Team Spiderbirb

July 18, 2018:

Gwen saves Arnavi from her own enthusiasm

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NPCs: None.

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Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

GOTHAM.

NIGHT.

But really, is it ever daytime here? Maybe daytime is just a fever dream of what it would be like to be a real city as the weight of night slowly suffocates those who still cling to some hope that salvation still lives here, in a place given over to crime and suffering. So it goes as a matter of course, that the heroes of such a place have adapted to the dark. Where those who are symbols of hope, are nothing but grim reflections of the city they protect.

“Tropical, the island breeze! All of nature wild and free! This is where I long to be! La isla bonita!”

Or maybe some of those protectors sing Madonna songs to their foes. Knuckles find purchase to that sweet spot behind the jaw and send another Skulldugger, one of many of the cult-like gang, spiralling down the alleyway.

They come for her, this dark avenger in tight black with a splash of red forming a stylized sparrow on her chest, and break against her motions which outpace them by an order of magnitude.

CRACK! A knee broken, a man cries out. SMASH! The hollow sound of a baseball bat ducked and sent careening into a friend’s face. POW! A spinning kick delivered with less skill than Gotham’s Batlings and Batling-affiliates, but almost certainly more strength.

“And when the samba played, the sun would set so hi-” The singing cuts off abruptly as a great beast of a man slams into Arnavi from behind, and though she heart him coming even through the din of her own sing-along fight, she could not hope to react to this immense creature.

Eight feet tall. Rippling with inhuman, bulging muscles. A skullmask that marked him as a captain. Brick becomes her cradle, and Arnavi Mehta, a.k.a. The Red Sparrow, finds herself blinking behind her white-lensed domino mask as she sees stars and tumbles from broken brick.

Powerful steps send the Skullcaptain barreling into the air, fists raised high, intent on landing on this would be hero and ending her days forever.

Just what DO you do when you’re a hero and need a hero?!

“Ohshitohshitohshit!”

—-

What can someone do? While Spider-Woman was told by the Bird-Themed guy who showed her his tower (it's not as dirty as it sounds) that Gotham is protected by a guy who doesn't tend to like people encroaching on his territory, well, that sounds like a mobster to her and as the daughter of a cop that's not a warning she's going to take too seriously. Of course, as the daughter of a cop, Gwen Stacy should not turn to vigilante justice, but she's a woman of duplicities.

Long introduction short, a quiet thwip attaches onto the brick like fist and a woman in white, pink and grey braces her feet on the landing of the roof she just swung onto. With a tug, she attempts to change the man's trajectory with a strong yank backward.

"Hey! Captain Ugly! Go pick on someone your own size! Like a water tower or something." Leaping downward she pulls the webbing again, attempting to thread it between a fire escape to string him upward.

The curse of her particular enhancement, aside from the physicality she shares with most Inhumans, is that she sees everything. She can see the dribble of spittle from the Skullcaptain's mouth. See the rage in his eyes as he aims to pulverize her. A slow motion danse macabre that might only end in her head splattered to pavement.

T H W I P

Arnavi's eyes cross behind her mask as she watches that webbing streak out to splash against the man's immense fist, eyes traveling along it's length and growing wide at the sight of the woman braced against the building to arrest the Skullcaptain's momentum. It's a sharp jolt, but nothing Gwen can't handle, and it very nearly dislocates the thug's meaty arm. His surprise barely registers as she loops the webbing over that fire escape and sets him up for a long wait for the authorities.

Or that might have happened if Gotham wasn't a decaying corpse of a city.

The fire escape snaps the moment the man slams to brick and pulls from his end, sending it tumbling downward and towards Arnavi, who kicks up (finally) and leaps clear just in time for metal to pile atop the Skullcaptain and… oh no. Oh no!

"Holy shit dude. DUDE! You skull faced idiot, don't be dead!" Immediately she's pulling at the totality of the fire escape, trying to bend metal and look for the man. But he's already there. With a roar and flailing webbing behind him, he begins ripping free, suddenly stopping Arnavi in her tracks and sending her into a backpeddle. "Ohgodohgod no masks!" This, Oracle's mantra for her. She wasn't supposed to face enhanced people yet. And boy, was this guy enhanced. His rage abates only long enough to take an inhaler from his belt and drink in the sudden kick of a designer drug meant to increase his strength. And right there before them both his shirt rips and he grows another foot in height, Arnavi stopping to look back and up Gwen to mouth the words 'Are you seeing this shit?!'

Springing away from the collapsing metal, the Spider-Woman crouches again on another rooftop and then webs downward. While Arnavi is pulling at the fire escape to ensure their target isn't dead, she starts to help out by webbing a piece and pulling a bit upward with her enhanced strength so that her current ally can peek inside.

