Summary:Spider-Girl is trying out her new costume, when she intervenes in what would have been an anti-mutant hate crime. Log Info:Storyteller: Cessily Kincaid |
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ANYA CORAZON
CESSILY KINCAID
It wasn't often that Cessily Kincaid left Xavier's by herself. It wasn't that she was afraid, or anything. That wasn't it at all. It was just - well. That. Worse than having a pimple in the middle of your forehead, a terrible scar across your cheek, or even half your face burned off. Cessily Kincaid's entire body was no longer flesh. It was a bright, and silver metal.
However. There had been a sale. And, it was after graduation. And nobody else wanted to go. So Cessily had put on a pair of snug pants, shoes, and an appropriate pink 'Hello Kitty' hoodie on, and she'd gone and gotten her hearts desire; some new clothes that would look pretty fantastic on her.
She'd taken an uber ride up, but when the second uber driver didn't show on time she had simply decided to walk back to Xavier's. It would take a couple of hours, but it'd give her time to think. And, she could always call uber again if she got tired. Her path, though, with her thoughts so distracted, takes her cutting through an alleyway. And, before Cessily knew it, several young men were getting off boxes, detaching themselves from walls. Many of them start laughing, and it's too dark for them to see Cessily's metallic color under her hoddie or through the gloves she has on. She's nervous, suddenly. Fighting asshole villians is one thing, with a team. This is - well, maybe not different in practice, but different in her brain. "Excuse me," she tries, quite unsuccessfully.
"This is… so stupid, and so crazy." Anya Corazon is not far from the alleyway in which Cessily is about to become accosted, perched safely atop a midrise. She's got her clothes on, yes; in a manner of speaking. The studded, short skirt is still on, but she's shed the combat boots and the ripped up Nirvana t-shirt in favor of something quite different underneath. Black, mostly, with a white spider-emblem, she's just finished weaving a new costume out of not spandex, or some other appropriately super-heroine fabric, but of raw spider silk from her own spinnerets.
She's nervous the whole thing isn't going to hold together.
With a nervous sigh, she finally shreds the skirt and reaches under what would be considered a collar for a mask. The mask is drawn and stretched up over her face, then snaps into place like a rubber band. "Ow!" she hisses, before straightening and adjusting it to form. "God," she whispers to herself. "This feels so fucking awesome!" Looking down, she flexes her fingers and then crouches down, testing its flexibility. "No rips… that's, that's a good thing."
Nervous chatter, considering there's no one else on that rooftop yet.
Cessily never was one to puff, and threaten. gloat. She staes, "I just just need to get through. Excause me, please." Of course, her effort, small and not totally incorrectly taken for the nervousness and fear that it is prompts more laughter.
"Yeah. We'll let you through. But, you gotta pay the going rate. See, this here is Striker territory. We got tolls. Gotta pay the toll. Everything ni that shopping bag, is a good start. Then we'll see whatever else you got that we want."
No doubt whatever 'else' they want isn't good, either. Guesses can be made.
"You don't understand," Cessily tries, really not wanting to do the thing she's guessing she's going to have to do. "Please, just let me through." Her fingers tighten onto the bag, unwilling to let it go as one of the gang-bangers lurches up to snatch it from here. There's a brief tug-of-war, before another gang-banger comes forward, this one with a baseball bat. The bat sails down against Cessily's back from behind and … it hits her, hard. Should be enough to cripple her. She bends backwards, just a little bit, but she doesn't even make a sound of pain.
That makes the gangers go quiet, narrow her eyes. "Oh. So you're onna them, eh? A dirty mutie? Well. We got ways to deal with your kind, too."
No one really knows about Spider-Girl. She didn't get into this because she wanted to, but she didn't get into it because she had to, either. She's not even quite sure what her motivation for this even is, though one thing is for certain; she's always been a thrill seeker, and if nothing else, this should prove to be fun.
The new costume feels foreign on her; more foreign than the black hoodie and black leggings. Something about it almost feels wrong, as if she's just doing this for showmanship. To gloat. Because what, she can shoot webbing from her wrists?
