 'Superhero.' Her finger lifts and her mouth opens to speak, but then she thinks better of it— she still isn't quite sure of her new roommate's temperament and doesn't quite want to push it. Az seems abit… intense.

"Smell? What? No, I mean it shouldn't," Cindy says, pulling back the sleeve of her hockey jersey to sniff at her forearms and then her fingers. "I've never noticed, anyway. But sure! I can whip one up in a hurry whenever you get back— not even a little bit sticky."

Slipping off the desk, Cindy dips a finger into the collar of the bodysuit worn under the hockey jersey, pulling the organic spider silk down a bit and getting a bit more air on her neck. "You can text me if you need any help. You've got one of those touchscreen phones, right?" She offers up the number— or if that doesn't work, Az or Cindy could certainly try to relay a message through Jessica.

"I'm gonna … uh…"

Cindy looks at the pile of books and papers, after Az's haphazard restacking, looking mildly embarassed. "… go get my homework done."

"Good luck out there!" Silk adds, slipping back into her room so that the Dark Devil can prepare for tonight's fair share of fighting back against crime and evil.

—-

By the time Cindy looks back after checking her homework, Azalea Kingston is gone.

Batman seems to have taught her ONE new trick, at least.

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