The roar alerts her to the sudden change in circumstances. The toss of the fire escape tosses her off balance: her strength already going to pry it open. Correcting herself, she nimbly launches off the back of the twisted metal and lands nearby Arnavi. "No masks?" she asks the other girl curiously. "I mean, we've all got masks. Or at least I hope, that's a mask," she gestures at the Captain, "because otherwise this place is really weird."

She turns her attention back to him just in time to see the Skullcaptain take a big puff of an inhaler and grow another foot in height, his shirt ripping with muscle.

Is she seeing this shit?

Her eyes widen and she stands rigid for a moment. The ruined fire escape turns into metal lockers, the form of Peter crushed and bleeding out in the middle of it. And she is the cause for it. She killed Peter Parker.

But this isn't the one in this dimension, this is someone else entirely…move Gwen. MOVE. Sluggishly, she shakes her head. The quips, for moment, are gone.

"Hold on." She grabs Arnavi around the waist and then flicks her wrist upward and yanks to propel the pair of them into a forward arc. "Let's get to a roof."

"Yeah I'm kinda new at this and I'm not supposed to be fighting dudes who are super strong and all that j-OH GOD!"

YOINK might be the appropriate term for how Gwen rockets them towards a rooftop and eases them into a landing, and all the while Arnavi looks down and sees the man jump, sees him scream in absolute rage, inconsolable against the tide of HIS ENEMIES NOT DYING IMMEDIATELY.

SMASH!!!

The top of the building eats the impact, the side of it crumbling as Arnavi flips backwards and launches an array of Batarangs - are they Sparrowrangs - innefectually bounce off of muscle and skin that is almost as hard as steel. All except one. This one sticks right to his forehead, and as his rage gives way to confusion for a brief moment, electricity zaps through his form to send his monstrous scream echoing off of building after building.

Then his hands come down in a terrible fury, double-fist slamming the rooftop to send a wave of destruction at Arnavi, who tries to cartwheel away but ends up simply being bowled over. For the Spider in White, a sudden lash of a hand, and a piece of her webbing whirls along with a small piece of metal still held to his hand by her would-be restraint, whipping the make-shift weapon at Gwen with deadly force.

"YOU ALL DIE FOR TESTING THE 'DUGGERS!!'

Luckily for Gwen, the spider bite that turned her into Spider-Woman not only gave her strength, it gave her preternatural balance as well. The roof ripples and she surfs it as if that is something she does everyday and keeps her feet, angling her body one way and the other and moving her arms.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Arnavi tumbling and she spares a glance that way before a bit of a ping to her side catches the danger of the make-shift weapon catches her attention. With a leap to the side, she dodges.

"Drugs are bad for you, Duggers." This isn't a quip, nor one of her playful banters, it's a definite statement.

Again, the webbing flies and instead of kicking him or punching him, she merely starts spinning, yanking him backward and attempting to smash him into the nearby water tower.

Well, the Skullcaptain finally loses his makeshift weapon as it lodges into a roof chimney and Gwen turns his less than agile dance into something like a bear trying to do a backflip. He stumbles around, his feet leave the roof with that heave, and suddenly he sees that watertower incoming. He tries to scream something at her, but it comes out as only a gutteral roar, until he utterly, wholley dissappears inside that watertower, and then makes a deep, THUMPING impression on the other side of it.

The Sparrow picks herself up, one hand at her head as she wobbles in place a moment, until she sees Gwen standing there clearly triumphant in whatever she just did. For Arnavi Mehta, she never thought she'd make it this far. The entirety of her short life had been consumed by following heroes of all stripes, of scouring videos posted online of her heroes from her home. A prison that came with wheels. This is all a second chance, and she looks at Gwen like she were made of pure inspiration, a small smirk turning into a full blown smile that might look out of place on the otherwise grim motif of her very Gotham costume.

Of course, this is the double edged sword of being a walking sensor drone made for a war that never came, engineered by aliens who weren't around anymore. Sometimes you catch on the edge of some detail, and that biological programing says 'ENHANCE'. Maybe it's the way Gwen's mask seems to emote just a little. Did the eyes get wider? Is it her imagination? Or maybe the way she shifts with inhuman agility, calling for Arnavi's brain to make a threat assessment, despite just wanting to join in a proclaiming her victory.

Instead she's frozen in place as the roar of water behind her comes CRASHING down from the tower, which tips sidelong, slamming into the edge of the building and then disentigrating to dump the Skullcaptain with a loud SMACK onto the pavement below.

WOOOOSH!!!!

Water slams into Arnavi from behind, wiping her out and sending her into a tumble that all but washes her up at Gwen's feet. There is a single cough. White lenses stare upward. An arm rises with a thumbs up.

"You're the best Spider-Lady."

At the proper arc, Gwen lets go of her webbing and the menace goes crashing into the water tower. There's a bit of a wince as she realizes what's about to happen. It might be a different dimension, but punctured water towers in her New York will almost certainly react the same way as they do in Gotham.