It is in this moment of silence when she catches the sound of a scuffle nearby. Behind the mask, her eyes go wide. The young woman scurries over to the other side of the building, where she's granted a birds eye view of the bat coming down and striking Cessily on the back. Her hand rises to her mouth, where it covers a quiet gasp. That moment of surprise though… it's short lived.
She's dealt with assholes like this before, even without spider powers.
Suddenly, the man threatening Cessily drops to the ground in a heap, having been landed on by Spider-Girl. She releases the webline from her hand that kept the drop from being lethal for the man, but keeps her feet planted upon his back, where she can feel his groaning in her toes.
"Hi," she says to Cessily. "I'm Spider-Girl." Then she steps off the goon and turns toward the other guys. "And you guys are so screwed."
"Shit," snarls one of the dozen or so guys. Well, eleven now. Anya's crunched one into the pavement.
Cessily looks at Anya, a brief flash of red hair beneath the hoodie and in the dark of the alleyway, it's impossible to discern anything else for her features, still well obscured by the hoodie. At least, for a few more moments.
The guns come out, then. Nothing special, but guns they are. Shots start getting fired at Anya, along with cries of, "Get her!"
Curiously enough? It wasn't her own safety Cessily was concerned about. But now that someone's else's? Her voice gets more firm, "No."
Suddenly her arms are -flowing- out. The bag that was contended for is dropped as thick silver metallic flowing strands reach out, like unceasing tendrils and wrap quickly around the gun toting arms, jerking them away from Anya, and throwing them with brute force into the adjacent alley wall. "You aren't going to hurt anyone," she declares, stubbornly.
The moment she sees guns, Anya is moving! With shocking reflexes, she leaps upon the alley wall and just sticks there. A strand of webbing flies out and catches two of the guns, yanking them free while at the same time, Spider-Girl is bouncing from one wall to the other, gaining altitude. It's almost as if a shadow is flirting about the alleyway, black with flecks of white making it hard for the goons to see just where to shoot.
However, the shooting is stopping much quicker than it should be to Anya's perception. She stops moving long enough to look down, only to see the metallic… well, things, going after the thugs' sidearms. "What the…"
Two more *thwip!* sounds, and sizable globs of webbing are suddenly covering two of the thugs' faces. They grab at it and pull at it with muffled cries, blinded for the moment as they stagger about.
Cessily pulls her arms back, but instead of hands one arm is a solid ball, like that of a massive flail. The other is a huge, rending claw; inhuman and almost boardering on terror-inspired-alien-creature. The nearest thug to her gets clobbered with ball in the chest, sending him down.
Between the twin terrors, the few who haven't been webbed, stomped on, or introduced to walls and flails are making a beeline for escape.
Cessily doesn't persue them, only calling behind them, "Jerks!"
She pulls back her hood, to reveal her facial features and the silver metallic skin, the solid silver eyes. She exhales, frowns, and picks up her bag. "Thanks, Spider-Girl. That was pretty cool," she admits. "But we should probably get out of here."
"Holy shit!"
That came from Spider-Girl, who is now clinging to the wall by one foot and a finger, staring with mouth ajar down at Cessily. After a few moments, she simply lets go, dropping three floors to land without much of a sound and with an impossible level of grace. "That was… you can…" She's pointing now, then turns and watches as the last of the thugs runs off and out of sight, before whipping her neck back around to stare at Cessily.
"Sin duda!" she exclaims in Spanish, before nodding her head skyward. "You, uh, don't mind heights? I can get us outta here, muy rapido." Then, with a ferocious thrust of the arm, she sends a line of webbing at bullet speed toward the roof, catching it before it can withdraw and pulls it taut.
"Come on, amiga. Don't be shy, yeah?"
"Heights don't bother met," agrees Cessily, who moves towards Anya and puts her arm around the other young woman's. If you can't trust the girl who just helped save your butt, who can you trust, afterall? "Thanks," she adds, with a silver smile. Even her teeth, and the inside of her mouth seem to be made of metal.
"De nada," she answers. "Hold on!"
The two are suddenly flying skyward, like the recoiling of a spring. Anya supports Cessily by her back, and they almost clear the rooftop before the momentum slackens. Catching the wall with her feet and free hand, Anya scrambles up the rest of the way as if Cessily didn't weigh much more than a sack of apples, then deposits her safely upon the rooftop.
"Whoo!" she exclaims, still feeling a rush from the rapid climb. "That's never gonna get boring," she adds, before smiling in a big way. "Girl, what the hell was that? You didn't even need my help! It was like, like some T-1000 shit!" She pauses then, considering that the movie was made before either of them were born, and she can't assume that everyone is into the classics like she is.
Cessily frowns, suddenly aware, "I left my gloves back there," sadly. Still, her hand are hands again, and neither tendrils or weapons. Which is probably a good thing. She nods, once, to Anya, "I didn't. But, I didn't want to fight them, either," she agrees. She smiles, then. "But it was kind of you to help. I'm Cessily." She offers her hand, then, to the Spider-Girl.
"Hold on," Spider-Girl remarks, refusing the handshake for a moment. She creeps up on the roof's edge, eyeballing the alley below for a few moments, before firing a pair of weblines down into the beyond. A light, snapping yank of the arms, and up sail a pair of gloves. "These gloves?" she asks, before prying the webbing free and walking over toward Cessily with them. "Here," she offers, before finally shaking the young woman's hand. "I'm, well, uh… Spider-Girl." She pats her face. "Can't use real names when you're wearing something like this, or at least that's what they say."
"Well," Cessily smiles still, "All things considered, it doesn't really matter if I do or don't, does it?" She does offer, however, "Spider-Girl is fine, though. I appreciate it." She seems elated about the retrieval of her gloves, and puts them back on, one by one. "You're sweet."
"Nah, I'm a total bitch,"" Spider-Girl answers with no shortage of snark. "I'm just, you know, new at this. There's these blogs I was reading, about you know, what to do when you put on a mask, and they say you really shouldn't be a bitch, or cuss people out, or whatever. So, I'm… I'm trying."
Now that they have some privacy, she reaches out to web up her backpack, pulling it across the rooftop toward her. She then plops down cross legs on the dirty rooftop, and begins opening the backpack. The thing is covered it patches, most of them band logos ranging from NIN to Arcade Fire; notable among them there is a swastika with a big red circle and a slash through it, similar to the 'No Smoking' sign; the letters ACAB, a stylized fist, and a photo representation of Johnny Cash.
"You want some water, a snack, something a bit harder?" She produces a bottle of water for herself, along with a metal flask and a baggie that appears to have granola or quinoa in it.
Cessily shakes her head, smiling ruefully. "No thanks. Not really that hungry," she states without going into further detail of her particular biology. She decides, "I really suppose I should just call Uber again for a ride home. I was going to walk back. But people are such jerks, sometimes."
"So, are you Spider-Man's sister, or something?" Hey. It's a legit question.
"Where you headed?" Anya asks, before taking a big drink of water. That water is suddenly snarfed right out her nose at the last question, and she actually chokes for a moment. "What? No!" She wipes her nose on the silken sleeve, then laughs hard. "Oh, God, no. I've never met him! I just couldn't come up with something… better." Her face is now visibly flushed. "It is kinda like copyright infringement, ain't it?"
Embarassement begats embarassement as Cessily puts her hands in front of her, fingers splayed and hands shaking back and forth along with her head in clear negation, "Oh, no! No, no, no no. I'm so sorry. It just - I mean," she says, equally as flustered as Anya, "The webbing, and everything. But," she says, trying to regain her sensibilities, "I don't think there's any copyright infringement, or anything? I think you're good," she assures Anya, trying to placate. "Realy."
"Well, yeah," Anya agrees, with a grin. "I can almost guarantee he hasn't filed for the rights or anything. It is weird." She looks up at Cessily, content to remain seated on the rooftop for now. "I don't…. know how he got his, or whatever, but…. yeah, it's weird. Super weird." She shakes her head then, looking down at her snack with a contemplative frown. "I can almost guarantee he didn't get his the same way, though." Back up to Cessily she looks, clearly looking for something to change the subject.