The fact that her outfit is more colorful, perhaps even a whimsical in the face of the other defenders of Gotham might be a clue that she's not actually from around here. White, grey and green mostly stand out against the gloom and and darkness of the city.

As their opponent falls out of the water and onto the pavement below. She's about to go check on him when the rest crashes down on Arnavi and washes her up right at her feet. Unable to help herself, she smirks - it's hard to see through her mask. It's not as expressive. A hand is offered to help the sparrow back onto her soggy feet.

"Thanks. Where'd you run into that guy?"

Once Arnavi's righted, she immediately goes to the edge to see if the Skullcaptain is out for the count…and hopefully still alive.

Oh. My. God.

It runs through her head over and over as a real damn hero offers her hand to help up the SoggySparrow, and that simple gesture washes away the pain of bruising - skin and muscle and pride all the same - and replaces it with a goofy, exhilerated smile. Bouncing up to her feet, the question processes in her mind and she thinks back to the few run-ins she's had with this particular brand of idiocy.

"Well, I thought I was just breaking up a robbery, which is what I'm supposed to do. What Oracle said I was allowed t-.. I'm Red Sparrow. Are you Pink Spider? Hooded Spider? Spider-Lady? Spider-Frand? Do you know that red and blue spider dude in New York? Is he really a masked menace? What's your hair situation like under that thing? I thought of going full helmet but DAMN every time I needed to change out of costume just int he nick of time to convince some neighbor I wasn't a Batling I just looked like I'd been through the bad end of a comic con after party."

This, all said, with motor like efficiency in a sing-song voice filled with the utmost positivity, and all on the way to peek over the edge. There, they find a few of the other gang members had run off, but two are still down (and soaked) and Skullcaptain is looking much smaller. Spiderwebs of impact in the concrete are etched around his barely moving form, but it appears he didn't begin his change back until after touchdown, so he's alive and well.

"Wow. You knew he'd be just fine didn't you? Like threw him just right to knock the water tower over, and used your powers of perfect spider-muscle-control to make sure he and the other dudes didn't get crushed by debris?! Holy shit!" This she shouts, throwing her arms in the air and LEAPING over the edge of the building. She hits brick and one small piece of the fire escape, but otherwise she's fine tumbling into a roll and flicking out a pair of handcuffs.

"That's right Skulldunkers, ya'll played yourselves! I was just bait! Bird distracts, Spider bites you RIGHT ON YOUR ASS!"

The barrage of questions given to her in a sing song manner is met with a few blinks. That is certainly not what she was expecting out of the Red Sparrow. Her only other interaction with a Gothamite - the Red Robin - was far more terse.

"They called me Spider-Woman where I came from," she answers. As for the red-and-blue spider dude, she gives a rather wishy-washy answer. "Sort of. Only in passing." The question about her hair is actually answered truthfully, "I get a lot of hood hair," she confirms. "It's pretty messy under here."

By the time they reach the edge of the perch, they can see that the man is down there, back to his original form but still alive. No one is hurt, the wreckage missing both bystanders and the other gang members. She's incredibly relieved. The - not questions, but outright statements - about Gwen knowing exactly how hard to throw the man, how she _knew_ he would be alright, that everything would be fine…the words sink like stones in her stomach.

Of course she didn't know. She just got lucky.

When Arnavi leaps off the edge, the Spider-Woman gives a quick glance to make sure the woman is okay, but she doesn't triumphantly follow. Instead, she backs up. She should have it from here. Let the Red Sparrow take the credit for this catch. Instead, she swings away, back toward Manhattan.

—-

There's a moment there, fists on her hips, grin from ear to ear, that Arnavi Mehta is on top of the world. A little nudge of her foot against Skullcaptain and she leans in, so only he can hear. Not that, you know, he's conscious enough to hear, working on cuffing him to some of his buddies and making sure she takes his inhaler away.

"See? New team in town. Look up there. That's a HERO. Spider-Woman. The best of the Spider-people. We're like this!" Her fingers cross in front of the man's closed eyes, and then she leans back, oblivious that Gwen has already swung away. Sure, Sparrow goes on about how Gwen and her are going to clean things up around here. Maybe she talks about her joining the Birds of Prey and all that. How they're a dynamic duo. She might use those exact words.

It is a good thing Gwen swung away before being subjected to any of that!

Nope, she doesn't look embarrassed when she realizes that Gwen gone, turning at one point to ask Gwen for a quick picture over the pile of criminals, and then staring at the empty space up on the building ledge. Noooooope not embarrassed at alllllll.

There's a bit of whistling, a clap of her hands, and she has a quick glance around to make sure no one saw her little enthusiasm rant, and while some might be a little down having a potential team-up dream dashed to oblivion, Arnavi is already singing again by the time she reaches the end of the alley.

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