"So, what, are you like, a mutant or an alien or something?"
"Mutant," agrees Cessily. She takes a breath, "I used to be normal. Like you. Like everyone. Then when I turned sixteen?" She gestures to herself. "Whammo. I've been at Xavier's the last couple years. They're good people. And my best friends," she says, glowing just a little bit. "It's not easy, but it's pretty okay." She seems happy enough about it, at the very least. "We always have good food if you ever want to drop by."
"Adolescence, yeah," Anya seems to echo, as if recalling something she read in a textbook. "Makes sense, it's when most x-gene mutations happen. All those hormones trigger the latent genes, and stuff." She motions to the area across from herself and the backpack. "Sit down if you want? NYU," she explains. "Comp-sci and engineering. Not as fancy as Xavier's, but, ya know. Just couldn't get the right grant, and Abuela's got no dinero."
The young woman half scoffs at mention of being normal. "Sure, I look normal, but I don't feel it. Everything's like… faster, and it's hard not to slam doors all the time. You know, I literally ripped my door off its frame, by accident? I thought abuela was gonna tan my hide."
Cessily considers a moment, then decides she can spare a little bit more time and sits down on the rooftop across from Anya. She nods, understandably. "One of the first things we learn at Xavier's is how to control our abilities, along with everything else. Mainly for our safety, and for everyone else's. Mental, and physical. They're really very good with that. I was - kind of a mess," she tells Anya, feeling on some level her story might help the inexperienced hero adapt. "I mean. One day, I'm a cheerleader in high school and one of the most popular girls. The next, I'm getting ready for breakfast and watch my face turn to metal in the mirror. Not cool."
She puffs a gust of air to push her bangs out of her red hair - the only non-metallic color on herself. "Maybe you should try to find Spider-Man. If anyone can help you understand your abilitties, it's going to be him."
"Jesus," Anya whispers quietly, staring at Cessily in amazement. "I mean… what did you do? Did you go to school? I'd have skipped, no fucking way. I wouldn't, I couldn't." She shakes her head, and draws in a deep, long breath. "Which… you know, I'm sorry, but it's bullshit. People like to pretend we've come so far as a society, but you still can't walk around being queer, or black, or mexican-" She pats her own chest "-without someone somewhere deciding you're a piece of shit for it. So what, you're metal?" She shakes her head. "This is why I go to protests, it's why I've been arrested three times."
At the suggestion of finding Spider-Man, Anya seems to slouch. "Yeah… he'd probably just get salty that I'm totally biting his style." A pause. "I mean, the videos people post of him though? Totally, totally rad."
"Oh, no. I wouldn't even leave my room. It took an hour before my dad broke my door down, because I wouldn't even tell him about it," she tells Anya, earnestly, wrapping her arms around her legs as she tucks herself up into a sitting ball. Silver eyes look back at Anya, "They didn't know what to do with me. My parents are okay. Mostly. But, they didn't know what to do with me. THey were afraid to support me because it would mean they'd lose a lot of their clients. And they didn't want to throw me out either, because, well. I like to think it's because they still know I'm their daughter." It's clear Cessily has some doubts to this, but she doesn't dwell on them.
"Really, though, it was someone from Xavier's who came by, and - helped sort things out. Recruit me. I was luckier than a lot. I could've ended up down below, with the Morlocks." She grimaces.
"I suppose, though, you can look at it like that. BUt if you're not afraid of a couple jerks with guns, you shouldn't be afraid of Spider-Man. It's not like we got to -pick- our powers from a vending machine? Because if we did? I TOTALLY would not have picked this." It's said with half-amusement, and half complete sincerity.
Spider-Girl is clearly listening, and she seems to be a good one at doing that. However, when the Morlocks and 'down below' are mentioned, her head tilts downward and she chews at her lip for a moment.
"Well, I think it's pretty cool," she says earnestly. "You're, like, literally the T-1000, except obviously not evil and creepy. I dunno, Cess, it's different being afraid of jackasses like that-" She jerks a thumb in the general direction where the criminals ran off to "- and people you look up to. I've followed this stuff my whole life. The Avengers, Registration, all of that… kinda can't help feeling like I don't belong in all of this."
"They wouldn't have hurt me. They couldn't have. But the fact you were willing to jump in for me, not knowing that?" Cessily seems to be encouraging, "Totally tells me that you belong in all of this. I think it's something almost any of us who are gifted go through. I mean, I don't think Captain America woke up one morning with all his abilities and dressed in his uniform with is shield and was all, 'Imma go kick some Nazi ass!'," she points out.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Spider-Girl's tone is conciliatory, but there's also a guarded nature to it. "Guess I got a leg up on him, huh, cause I totally kicked a Nazi's ass last year, and that was long before I could spin webs and stick to walls." She takes another drink from her bottle of water, then decidedly shoves it away in her backpack and reaches up to tug at the mask on her face. She pulls it free, letting it flop and shrink down against her chest. "Screw that blog. I'm Anya."
Cessily smiles broader, then. She nods, "And I go by the callsign Mercury, when I'm out - you know," she sort of handwaves. She suggests, though, "I'd advise though, paying attention to the blog. Probably the less people know the better. I don't quite have that luxury. But you do. So, protect it," she says, earnestly. And furthers, "I won't tell anyone, though. Promise, Anya." She then pulls out her cell, and taps the screen a few times until her number comes up, and she shows this to Anya, sharing her contact information with her new friend.
"Just don't, like, go getting mind controlled or something and tell the internet who Spider-Girl is," Anya says. "Not like the internet cares right now." Of course, if she keeps this up… that'll change.
Her cell phone comes out as well, its case is little more than a gigantic STARFLEET emblem, blue for science (obviously), and she taps in the info before sending a text message to Cessily. It is, quite simply, the spider emoji.
"Awesome," Cessily says, after numbers are exchanged and she now has Anya in her contact list. She promises, "Don't worry. I know a couple of telepaths, they're not all creeps. Some of them are actually really cool. Really scary, but really cool." Whomever it is, Cessily seems to have a pretty high opinion of them. "We'll hang out some time. Get some coffee, or go shopping. Maybe I'll introduce you to some of my other friends. We all could use as many as we can get, right?"
"Only if I get to introduce you to some of my friends," Anya counters with a grin. "They're a bunch of weirdos, but I promise, their harmless." A pause. "And I'm pretty sure none of 'em are telepaths." Stuffing the phone and discarded clothes away, she closes up the bag and stands. "So, where you headed again? I mean, if Uber's being a pain in the ass, I can get you on a train." She winks. "I know the MTA kiosk's backdoor password."
Cessily smiles sharply. "Do you? That's got to be pretty handy. I'm headed to Xavier's." She brings it up on the map app on her phone, and shows Anya, "Pretty sure the train doesn't run that way. It'll work out, though. Hey. Thanks again. Really. And," she adds, getting up slowly, "Go find Spider-Man. Give it a shot. It's not like it'll change anything if he can't help you. But if he can? Bam."
"1-0-1-6-1-star-5," Anya says, grinning dubiously. "And no, but it'll get you close. To Westchester County at least. Commuter train and all."
Stretching to her all impressive 5'3", Anya finally reaches up to stretch the mask back over her face, this time not allowing it to snap back and sting her face. "Need a lift down to the street? Or can you like, totally just jump and like… splat?" She grins at the idea. "Which, you know, is totally just as handy."
"I can get down, without splatting," Cessily confides with a smile. "I try not to splat. It doesn't hurt. But. It's … pretty awkward." She doesn't explain. She'll let Anya figure it out. She walks over to the side of the building, then looks over her shoulder. "Be careful, though. Call or text me, if you need something. I'd be glad to help." Then, she jumps down and there's a loud 'thud' below. Some cement is cracked, but Cessily is walking away and heading back to the main street, towards the subway.